Games » Cleveland Indians
Jul29Another quality start, another W
Lee Judge
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Last season, during a rain storm, Bob McClure and I sat in the dugout and talked about “quality starts.” It might seem simple (or simple-minded), but Bob said that, assuming you played clean defense, when the starter came out, the worst situation you could find yourself in was losing 3-0. A close game.
When the Royals get a quality start, they’ve got a good chance to win. A quality start means the game is low-scoring and it means it plays into the Royals’ strengths: a good bullpen, good defense and the ability to manufacture runs. Jeff Francis gave the team a quality start and the Royals won.
But scoring 12 runs doesn’t hurt either.
Drilling the wrong guy in the wrong way
According to the unwritten rules of baseball, Melky Cabrera deserved to get hit by a pitch. He stood and admired his grand slam for far too long. The usual punishment for showing up the pitcher is getting drilled in the ribs at the next appropriate opportunity.
Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco, who was getting beat like a rented mule, lost it and threw at the next batter, Billy Butler. Not only did he throw at Billy, he threw at Billy’s head. As Ned Yost said afterwards, that “isn’t cool.”
Lots of people were mad at Carrasco, including (I’d bet money) his teammates. Hitters do not appreciate their own pitchers inappropriately inviting retaliation when those pitchers don’t have to go to the plate themselves. There are times hitters confront their own pitchers and tell them to get their head out of their posteriors, they’re going to get a teammate hurt.
If Carrasco had done the right thing and drilled Cabrera when the opportunity came around, his teammates would’ve backed him wholeheartedly. Drilling the wrong guy in the wrong way forces his teammates to back him, but I’m guessing with great reluctance. Carrasco’s boneheaded move risked Billy’s health, forced his teammates into a possible brawl, chewed up the bullpen and got himself ejected and probably suspended.
Of course, the way he was pitching, he probably wasn’t going to be in there long enough to throw at Cabrera.
The umpires get it right
I haven’t been reluctant to criticize bad umpiring, but I thought they did an outstanding job in this situation. Home plate umpire Scott Barry immediately tossed Carrasco. That got an out-of-control player out of the game and gave the Royals less reason to fight: the guy who committed the crime had already been punished.
Umpire Laz Diaz got in front of the Royals and cooled them down, but I’m guessing none of the Royals thought the Indians would be OK with throwing at a guy’s head. There might be retaliation before the series is over, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the Indians say, “Hey, our guy was out of line and we know it.”
Stay tuned to see if the Royals feel like they have to do something about what happened.
A new Billy Butler?
Several people, including Ned Yost, have said that it would be better for the Royals if Billy Butler would sacrifice some average to hit for more power. To consistently hit for power, contact has to be made out in front. That gets the ball into the short part of the park. But making contact out in front means the hitter gets fooled more often.
Wait a bit longer and solid contact is more likely, but now the hitter is in the big part of the park, centerfield. (Of course, Billy’s strong enough to hit the ball out in the other short part of the park, dead right, it’s just harder to do.)
So are the last few games an aberration or are we seeing a new Billy Butler?
Keep watching to find out. (Geez, he crushed those balls, didn’t he?)
There’s only one solution
A while back Luke Hochevar and I had a conversation about his recent improvement on the mound and I asked if it was because of pitching inside. That’s what everyone’s been talking about since the All-Star break. Hoch said that was part of it, but the bigger issue was pitch execution. I wrote about this after we talked, but he said it again after Thursday’s win against the Red Sox and I thought it was worth revisiting.
Sports psychologist Harvery Dorfman worked with pitcher Greg Maddux. He said Maddux was the absolute best at implementing this idea: there are many problems a pitcher can have, a bad mound, lousy defense, the umpire squeezing him or a tough hitter at the plate.
But there’s only one solution: focus on the glove and throw a quality pitch.
Dorfman encouraged Maddux to count his quality pitches. It was the only thing Greg could control, it was the only thing that mattered. After a particularly rough outing in which Maddux had several questionable calls, a couple of errors and left the game with a lead that bullpen coughed up, Dorfman wondered what Greg’s reaction would be.
