Games » Oakland Athletics
Aug14A big inning
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
How do you score five runs on three hits? Well, a leadoff walk helps.
Oakland starter Jarrod Parker walked Salvador Perez to begin the fifth inning. Jeff Francoeur, standing on deck, saw Parker get strike one on Perez and then throw Perez four straight balls. Jeff figured that Parker didn’t want to walk two batters to start the inning, so Frenchy geared up for a fastball in the zone. Instead, Parker started Jeff with a breaking pitch for strike one. Jeff didn’t bite. He was still waiting for that fastball.
He got it on the next pitch.
The fastball was 94 mph on the outside corner. It was exactly the kind of pitch that Francoeur had been trying to pull much of this season without much success. This time, Jeff went with the pitch and doubled to right-center. (Francoeur is 11 for 39 with three doubles and two home runs since being benched for a few days.) With no one out, third-base coach Eddie Rodriguez held up Perez, and the Royals had runners at second and third and nobody out.
Next, Eric Hosmer worked the count to 3-0 and was given the green light. With two runners in scoring position and the score 0-0, manager Ned Yost was hoping Hosmer would get a “cookie” (baseball slang for a fastball down the middle). Parker suspected that might be the case, and instead of throwing a 3-0 fastball down the middle, he threw Hosmer a changeup. Eric was out in front, and the count went to 3-1.
Parker threw a slider next, and this time Eric stayed back and drilled a single to right field. Perez scored, and Francoeur moved up to third. Then Lorenzo Cain walked, and the bases were loaded for Chris Getz. Getz did what a hitter is supposed to do in this situation: find a pitch he can hit in the air. It took him seven pitches, but Getz hit a fly ball to right. Francoeur tagged and scored.
Then Alex Gordon broke another bat and got another hit, scoring Hosmer. Cain went first to third. Then Alcides Escobar hit the ball to Jemile Weeks at second base and Weeks booted it. Cain scored while Gordon went first to third despite the ball never getting that far from the infield. Gordon’s base-running paid off when Billy Butler hit another sacrifice fly to drive in the fifth run of the inning.
How do you score five runs on three hits? Walks, good situational hitting and smart base-running. The Royals only scored in one inning, but with Jeremy Guthrie on the mound, that was enough.
Guthrie puts up another quality start
Guthrie pitched seven scoreless innings, struck out eight, put up a quality start and won the game. That’s now 15 consecutive innings of shutout baseball for Guthrie. After the game, Ned Yost said that when Jeremy was missing, he was missing down. Miss down and the umpire calls it a ball. Miss up and someone in general admission catches a ball.
In the clubhouse after the game, Guthrie said Kansas City was on his short list of places he’d like to play. After the last two outings, fans might start hoping it also is a place where he’d like to stay.
Game notes
• Guthrie went 1-2-3 in the first inning. He threw a 77-mph curve, a 79-mph slider, an 86-mph changeup and a fastball that ranged from 90-96 mph. That’s 19 mph of separation in speed and a lot of different looks.
• In the bottom of the inning, Gordon saw nine pitches before making an out. For a hitter leading off a game, that is a very good at-bat. Gordon’s long at-bat gave his teammates a chance to see Parker’s pitches (fastball, slider, change). Hitters have already seen video and may have faced a pitcher in the past, but everyone wants to see what the pitches are doing that night.
• Gordon flew out to left, then Escobar shot a double down the line past Oakland’s third baseman, Josh Donaldson. If you’re counting how many times one of Escobar’s bunts turns into a hit, you ought to add this one. Donaldson was in on the grass — just like Manny Machado was in Baltimore — defending against the bunt.
• Esky then tried to get tricky. Butler hit a grounder to Donaldson at third, and it was clear Escobar was going to try to advance from second to third once Donaldson threw the ball to first. Donaldson pump-faked to first, then threw the ball to second to trap Escobar between the bases. The timing on this play is tricky for a base-runner. He can’t break too soon, or he will alert the infielders.
• Esky also tried to advance at a bad time. There already was one down, and had the throw gone to first, there would have been two. A runner on second is already in scoring position. The reason you take chances to get to third base is so you can score without a base hit. If a runner is going to try this maneuver, it’s better to try it with nobody down.
