Games » Texas Rangers
Sep6How you score three runs
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
How you score three runs if you’re the Royals: It takes eight batters, 28 pitches, two innings, a home run, a pop fly, a strikeout, a double, a stolen base, another strikeout, a triple, a groundout and a single. That’s how the Royals got their first three runs of this game.
How you score three runs if you’re the Rangers: Three batters see six pitches, single, homer and homer. That’s how the Rangers caught the Royals in the fourth inning. All the work the Royals did over two innings in order to build a 3-0 lead over the Rangers was wiped away in six pitches to Michael Young, Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre.
Before the game Ned Yost said the Rangers had an “unforgiving” lineup; make a mistake up in the zone and you’ll probably need a new baseball. After the game Ned Yost said, “We can compete with them, but we can’t beat them.”
The Royals did beat them once and lost two games by one run, but any team that can put up 10 home runs in a four game series in Kauffman Stadium, is going to be a handful. The Royals are good enough to give the best team in the American League a run for their money, but most nights, aren’t good enough to beat them.
Game notes
Luke Hochevar had a decent start; six and a third innings, four earned runs, two walks (one intentional) and five strikeouts.
Ranger pitcher Scott Feldman uses an inward turn (taking the front knee slightly back toward second base in the pitching motion) and pitchers who do that can be slow to the plate. Lorenzo Cain proved the point by stealing third in the third inning.
The Rangers outfield was playing Alex Gordon to go the other way, so when Alex pulled the ball and tripled between Nelson Cruz and the right field line, I figured Feldman made a mistake on an off-speed pitch. He did — it was a 77 mph hanging curve.
It was probably supposed to be a “chase” pitch (one that starts in the zone and breaks out) it hung and Gordon whacked down into the right field corner, away from the defense.
In the fourth inning, with Michael Young on first base, Luke Hochevar delivered a curveball to Josh Hamilton. Luke was using a “slide step” which gets the ball to home plate more quickly, but can also make the ball stay up in the zone. The curveball hung and Hamilton homered. In the effort to stop a base runner from stealing, Hochevar delivered a hittable pitch to the plate.
Salvador Perez picked off his fourth base runner of the year. That leads all of baseball and he’s done it in, what, 54 games?
Eric Hosmer homered and made a highlight reel catch, almost falling into a dugout suite after snagging a pop fly. A fan caught Eric as he tipped over and kept him from doing a header. After the game, Eric expressed appreciation for a fan “knowing what was going on.”
Here are the guidelines: If a player reaches into the stands to catch a pop fly, fans have no obligation to stay out of the way, so…visiting team, fight for the ball, home team, make space.
If a player leans over the rail in his team’s dugout, he knows his teammates will be there to catch him if he falls in. If he’s going over the rail in the opposition dugout, he knows he’ll get no help until after the play is over. Once the ball is caught or dropped, then the other team will do what they can.
With two outs in the ninth, Ned Yost brought closer Greg Holland into a tie ballgame. Ned will use his closer in a tied home game, figuring if the closer gets his team through the ninth, the Royals have two chances to win: the bottom of the ninth and — whatever the opposition does in the top of the tenth — the bottom of the 10th.
Holland got the Royals through the ninth but gave up the winning run in the 10th. Even though Holland gave the team two chances to score one run, they couldn’t get it done, losing 5-4 in 10 innings.
Hochevar’s changeup
A reader asked about the use of Luke Hochevar’s changeup and I found a chance to ask Luke about it and here’s what I learned:
Hochevar does consider his changeup one of his core pitches.
He doesn’t need to throw it to every batter or even a lot — he just needs to establish that he will throw it.
The same goes with pitching inside; Luke doesn’t need to throw inside on every batter he faces, but he does need to establish that he will throw inside.
If you don’t throw a pitch very often you can lose the feel for it and it won’t be there when you need it.
Establishing a thought in a hitter’s mind is the same reason Luke might start an at-bat with a curve or throw one 3-2 or even throw five curves in a row. All that goes in the scouting report and gives hitters more to think about.
Throwing to bases
Wednesday afternoon Salvador Perez, Brayan Pena and Manny Pina were out for early work, throwing to bases. Before the entire team shows up on the field, individuals or small groups may come out to work on specific skills. The catchers throw on a regular basis. Chino Cadahia and Jason Kendall were working with the catchers, and Tony Abreu was receiving the ball at the bases.
Afterward I asked Brayan Pena where Chino wanted them to throw the ball on a stolen base attempt. The answer? Between the belt and the chest. A throw right on the bag looks great, but it gives the catcher no room for error: come up a foot short and you’ve given the cover man a short hop and a difficult ball to handle. The belt-to-chest target gives everyone a chance to be slightly off and still make a play.
So what about pickoffs?
A throw chest high probably won’t result in an out, so on that play the catchers try to get a little closer to the base, but that puts pressure on the infielder to knock down any bad throw and keep it on the infield.
