Thursday, June 12, 2014

Wednesday's best pitcher? Yu

Wednesday night I was a spectator at a baseball game for the first time this season.
Yu Darvish was at his considerable best in a 6-0 shutout of the Marlins. It was his first complete game in the North American major leagues, and thus his first shutout as well.
The most impressive of his 10 strikeouts came in the sixth inning against RF Giancarlo Stanton. On the third strike, Stanton backed away and took a half-hearted swing at a pitch that broke sharply down and away from the plate. It was just unfair.
That at-bat inspired me to develop an unscientific scale of how hard batters swing. The original inspiration was Reds CF Billy Hamilton early this season when he took a short, downward-chopping swing at a fastball by (I believe Cubs RHP Jeff Samardzija) after the ball already at crossed the plate.
That weakest swing I've ever seen by a major league batter established the scale at 1 Hamilton. I rated Stanton's swing against Darvish at 8.7 Hamiltons. During the two-game series against the Rangers, Stanton swung the bat as hard as 60 Hamiltons.
The hardest swinger I've seen this year is Frisco C Tomas Telis, who currently tops the scale at about 85 Hamiltons. Telis is a short-stocky guy who rarely gets cheated on his swings. He also rarely misses the ball entirely. At the beginning of this week, at least, he was leading the Double-A Texas League in batting average. Telis is also good at blocking low pitches and has a strong arm. I'm expecting that he would arrive in the majors this September.
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The talk of baseball the last couple of days has been Athletics LF Yoenis Cespedes -- not for his hitting, but for two on-the-fly strikes to throw out runners. Memo to teams playing against Oakland: When Cespedes misplays a ball in the field, don't try to take an extra base. Angels 2B Howie Kendrick and 1B Albert Pujols have found that out to their detriment.
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The other Rangers apparently stayed alive in the Stanley Cup finals. Remember hockey?
It figures that it would take a monumental effort by goalie Henrik Lundqvist, the primary reason why New York got this far in the playoffs. He made 40 saves, 15 in the scoreless third period, as the Rangers held on to defeat the Kings 2-1. New York's Ryan Callahan-for-Martin St. Louis trade also paid off. St. Louis scored what proved to be the game-winning goal.
Perhaps the Rangers could get lucky again at home in Game 5 on Friday the 13th.

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