Friday, October 28, 2022

Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2022: GREAT QUOTATIONS

 

Marco’s Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2022: “Great Quotations”


A captured and wounded Union officer at the 2nd Battle of Manassas was lying down amidst his Southern captors when the famous Rebel general Stonewall Jackson rode by on his dappled horse with his battered campaign hat. The Yankee asked his guards to lift him to a seated position so he could get a look at this terror of war. When he saw the dour Jackson pass by, the Yankee soldier groaned and said:


O Lord, Just Lay me Down!”


The Rebel soldiers watching this interplay found this remark quite humorous and for many months afterwards whenever some new horror was visited upon them in that terrible war, they would respond with this sincere plea to their Maker: “O Lord, Just Lay Me Down!”

I Hereby dedicate this quotation to the Playoff Losers of MLB 2022.


The current baseball tournament is not a war...just an entertainment with some of the wins and grievous losses of war imitated in sporting metaphor with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But for the suffering supporters of teams like the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers, the gnashing is audible and the wailing is loud and clear.


Another quote that describes the stark realities of here today/gone tomorrow playoff series was spoken by the longtime coach of the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers of the ‘80s, Pat Riley, who once said “There is only Winning... and Misery.”


Here is the current list of Les Miserables:


Los Angeles Dodgers...removed from the Playoffs in a 3 game out of 4 wipeout courtesy of their red-headed step children, the long suffering San Diego Padres. Done in most likely by 5 off days that ruined the timing of their hitters, and for some reason, left them with no viable starters after Kershaw and Urias , forcing them to announce a bullpen game in the crucial 3rd playoff game in San Diego.


The Dodgers won 111 games in the 2022 regular season, including a 14-4 record against the Padrinos. They got beat by, largely, the bottom of the Padre’s lineup: Grisham, Nola and Cronenworth. This unsung trio got 15 hits and 9 RBIs in 4 games.


Atlanta Braves...last year’s champions came from 11 games back to run down the Mets in the last week of the regular season. Their shortstop Dansby Swanson and first baseman Matt Olson were hot down the stretch, hitting lots of big flies to crush the oppo. They earned their 5 days off ...but they wish they didn’t take them. Only the memory of an offense was left to deal with Philly, which quickly adjusted to Playoff every-day-play and beat the Braves easily.


(Do you sense a trend here? Let me spell it out for you...off days benefit pitchers if it’s no more than six or seven. Hitters need to hit every day against game pitching, not nerf ball batting practice. If your timing is off even a little bit you don’t get the fat bat on the little white orb.)


More misery. The New York Mets expected to do well in the playoffs behind their two starters Scherzer and deGrom...Unh-Unh. DeGrom pitched well but Scherzer never had it. San Diego dismissed the Metskis in a 3 game wipeout.

The St. Louis Cardinals were the winners of the Central and got to play the last team into the Wild Card slot, the Philadelphia Phillies.

Gee! Thanks a lot! The Cardinal bats were slumping going into the Playoffs and they weren’t certain of their starting rotation. Zach Wheeler of the Phillies (best pitcher in the Playoffs so far) shut them out for 6 innings but the Cards rallied for 2 runs going into the ninth. The Phils surprised them with 6 runs in the ninth. Juan Segura got the big hit...a pool cue off the end of the bat that skittered into right center for a two run back breaker.


No way the Cardinals were going to come back after that. They got pulverized in Game 2. The only proud moment for the Redbirds was Albert Pujols getting a base hit in his (probable) last at bat of his great career.


The Phils had two good starters and three good relievers and a productive and opportunistic offense. That’s the formula. Their big bats performed. Their big arms performed.


The games between the Phils and the Padres were actually very good. Harper, Hoskins and Schwarber had just a little stronger mojo than Soto, Machado and Cronenworth. Bryce Harper finally lived up to his reputation as a superstar with an epic blast into the opposite field bleachers in front of his adoring fans. Congrats to him...he earned the MVP for that series...and especially for the timing of his big hit.


