Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2017: World Series Final...Slick Balls and Bad Calls

MARCO'S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2017: WORLD SERIES FINAL...SLICK BALLS AND BAD CALLS

SLICK BALLS:

The 2017 Series might have been decided by which pitchers could best grip the suspicious special “slick balls” that MLB provided for the fracas.

Virtually ALL the pitchers asked insisted that not only were the baseballs in use during the the 2017 season different than previously, but the balls used during the Playoffs were even different from the regular season balls.

The basic consensus is that MLB wants to increase offense so they ordered up some juiced baseballs with flatter seams and slicker leather to hamper pitchers (especially breaking ball pitchers) and increase the distance hits would travel.

When virtually everybody agrees, you gotta believe that the pitchers are right.

The pitchers hurt most were those that featured sliders...Yu Darvish, Ken Giles and Kenley Jansen had the most trouble. If you watched, you might remember seeing Jansen throw out several balls that he didn't like the feel of. Darvish couldn't adjust at all and had no control of his out pitch. You saw the result of that. Justin Verlander said later that he absolutely couldn't control his slider with the slick ball and had to improvise a cutter to use as a breaking pitch!

I give the most credence to Pedro Martinez, who explained on MLB neetwork that he always held his slider just so with two long fingers in the white space between the two seams at it's narrowest place. He knows exactly how the ball was supposed to feel with the seams tickling the edge of his fingers. With the new baseballs, those seams feel flatter to him. He says that means the thread has been pulled tighter, which also hardens the ball. So pitchers not only can't grip the ball as well, but when it gets hit it goes farther.

The slickness may be a different breed of horse to provide hides for the balls or a different kind of mud used to rub them up.

Anyway, MLB should tell the truth about this and stop experimenting. There's plenty of offense in the game, just not the best kind. Now it's all strikeouts or homers. This kind of baseball has killed the stolen base, the sac bunt, bunting for hits, hit and run plays, moving the runners up with outs to the right side of the field and greatly reduced the number of fielding plays you get to see.

Everybody upper cuts and takes a gigantic swing even with two strikes. Hitter after hitter puts up a golden sombrero (0 for 4 with 4 Ks in a game) and shrugs it off because he's back in the lineup the next day.

With 7 guys in every lineup good for 20+ dingers a year, pitchers never get a break and wind up blowing out their arms early trying to bear down on each and every hitter by throwing it 98mph.

SERIES ANALYSIS: (unscientific but penetrating, right?)

As far as the Series went...both teams hit for pitiful averages. It seems like there was lots of offense but most of it came in one game! (Albeit a classic, thoroughly enjoyable extra base hit...16!... fest in Game 5). The Astros, however, hit with men on base. The Dodgers didn't do that as well. How many LOB did the Dodgers have in Game 7? 10 or 12 wasn't it?

I think the Dodgers made some big mistakes that allowed the Astros to win. First of all, even though I love Dave Roberts, I think he mismanaged that pitching staff by going by the book and using all of his pitchers up in Game 2. When the Astros tied it up, he had only Brandon McCarthy left to hold the fort. Tiring out his arms had a much discussed domino effect throughout the rest of the Series.

Outside of Kershaw his most effective pitchers were Rich Hill and Alex Wood and he took both of them out of their starts prematurely if you ask me. This put even more pressure on his bullpen which was already ineffective.

His most serious mistake, though, was staying with Cody Bellinger.

The pitchers could hardly wait to pitch to Cody because any piece of crap breaking ball...slider, curve, change or sinker...that hit the dirt inside the plate was a guaranteed strike. Cody swung at that pitch it seemed like every time and missed it every time. Sometimes he missed it by a foot. Total futility. 17 strikeouts in 29 plate appearances?!?! From your cleanup man? He got a few hits in Game 5 when the Astros went outside edge on him but he was soon back to his favorite swing and miss at that pitch out of the strike zone low and inside.

But Roberts stayed with him the whole Series. (He moved him out of cleanup in favor of Kiki Hernandez against the lefty starter. All of the Dodger left-handed hitters had bad hitting against the almost exclusively right handed Astro pitching staff.)

Because Bellinger was so bad, Justin Turner, who hit third right in front of Cody, saw no good pitches after homering in Game 1. The Astros walked him, hit him and never threw it over the plate. They wanted to pitch to Bellinger who was a guaranteed out. Corey Seager hitting second was also futile and that hurt Turner too.

So the Dodgers wound up with almost nothing from their two through four hitters.

I guess you could applaud Dave Roberts for being loyal to the guys what brung him, but I think his reluctance to hurt somebody's feelings cost L.A. the Series.

Peak Moment: Game Five when L.A. brought in Maeda to pitch to Altuve with 2 on and the Dodgeheads up by 3. You dare not think that the MVP would actually come through with the ultimate hit in that situation...a long game tying homer to center field. A majestic moment for baseball (uless you're a Dodger fan?)

I called it Dodgers in Seven Games...I was wrong! The Astros had enough spunk to pull it off.

Here's a salute to both teams who gave us a very enjoyable seven games...with two of them being all-time classics.

NOTES:

The Astros outplayed the Dodgers at 6 of 8 spots around the diamond:

McCann tied Barnes hitting wise, but handled his pitchers better. His old Pro vibe was just what the 'Stros needed.

Gurriel over Bellinger at first.

Altuve over Forsyth and Utley at second...mainly because of those homers.

Bregman outplayed Turner in this series at third.

Correa trumped Seager at shortstop.

I give it to the Dodgers in left with Hernandez, Ethier and Joc Peterson having a better showing than Marwin Gonzo.

Puig was more effective in right than Josh (I fell into an offensive Black Hole and I can't get out!) Reddick.

Puig actually played hard, looked like he gave a damn and only screwed up once on the bases. His bat flipping was under control mostly. He should have been hitting cleanup the whole series.)

Series MVP Springer is an easy choice over Chris Taylor in center, although Taylor had a pretty good series.

The Dodgers had better pitching overall, but let the team down in the clutch too many times. Roberts should never have let Morrow pitch in his fifth straight game in Game 5. He gave up hits to four batters in a row and the Dodgers were doomed.

Hinch recognized early on that his bullpen was nolo contendre and decided to wing it and throw the book away. He left Peacock, Morton and McCullers in to pitch multiple tough innings and it paid off. He wasn't afraid to let Giles sit down instead of letting his team get beat. There's your gutsy manager.

Well done Astros...You're off the snide after 55 years!

I was born in Houston and I remember the 1962 Houston Colt .45s. They had Bob Aspromonte playing third, Roman Mejias and Bob Cerv... the immortal Hal Woodeshick...

... and a left-handed first baseman named Dave Roberts who never did much in the majors but went to Japan and became the first gaijin to hit 40 homers in that country.

NEXT TIME: THE WINTER MARKET HEATS UP!! Who gets Giancarlo? How about the two-way twenty-three year old Japanese pitcher /outfielder Ohtano? Who's ready to sign the Japanese Babe Ruth?

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/164174962/shohei-ohtani-is-next-baseball-star-from-japan/

Oh, the Humanity!

See ya…

Marco