• In the third inning, Donaldson tried to go first to third on a ball Coco Crisp hit to right. Francoeur was charging straight in (remember the rule of thumb: it’s easier to advance when the outfielder is moving sideways) and came up throwing. I don’t know if Donaldon tripped over second base or remembered who was playing right field. He stopped halfway, the Royals ran him down and Francoeur had another outfield assist.
• After the Royals scored five runs in the fifth, Guthrie came out to pitch the sixth. When the offense scores, it is psychologically important for the pitcher to go out and throw a shutdown inning. Let the other team score, and they start to believe they can get back in the game. Put up a zero, and defeat starts to seem inevitable.
Scoring first
One more time for anyone who missed it: Ned Yost is not asking Alcides Escobar to sacrifice bunt in the first inning of ballgames. When that happens, Esky is doing it on his own, and he’s bunting for a hit. If that doesn’t work, at least the Royals have a runner in scoring position with their No. 3 and 4 hitters due up. So even though the Royals aren’t playing for one run, they might get one anyway.
I asked Ned how important is for the Royals to score first, and he pointed out the team’s record when they do: 39 wins and 16 losses. That means the Royals are 11-49 when they don’t score first. Even so, Ned said he doesn’t call for sacrifice bunts until the seventh inning unless the Royals are already lead and he wants to tack on an insurance run.
Guthrie
Gordon
Getz
Brian Rose
10 months agoGlad to see francuer figuring it out. I trust in gmdm as he spends more time watching guys than I do. I tend to cheer for the guys he picks rather than second guess. However, frenchy seems a little far along to be reminded how to hit. It seems he should have been more serious about his approach earlier. The royals have no chance with a hole in their line up… He simply has to hit for average. Goes back to my previous post about focus. Was he just not focused enough at the plate? Easier said than done I know. Hopefully it continues so we can cheer him next year instead of booing. Maybe the melky trade will work out after all in a round about royals sort of way
Terry Payne
10 months agoThe trade for Melky MIGHT work out after all if Guthrie keeps it up, but we must remember JG is a free agent-to be. Will Glass pay out 8MM plus, per year, for him? Especially after the Meche disaster?
Getz reminds me more and more of Dick Green. (Go ahead, look DG up, young-uns, then you’ll know just how stinkin’ old I am.) Green was exceptional defensively, not offensively, but it seemed whenever the A’s needed a clutch hit, there he was. Very smart, rarely out of position. Excellent bunter, great speed, did the little, non-Sports Center things that win ball games.
Thayne Griffin
10 months agoI guess this offseason we might see how badly Guthrie really does want to be here. It is good to see someone who wants to pitch here now than someone who didn’t earlier in the year (Sanchez). I think that makes a big difference in your play - attitude. I think Guthrie has been a great difference on that alone so far.
And Sanchez has a 9+ ERA and is on the DL in Colorado. What a trade.
John Wilson
10 months agoI had not thought about Dick Green in forever. Thanks for that flashback Terry :-) Plus now you know you aren’t the only old fogey here!
It is good to see a trade work out. I still can’t believe we got anyone for Sanchez.
Darral VanGoethem
10 months agoTerry, I hate hearing that the Meche signing was a disaster. For half of that contract he was EXACTLY what the Royals paid for him, a solid #2 starter. The other half of the contract he was hurt and he even walked away from the deal with a yr left b/c he didn’t want to take the money if he knew he wouldn’t earn it.
Terry Payne
10 months agoDarral - my point was that with the best of intentions,and a good performance by Meche b/4 he got hurt, it still ended up being yet another free agent disastrous signing in that it blew up on everybody.
And I think was Meche did by retiring b/4 his pay year kicked in was a magnanimous gesture that should be trumpeted, loudly, throughout American sportsdom.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoThe whole discussion on the importance of scoring first is the best example I’ve ever seen on here of confusing correlation with causation.
The Royals are more likely to score when they score more runs. Reducing our total run expectancy in order to increase our chances of scoring in the first inning reduces our chances of winning.
The Royals lead the AL in sacrifice bunts in the first three innings of game. They also have the fewest wins in the AL.
If you want to know why the Royals above-average hitting is turning into below-average run production, look at walks and our insane approach to moving runners around the bases.
Jim Fetterolf
10 months agoI thought we looked at runs and decided SLG and homers were better factors.
Daniel Wesley
10 months agoBrian, if Jeff Francoeur is the everyday RF next year instead of Wil Myers, something is dreadfully wrong at 1 Royal Way.