After the game he asked Maddux, “How was it out there?”
“72 out of 96.”
I’m making those numbers up because I can’t precisely remember the right numbers and can’t find the book, but the point is Maddux responded to the question perfectly. That’s how it was out there. That’s what he controlled, that’s what he was focused on.
This is exactly what Luke Hochevar is trying to do: focus on executing the next pitch. He told me that when he lets his mind wander into those other areas (umpires, defense, mound, etc.), his thoughts get cluttered. There’s too much to focus on. When he concentrates on the next pitch and only the next pitch, things become very simple.
So why doesn’t everyone pitch like that? Working with another, less mentally-disciplined pitcher, Dorfman asked him to take the same approach: complete focus on the next pitch. The guy had a good outing and after the game said to Harvey, “Man, it’s tiring to pitch that way!”
But it can’t be more tiring than losing.
Francis
Gordon
Cabrera
"To consistently hit for power, contact has to be made out in front."
From the highlights I've seen, Billy has a little bit of an uppercut on his homers, a squared up pitch being a high drive rather than a screaming one-hopper up the middle with a flatter pitch. When a batter's hands end up even with his head on the follow through, he's hitting up. When they end up waist-high at his side it's a flat-swing.
Has Seitzer taken the curtain down at BP? Quite the power surge, we could have five 20 homer guys.
Good post, thanks.
Jim: Nope, the curtain's still up. But, previously Billy was taking even inside pitches the other way at times. He'd pull his hands in and get the bat head to the inside of the ball. These balls he's catching a bit more out in front.
He told me in St. Louis that his top hand would often take over the swing and he'd rollover and hit grounders. To counter that he was trying to hit the bottom half of the ball.
(How good do you have to be hit fractions?)
I wouldn't know for sure unless we slowed his swing down, but most hitters finish with their hands high and I'm guessing it's the uppercut you mentioned.
Some hitters come from below at contact and some from above (they try to hit down through the ball and create backspin for those rising line drive shots).
These shots lately have had some height so he's probably getting the bottom half.
On the other hand, Kevin Seitzer probably has a totally different explanation.
Even though I like pitcher's duels better,that was a fun game to watch. Francis was great and almost everybody was hitting the ball well. The thought occurred that the Royals have quite a lineup when they're hitting...Gordon, Cabrerra, Butler, Hosmer, and Francoeur. Even Escobar. If (when?)Moosetacos comes around, I can't imagine any pitcher not having quite a bit of concern about facing them. Two out of every three innings will be tough outs.
We do have a foundation of a Murderers' Row forming up. The current five also have the potential of being 100 rbi guys and three may get there this year.
I hear from some fans who aren't paying attention that these are the same old Royals: if they're in last place and losing, what's changed?
But when you're on a bad team (and I've been on some beauties) the first thing you look for is not wins, but playing well.
You look for positions where your problem is solved, where you're satisfied with the guy that's out there.
If and when Moose starts to hit (and he's eventually hit everywhere he's been so far) the top two-thirds of the lineup is set. The defensive specialists, they guys you keep for their gloves (short, second and catcher) occupy the bottom third. When you get some offense from them, then lineup becomes really tough.
Now let's see what kind of team we have after the trading deadline.
Quality starts, that's what it's all about. Keep the score down, run like hell and get the game to the bullpen. Not a bad game plan.
I love the unwritten rules of baseball. They are what give the game its allure. But one of those unwritten rules is that you don't throw at a guy's head. This reminded me of Andujar in '85. Out of his mind and out of control. I agree the umps did a good job.
The classy thing would be for the Royals to pay it no mind,just go on and win the next 2. Pitch inside, sure, but only to break their bats.
Ron: It'll be interesting to see how the Royals handle this.They may feel like the umpire throwing Carrasco out was enough.
It might depend on what's said between games. If the Indians admit Carrasco was out of line, that might be enough.
We'll see tonight.