I don’t count the Padres as one of Les Miserables because they beat the Dodgers, who’d had their knees on the Padre necks for decades. The Pads found something stirring in the heart of their team too. They will be good. Maybe very good.


Soto got criticized for not producing in quite an awesome-like manner but truthfully, what is reasonable? Soto hit a couple of big homers in the series and a double as well. He struck out a lot but who didn’t in this new whiffle bat baseball world? Fans forget that you could have a lineup of Ted Williams, Rod Carew, George Brett, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn and Ichiro Suzuki and they’d still make outs 3 out of every 5 times they came up to the plate.


We were lucky in these Playoffs to have two all-time highlight reel home runs. Harper’s of course in the 5th game of the NLCS and an even more startling one in Game 1 of the Astros vs. Seattle. I smelled that one coming as soon as Seattle manager Scott Servais put Robbie Ray into the game to face Yordan Alvarez.


With two men on and a two run lead he knew he’d get crucified if Yordan went deep on a rightie. But he was gambling with a pitcher who HAD NEVER EVER COME OUT OF THE BULLPEN IN A MAJOR LEAGUE GAME! And leftie Ray had been lit up last time he faced hitters in the playoffs and pretty much all of the second half of the season. His velocity was down and he’d been giving up the long ball. The long ball was most desperately to be avoided with a 2-run lead with two on in the bottom of the ninth!


First pitch: medium slider on the outside corner. Yordan scorched it foul. Very close to hitting it out to left. That foul ball had burn marks on it. Second pitch: Ray tried to come inside and wound up throwing a nothing burger that leaked over the plate. KABOOMPOWZAP...GONE! Yordan just utterly smashed that ball. That ball will have permanent Brain Fog. It was a Zeus’s thunderbolt kind of a hit and won the game for the Astros.


(Kind of a mirror of the Phillies win in their Game 5 of the Padres series. Harper comes up with two on in the eighth with the Padres ahead by 2 and Josh Heder in the bullpen. But Bob Melvin leaves his rightie set up reliever in to face Harper instead of calling on the leftie because he didn’t want to have to let Heder stay in and have to get 5 outs to win this game. Melvin was trying to finesse his way out of that Big Moment. He blew it. Heder is the best leftie reliever in baseball...if you didn’t trade for him to use him in this spot against the hottest hitter in the Playoffs, who are you saving him for?)


Back to the Astros. They won Game 2 with Yordan as well. This time the Big Man sliced one into the Crawfords for another Golden Tater. Yordan didn’t get a lot of hits in this series, but he picked his spots well, I’d say.


The less said about that endless, boring 18 inning Ji-gazz-ma-thon in Seattle the better. Astros win again and have yet to lose a playoff game.


The Yankees join their partners in misery only because expectations are so ridiculously high for the Yankees. Especially since they haven’t won a World Series since 2009. So they snuck by the very game Put-that-Ball-in-Play Guard Dogs of Cleveland and lost to the Astros in 4 straight. No shame Yankees.


The only shame is on the Yankee fans who booed Aaron Judge for not hitting a home run every time up. With everybody else on that team slumping or injured, what’s the guy supposed to do? Yeah...he was pressing. He’d been pressing ever since he hit number 60. Who wouldn’t press trying to get those idiot Boo-Birds off his back? I never thought the Boston fans would treat a Yankee hero better than his own fans. Judge only had one of the 14 greatest seasons by a Yankee of all time.* Yeah...but what have you done for me lately?

Also...Aaron Judge is a Gentle Giant with a team first attitude, beloved by his coaches and fellow players. He puts butts in the seats...and lots of them are kids just discovering the game. They aren’t booing him...not at all.