Terry, while I agree that Getz does little things well, little things rarely win games. Big things win games. Unfortunately, Getz doesn’t do many big things. The Royals lack of winning isn’t because they can’t execute the little things, it’s because they can’t execute the big things - like getting on base frequently and hitting for power.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoFor the $42.5M that Dayton Moore spent on Gil Meche, the Royals actually got a little more production than $42.5M typically bought in 2007. In that sense, the signing was a success, or, at least, fair value.
However, a central part of the case for giving Dayton Moore more time is the idea that the team was uniquely awful (perhaps even worse than an expansion team) when Moore took over. If that’s the case, why were the Royals handing out big free agent contracts when they knew they were so far away from competing?
Even if the signing was a success for Moore in player evaluation, it still seems to be an indictment of his ability to run a team.
Jim Wilson
10 months agoWe’re last in theAL in walks by a big margin. The Rays have walked 128 times more than the Royals. That’s amazing. How could that not have an impact on how many runs we score? Every other day, Lee harps about our pitchers giving up walks that turn into runs.
There’s also been much written about how poor the Royals’ base running has been. That reduces our SLG.
The Royals are 10th in home runs on the road and only slightly below league average so I don’t think home runs are the answer.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoJim F -
In general OBP is the strongest predictor of run scoring. If we just looking at the 2012 partial season stats, SLG explains the most, followed by OBP. HRs on their own explain far less than SLG (which includes HRs), so I don’t know why anyone would look at HRs.
The Royals AVG is 104% of league average, and their SLG is at 99% of league average. If their run scoring matched their SLG, we wouldn’t have much of a gap to discuss. Instead, they’re scoring runs at less than 93% of league average. That gap is created primarily by failing to take walks and by wasting outs in their approach to moving baserunners.
Terry Payne
10 months agoThe only way we can apparently attract free agents to come here is to overpay them, or to be consistently competitive. Overpaying certainly hasn’t worked in the past. So, power will have to be developed within the system, which means having it be a priority for scouting. Power comes with a cost, usually, meaning reduced OBP. Since the team refuses to bring in the fences, they’ll have to have better OBP guys than power guys.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoKauffman Stadium is exactly league average when it comes to SLG. It suppresses home runs but that’s entirely cancelled out by it creating doubles and triples.
Also, I don’t see why we’d generally expect a tradeoff between SLG and OBP. Pitchers generally pitch around power hitters (driving up walks) and more selective hitters should end up in more hitters counts where they can get a good pitch to hit (driving up power).
Just looking through the lists of league leaders in SLG and OBP, the two seem to be pretty strongly correlated.
Terry Payne
10 months agoBrendan - I’m really curious. Who would you rather have in your linep, Alex Gordon, or Adam Dunn, assuming Dunn was a capable first baseman on a regular bases?
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoTerry -
I think I’d take Gordon for the defense. They’re almost exact equals as hitters (both have .353 wOBA, although Dunn does it with power and Alex does it by avoiding outs) and Alex does that in a slightly tougher hitting environment.
It’s easier to find a capable first baseman than a capable left fielder, and I think Alex is a very good left fielder, so, on those grounds I’d take Alex.
If we assumed Dunn’s defense was as good as Alex’s, it’d be a tougher choice. Alex is younger, but Dunn has been the more consistent performer (although his 2011 was scary).
Terry Payne
10 months agoBrendan - my question is really this - (forget age and defense) - which guy would you rather have, offensively?
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoTerry -
I have more confidence that the Royals young hitters will develop power than that they’ll learn plate discipline in an organization that doesn’t seem to value it, so I’d keep Alex over Dunn because he’s got the skills I expect to be scarce.
Jim Fetterolf
10 months ago” If that’s the case, why were the Royals handing out big free agent contracts when they knew they were so far away from competing?”
PR. Then, as now, a vocal group of fans was demanding that David Glass step up and spend money to build a winner. Guillen and Meche were the only ones willing to sign and demanded a premium. Guillen was a waste, but Meche delivered some production and also served as a mentor for Zack, helping him harness his talents. At the time I didn’t like the signings, but the farm wasn’t good and there wasn’t enough major-league talent to trade for prospects, so overpaid FAs and the draft was the only plan. Now we have a farm and some established veterans, so have other opportunities.
“Just looking through the lists of league leaders in SLG and OBP, the two seem to be pretty strongly correlated.”