Can you explain to me why fans are THROWING home run ball BACK? This seems to me to be the height of stupidity. WHO CARES if it was the other guy. Can they appreciate just how rare it is to even come close to, let alone catch/retrieve a HR ball? I've been to maybe 100-games in my life (I know, not many) but I've only ever had one ball even come close to me, and it was foul.
Yakees fans I understand...they're from NY and we expect them to be rude anyway. But Cleveland...CLEVELAND...like they have a reason to have any kind of attitute.
I love seeing this power but mellinger pointed this out:
Billy Butler's evolution is staggering. SLG up 49 points in last week, but look at BB:K. April: 19:13. May: 13:14. June: 14:10. July: 4:21.
I was just looking at the scoring system for the first time in detail. Besides the subjective good play type of stats (which don't seem to make much difference to overall score) there seems to be one glaring problem. A BB or HBP is worth one point while a sacrifice is worth two. So, when I look at two players, one that many believe the system greatly undervalues and another that the system greatly overvalues (Butler being the first and Getz the second), the entire discrepency between their scores comes down to the fact that Billy Butler is a better hitter and has more plate discipline than Getz. By this I mean that Getz receives 28 points for 14 sacrifices while Butler receives 2 points for one sacrifice, which could mean that Butler sees the ball better and therefore gets it in play rather than hits a weak sacrifice. Butler has 51 BB or HBP to Getz's 30, which means that Butler is both more feared by opposing pitchers and that he has greater discipline at the dish. Seems to be a major flaw in the system. Of course the real flaw is the value of a good DH. Would the Mariners of the late 90's and early 2000's have been as good without Edgar Martinez, or the White Sox without Big Frank? Of course not. And this team is better than they should be overall because they have a truly professional hitter at DH like Billy Butler.
Gaines: I don't have any argument with people who think a sacrifice bunt is overvalued in this system. Some people hate the sac bunt and probably think it ought to penalized not, rewarded.
As I've said before, we tinkered with Ron Polk's system, but mostly left it alone, having faith in his baseball expertise.
Having conceded that, I can't agree that the entire difference in Chris Getz and Bill Butler's scores is due to Billy's talents at the plate.
Getz has 24 instances of heads-up base running (taking the extra base, etc.) worth 48 points. Butler has four instances worth 8. Getz has stolen 18 bases, Butler one. Getz has 57 double play assists, Butler two. Getz has made 25 outstanding defensive plays, Butler none.
I don't think anyone would argue that Billy is a much better hitter than Chris, including Chris.
But Billy does not run the bases well, has no speed and does not play half the game. That's why Chris has done better in a system that measures more than offense.
Sean: I'm just guessing, but I think the explanation for people thowing home run balls back is the same explanation for people reaching for line drives into the crowd: attention.
One of the first things you notice when players leave tickets for you is the seats are almost always behind the screen. That's where players have their families sit for safety's sake.
When a ball is hit into the crowd with any velocity you can always tell who's played ball: they're getting the heck out of the way.
I think people fight for balls so they can have that moment of approval from the crowd: a round of applause.
Same for throwing a home run ball back. (Plus now you have peer pressure from those around you who don't have a home run ball themselves to throw your ball back on the field.)
Reality TV has shown that people will totally humiliate themselves and ruing their reputations for attention. Throwing a home run ball back is cheap by comparison.
But you might take all this with a grain of salt, I'm a professional pessimist.
Tyler: Hadn't seen those numbers, but no surprise. If Billy hits for more power, he'll strike out more...and in Kauffman, he'll fly out more.
Fans can't have it both ways.
Pitching, Pitching, Pitching. Key to future success. And as an adjunct to that, notice we gave up fewer walks than normal in this game. Do quality starts and no (few) walks correlate? I think they do.
Joel: I'd be surprised if here wasn't a relationship between walks and quality starts.
Lee, fans will cry when he has little power but walks. Then they will cry when he has power but strikes out more. The never satisfied fan will always be out there. I enjoy the long ball but much more so when it's not off our pitcher.
Tyler: I agree, you can't please everybody, I'm living proof. You might as well do what makes sense to you and live with it.