*Greatest offensive seasons by a Yankee...all time

1/Babe Ruth 1920/ 54 homers/135 rbis/.376 average/255 OPS+**

**OPS + is slugging % plus on base % normalized for league and home field conditions.

2/Ruth 1921/59/168/.378/239

3/Ruth 1923/41/130/.393/239

4/Ruth 1927/60/165/.356/225

5/Gehrig 1927/47/173/.373/220

6/Ruth 1926/47/153/.372/226

7/Mantle 1957/34/94/.365/221

8/Mantle 1956/52/130/.353/210

9/Gehrig 1934/49/166/.363/207

10/Gehrig 1931/46/185/.341/194

11/DiMaggio 1939/30/126/.381/184 (20Ks)

12/Mantle 1961/54/128/.317/206

13/DiMaggio 1937/46/167/.346/166

14/Judge 2022/62/131/.311/211 (175 Ks)


Comments: In the glow of his recent accomplishments, Aaron Judge is scoring higher than this on most “greatest Yankee seasons” lists.

It’s hard to compare seasons when the game has changed so much from the days of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and the Mick up to the climate of ‘Three True Outcomes’ today. The outcomes are bogus anyway. It just means that players are now being taught to swing for the fences and strike outs be damned. Thus Aaron had 175 Ks this year. Joe DiMaggio had 20 all season in 1939 in a home park with a fence 460 feet away in left center. (called Death Valley back in the day. Joe himself estimated that he lost 17 home runs to the dimensions of old Yankee Stadium in 1937. That would have given him over 60 that year. Of course the pitchers knew how far it was to that fence and I’m sure pitched Joe out over the plate trying to get some long fly outs from him.)


Ruth and Gehrig got to take aim at the short porch in right and Judge has also profited from the short right field of the new Yankee Stadium. Mickey Mantle played in the era of the much bigger fields. Mick didn’t care...he never played in a park that he couldn’t hit it out of...left, right or center!


Also remember that Ruth and Gehrig played on a team full of on- base guys and it made them more productive...especially with rbis.

Joe D was the only superstar on his later Yankee teams...he had to produce by himself most seasons. Mickey had to play during the heyday of big strike zones and high mounds when pitchers ruled the game. Judge is getting a taste of that as well.


I’ve realized that OPS+ or any other stat system doesn’t tell the whole story. When I take note of strike outs vs. bats on the ball, shouldn’t that figure a little more in favor of the guy who makes contact? I think so.


And Thus We Come To…


The World Series! Where the Myths are made. Where players like Harper, Yordan Alvarez, Zach Wheeler and Justin Verlander are measured against the Gods of Yore.


Philadelphia sends a team that was the very last club to make the Playoffs. Houston was first seed. It seems like the Phillies are on fire and it seems like the Astros are just cruising. Nolo contendre from the other American League Playoff clubs. Nobody is touching the Astros.


Philadelphia has a good offensive lineup with three recently hot hitters carrying the weight...Harper, Hoskins and Schwarber. The Phillies are dangerous 1 through 5. Houston’s lineup is great 1 through 8. I think five days off will chill the Phillies bats more than the Astro bats because the Phils were hotter and leaning on their hitters to bludgeon their way to victories. The Astros have used strategic clutch hits...combined with lights out pitching... starters through bullpen.


The Phillies have a below average defense. The Astros defense is phenomenal...they get the edge at center, third, short, and a big edge at second. The Astros get a HUGE advantage at right (Castellanos is Manos de Piedra vs. Kyle Tucker who is a Gold Glove candidate) . First (Gurriel over Hoskins...did you see Rhys play in the Divisions?)... In left it’s a push. Both Alvarez and Schwarber suck. Also even at catcher. The Phils have the best in the N.L….Realmuto. But even if he bats .000 (and he almost did!) the Houston pitchers would still want Martin Maldonado to catch them.


The Phillies have two great starters...Wheeler and Nola. They have to win. The Astros have Verlander, Framber Valdez and Lance McCullers. All are deadly.


The Phillies have three solid relievers. The Astros have seven.


The Phillies have a feeble bench. The Astros are strong with Trey Mancini, Alydmas Diaz and Christian Vaszquez.


In all areas of the game, Houston is superior. In order to win the Phils will have to stay hot with the power bats, play above their heads on defense and not burn out their bullpen too early in the series. I think they could easily get swept, but that old Philly spirit will carry them to two victories at home and they will go down 4 games to 2.


WINNER: HOUSTON ASTROS


Enjoy Baseball, Everybody!



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