Hosmer
Hochevar
Gordon
Scott Harrison
9 months, 1 week agoThe Rangers have at least two 30 HR/100 RBI guys, and the Royals don’t have one—either on the roster or in the minors. When you combine that with not having even one 15-game winner, you get a losing team. Where and how do you see KC improving in that regard?
Daniel Wesley
9 months, 1 week agoHosmer, Moustakas, Butler, and Gordon all have 30 HR potential. RBIs are a product of the team and not the individual, so as the team begins playing better offensively, you’ll see those RBI totals go up.
The same with pitcher “wins”. Pitcher wins are a reflection of the team and not the individual. When the team starts playing better, you’ll see those win totals climbing also.
Joel Kallem
9 months, 1 week agoDaniel, must differ on the power potential mostly because of the fact that the K is such a spacious stadium. The four named all have some power, but 20-25 homers are probably max for them with lots of doubles thrown in for good effect. The above named hitters are all good line drive hitters, and for the most part their homers are line drives that go over the fence and not moon shots like Hamilton hit.
Luke Healy
9 months, 1 week agoIt is interesting to me how you talk about the outfield position determining the type of pitching that the hitter will see—so the hitter knows this going into the plate appearance as well, does that affect his approach? Or can that get the hitter in trouble if they assume too much based on the outfield positioning?
Josh Cooper
9 months, 1 week agoI can see Moose being more of a 30-35 homer type guy, but we really don’t know. If Butler had kept up his pace this year he’d have also hit over 30 homers.
Joel Kallem
9 months, 1 week agoJosh, the operative word is “IF”. In fact, he has hit more homers in a single year than ever before, adjusted his swing, and still won’t reach 30 unless he goes on a tear. This is not a knock on him, it is just reality.
By the way, to revive an old discussion, the worth of Alex in the three hole is being proved as he is driving in runs at the rate of (almost) one run per game besides continuing to score runs himself. Since runs are the currency of wins, this is a big step to make the Royals more competitive on offense.
Joel Kallem
9 months, 1 week agoWonder if Alex did not try to barehand the ball off the wall in the seventh, would he have kept that run from scoring? Can’t knock him to much because he has made many super plays in the outfield that worked out, but was this a “mistake”?
Lee Judge
9 months, 1 week agoCorrections: A lot of the work that’s presented here on the web site is being written up between midnight and one in the morning and to be honest, mistakes are made.
I correct them when I can, so here are a couple: Perez was catching his 55th game last night, not his 54th. I looked it up on a web site late last night and apparently the odometer hadn’t rolled over by then.
We’ve also got Butler’s RBI total wrong. As I’ve said before, the system we use is complicated to maintain and sometimes glitchy. I’ve gone in and corrected the total, but it hasn’t shown up yet.
When I ask about stuff like this, I’m told the system is “cacheing” (not sure how you spell that), but I do know that’s IT guy talk for get away from my desk and leave me alone.
So if you find a problem in the numbers—we’re still cacheing.
Lee Judge
9 months, 1 week agoScott: Your question about power hitters is answered in the series of video Kevin Seitzer did for us. The current one is on the home page, the rest are under “Lee TV” at the bottom. That’s where the latest stuff shows up.
Lee Judge
9 months, 1 week agoThe size of Kauffman will affect home run totals in a couple ways: first, the size and second, the line-drive approach hitters in a big park will take.
Hit a high fly ball that’s out in Baltimore and you’re out in Kansas City. But the line-drive approach and size of the park are conducive to doubles.
Lee Judge
9 months, 1 week agoLuke: You ask a really interesting question. (I hope I’ve got an interesting answer.) Ask the hitters before a game how they’ll be pitched and they’ll know.
“He’s going to do this and this and if he gets ahead, he’ll do this.”
Hitters can also look at the defense and decipher how they’ll be pitched (which is why I urge fans to try it themselves—it makes the game more interesting).
When Doug Sisson told me how they’d defend and pitch Jeter, I figured I couldn’t write it, but Doug said it was OK, everyone pitched Jeter the same way and he was well aware of what they were doing.
Look for the outfield shift when a guy walks to the plate and it will tell you where they want the ball hit and that will tell what pitches they’ll throw. A ball hit into a big gap means a pitching mistake.
Alex was not supposed to hit the ball down the right field line, so when he did Cruz had a long run which is why Gordon tripled. As soon as the ball left the bat I said, “He hung a breaking pitch” and that’s what happened.
A lot of the game isn’t about surprise, it’s about execution: I know what you’re trying to do to me, let’s see if you make a mistake and I can jump on it.
Lee Judge
9 months, 1 week agoJoel: Alex trying to barehand the ball in the 7th, seemed like a possible error and I was waiting for the scorekeeper to rule on it. He never did or at least didn’t say anything about it if he considered it.