As they do with homers and runs. HRs obviously drive SLG because of the four base thing and also drive runs because one run, at least, is always created by a homer. Walking a singles hitter with no one on is a low percentage move, while working around a power hitter, especially to get to a weaker hitter, happens a lot.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoJim F -
I hope that there’s somebody who’s getting something out of your continued focus on HRs over SLG. For me, the fact that SLG correlates far better to run scoring than HRs is enough to end the discussion.
If signign Meche and Guillen was a PR move, then I guess we can add PR to the list of things Dayton Moore isn’t very good at. If that money had been invested in the farm system (taking on salary dumps in exchange for prospects, spending more on intl signings, signing guys to one-year deals in order to generate compensation picks), I have to believe that the public would have much better relations with Moore than they do now.
Ward Brown
10 months agoLee, Esky’s play was particularly troublesome because Butler was the hitter. The fielder had plenty of time to fake to first to see whether Esky would bite. He still had ample time to throw out Butler if Esky played it safe. Probably would have been a different story with a faster runner at the plate.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoI’m just seeing the Melky news. Although I’m not a Dayton Moore fan at this point, I never thought he deserved all the criticism he took on the Melky-Sanchez trade. I hope knowing that Melky’s performance was steroid-aided causes the criticism to abate.
Curtis Ruder
10 months agoTwo points that I want to make. When coming up with the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the fifth inning and a 1-0 lead, the goal is not hit a sacrifice fly. The goal is to not make an out. Getz handles the bat pretty well and runs pretty well, so strikeouts and double plays are less a problem for him than most other guys on the team. If a guy with no power is trying to hit a fly ball in that situation, then that is a serious, serious mistake.
Second, this whole business about scoring the first run is spurious logic. It is true that the Royals record is better when they score the first run than when they don’t. But that doesn’t imply that scoring the first run is any more important than scoring any other run in the game - the Royals record is also better when scoring the second run of the game, and when scoring the third run of the game, and so on. This is a pretty common logical flaw - mistaking correlation and causation. Two things happen a lot together - scoring the first run and winning, or not scoring the first run and losing - but that does not imply that one is causing the other.
Look at it this way: suppose the final score of the game is 4-1. If the runs were distributed completely randomly, then you would expect the winning team would have scored the first run of the game 80% of the time - the probability would be 20% each that the losing team scored the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth run. So in order for that first run to be of greater significance, you would need to show not that the team had a good record when scoring first, but that it had a better than 80% winning percentage in its 4-1 games when scoring first.
Of course, I am committing my own logical flaw here, taking the score as a given when scoring or not scoring affects the strategy going forward. I throw this out just to illustrate my point. Hopefully, I’ll have more details to follow in the next couple of days if anyone is interested in this.
Jay Hall
10 months agoThe Gil Meche signing was not a disaster. The handling of Gil Meche’s tired arm was absolutely a disaster.
During his first two years here (when he was healthy) Meche started 34 games each year, pitched over 200 innings and had an ERA under 4. His ERA+ was 125 in 2007 and 109 in 2008, which means he was an above average pitcher both years.
On June 16, 2009 Gil Meche pitched a complete game shutout in which he threw 132 pitches, lowering his ERA to 3.31 in 84.1 innings. 6 days earlier, after his previous start, Meche had complained of a tired arm. Meche threw only 44.2 innings the rest of the season and finished with a 5.09 ERA. He gave up 38 runs in his final 44.2 innings in 2009. In 2010 Meche threw only 61.2 innings, giving up 39 runs. He retired prior to the 2011 season.
For roughly two and a half years Gil Meche was a front of the rotation starter. Not an ace, but definitely a good #2 starter. He got a tired arm, then threw 132 pitches and was never the same pitcher.
If the Royals sign free agent pitchers this year (and they must if they expect to compete) they absolutely have to take better care of them than they did for Gil Meche.
Bruce Phillips
10 months agoThe Gutherie trade is looking even better after Melky “Big Balls” Cabera is suspended:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/dailypitch/post/2012/08/melky-cabrera-giants-50-game-suspension-testosterone/1#.UCv2pUK9zd4
Jeff Circle
10 months agoCurtis, I don’t think Lee was saying that the “baseball rule” is to hit a sac fly in this situation. What he said literally was “find a pitch he can hit in the air”, as in nothing on the ground that could in any way eliminate two base runners or cut down a run at the plate. “Hit in the air” essentially just means get it in the outfield grass-which encompasses line drives, sac flies, flies to the gap, homers, all that. Sac fly is obviously the least desirable of these results, but still gets a run across.