It seems the key would be if the runner was going to score anyway. I never saw a shot that showed what the third base coach was doing.
If he only started waving the runner home when the ball got away from Alex, I’d think it would be an error.
Jeff Circle
9 months, 1 week agoJust looked through all the Seitzer videos, and it just reinforced what I like so much about this site, it’s the tiny little details that we get to understand. There’s a lot going on every pitch, and the least little lapse of concentration or execution blows the whole plan away. Hitter gets anxious at 0-1, forgets the plan Seitzer gave him, chases a bad pitch, bad result. Hitter’s English isn’t that great, doesn’t understand some specific point of the hitting plan, gets fooled on a pitch he was supposed to expect. Hitter understands the plan, fully expects to execute the plan, but doesn’t know what the pitch looks like coming out of the pitcher’s hand because he’s a rookie and hasn’t faced the pitcher before, bad result.
I love the macro level insight that a lot of stats give, but when paired with the level of detail we’re granted access to here, I would hope the resulting conclusion for folks is that there’s a whole lot more moving parts involved to get that stat to move than maybe we all thought. I mean, I can easily try to walk more in my slo-pitch league because it’s not that hard to hit when you get two strikes - I can be passive until I can’t be any more. But at this level, you have to be aggressively passive, and that’s a tricky mindset.
Lee Judge
9 months, 1 week agoJeff: Thank you very much. That’s exactly the reaction I’m hoping for. The team has given me (and through me, the readers) incredible access.
They’ve done that because I’ve put in the time to prove I really do want to understand what’s happening on the field. And the players and coaches really want me, and you, to understand.
Lots of people take the view from 30,000 feet—a view that’s totally necessary, but that view is being provided by a lot of people.
I’m asking what it’s like to be in the trenches and getting in there with them—as much as possible by attempting some of what they do—and that’s the ground-level view we don’t always get.
If nothing esle, I hope the readers that follow this site come to realize and appreciate the complexity and difficulty of what we see every night.
Josh Cooper
9 months, 1 week agoTwo interesting tidbits I picked up from Rany’s website:
In the history of Major League Baseball, no pitcher has made 15 starts in at least five seasons without having at least one season with an ERA lower than 4.68.
And if you only look at time spent with the Royals, with a minimum of 250+ IP, Hochevar now has the worst ERA+ in Royals history with a score of 80. Kyle Davies is at 81.
Josh Cooper
9 months, 1 week agoOh, and as for the first bit of info up there, Hochevar will be the first person to do it unless he throws 22 consecutive scoreless innings which will bring him back to 4.68. Don’t think that’s happening any time soon.
Daniel Wesley
9 months, 1 week agoJosh, I agree with Rany that Hochevar is beyond maddening. Every indicator says he should be producing better than he does, and yet here he is about to turn 29 and for whatever reason can’t. Considering his upcoming arbitration pay raise, the prudent thing has to be to wish Luke well and send him on his way.
KC Guy
9 months, 1 week agoI think one of the most frustrating things on the macro vs. micro level is the idea that certain hitters would just be better if they started drawing more walks. It’s an idea that’s been pretty popular (and argued endlessly) for years now.
But, you don’t become a better hitter by drawing more walks. You draw more walks by becoming a better hitter. There is a definite difference. If you’re up there trying to draw more walks, you lose your aggressiveness, you watch hittable pitches go by, and you become a worse hitter. Sometimes, part of drawing more walks is swinging at the 1st pitch, it’s going up there hacking, it’s being aggressive early in the count. As long as you’re swinging at the right pitches, the walks will come..
Daniel Wesley
9 months, 1 week agoKC Guy, the Oakland A’s minor league system forces players to take a certain amount of walks before they can advance to a new level. Learning to walk is a skill that can be taught and learned discretely.
Thayne Griffin
9 months, 1 week agoCan’t remember the last time Alex didn’t make the play in LF. It may or may not have cost us a run, but it shocked me.
KC Guy
9 months, 1 week agoI think it’s all part of the same thing: learning to swing at the right pitches. The teaching method may be a little different, but the concept is still the same.
BTW, you have a link about that? I’m curious to read about the A’s philosophy overall if that’s the case..
Jim Wilson
9 months, 1 week agoThe debate is interesting but the fact is that the Royals are consistently horrible at drawing walks. And I’ve seen no real attempt to improve. I’m certain that the Astros will be on the cutting edge of teaching the skill of drawing walks, so keep an eye on them as well.
Thayne Griffin
9 months, 1 week agoSomething else, how did a) Cain not take off and/or b) Ned not send him. WE NEEDED THAT RUN. If he gets to 2nd it takes out the DP! He had already taken 3rd twice. Soto is 0/21 with the Rangers in throwing out base stealers. Now I don’t know how quick Nathan was to the plate, but it didn’t seem that quick..