And I do agree that all this scoring first stuff is tilting at windmills. And sacrificing outs early (on purpose) for that one first run, unless you really really think you’re gonna need it that night, is stupid.
However, I do wonder if there’s a psychological effect to the team scoring that first run - especially if they are run-challenged as the Royals have tended to be this year?
Sean Fischbach
10 months agoCurtis…if a train leaves NYC traveling at 75mph, and a train leaves KC traveling 50mph….. ;)
Terry Payne
10 months agoJeff - finally somebody understands my point re: getting that firs run. I said it was PHYSOLOGICALLY important, not logically important
Jim Fetterolf
10 months ago“I hope that there’s somebody who’s getting something out of your continued focus on HRs over SLG.”
Homers are part of SLG and from what I notice, extra homers contribute to the extra SLG that you are noting. The math is fairly simple.
” If that money had been invested in the farm system (taking on salary dumps in exchange for prospects, spending more on intl signings, signing guys to one-year deals in order to generate compensation picks), I have to believe that the public would have much better relations with Moore than they do now.”
You described the Process. The “public” is still howling for FA signings. Every year there is an instant gratification bunch that wants David Glass to “step up” and spend his Walmart money to buy a winner, like the Marlins did this year.
Jeff Circle
10 months agoTerry, I don’t know how to say this without it sounding disrespectful to stat guys - I respect stat guys and the view they are providing to help evaluate players. But those who preach “only look at OBP”, or “only look at K/9 (for example)” constantly ignores that players are not interchangeable robots. They are people with emotions and psyches and they can react to the “logical” move in “illogical” ways. Alex Gordon does seem to be more comfortable and productive at leadoff, even though his lifetime stats may say he belongs somewhere else in the lineup. Because he’s a person, and people have comfort levels and part of assembling your lineup or roster includes mixing, matching and dealing with personalities too.
This was probably not the best way to explain my opinion. Like I said, I respect statistical analysis (I like math!), just not crazy about those who think it’s the end-all be-all. Hope I didn’t make any sweeping generalizations that will get people upset.
Brian Rose
10 months agoI know the last article said Gutherie was a FA after this year, but when the trade was announced I thought they said he had two years left or a club option and that was one thing important to the Royals. anyone able to confirm?
Terry Payne
10 months agoJeff - could not have said it better myself.
Brendan Woodbury
10 months agoGuthrie is a FA after this year. It was never clear where that story about an extra year of club control came from, but it was eventually disavowed.
William Wolfe
10 months agoJF—here’s what’s missing in your “simple math”. No one will deny that homers contribute more to SLG than doubles or triples. That is simple math. However, let’s take two random players. One has 9 homers, and .447 SLG, the other has 14 homers and .386 SLG. How could you possibly say that player 2 contributes more to offense? Your logic appears to be making that argument. Player 1 is Alex, Player 2 is Drew Stubbs by the way. OBP and SLG are most correlated to runs. HRs are important but give me Alex over Stubbs from an offensive perspective every single day.
William Wolfe
10 months agooh and also, bunting in the first inning is something Trey Hillman advocated. End of discussion.
William Wolfe
10 months agoAnd one more for good measure on bunting. Has it been tracked what the success % is for bunting for a hit vs. hitting for a hit? I have to believe a person is more successful trying to get a hit than bunting for a hit. Otherwise, dudes would bunt all the time. Yes, some of them turn into sac bunts, so that’s going to skew this analysis. Love to hear comments on this though.
Thayne Griffin
10 months agoI really hope the Royals didn’t know Melky was using and dealt him for that reason…
That said, I agree with Brendan about the Sanchez trade. And this suspension makes it look better…or should at least.
For tonight’s game, if Oakland scores it might be over! ;) We’re 4-3 against OAK with 4 shutouts.
Terry Payne
10 months agoSean F - thx for the “train” comment. Dude, you slay me.
Jim Wilson
10 months agoI guess you never outgrow middle school humor.
Curtis Ruder
10 months agoThere is another big difference between bunting for a hit and swinging for a hit: swinging sometimes results in extra bases for the batter and/or runners, whereas a bunt hit will only be a single and advance a runner one base without a defensive mistake. So the bunt attempt would have to significantly outperform a swing attempt in average before it would be as productive.