Games » Los Angeles Angels
Sep15A fantastic finish
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
It started with a single by Alex Gordon. The Royals were down 2-0 with one out in the ninth inning. Zack Greinke, the Angels’ starter, had pitched a great game: eight and a third innings, five hits and, with two outs to go in the ninth, no runs on the board.
Then Alex got that single, a soft flare the other way. Because Alex singled, the tying run was coming to the plate, and Billy Butler was that tying run. Billy was about to have his fourth at-bat against Zack. In his previous plate appearance, Billy had crushed a deep fly ball to center field.
Angels manager Mike Scioscia didn’t give Billy another shot at Zack. Scioscia went to his pen and brought in Ernesto Frieri to close the game. Frieri began the night with a 1.91 ERA and had held opponents to a .132 batting average.
Frieri has a good fastball and likes to throw it. Billy figured it was the percentage pitch, looked for it — and got it. A 94-mph four-seam fastball. Two- run homer to center field. Game tied.
Three pitches later, with the crowd still buzzing over Billy’s blast, Salvador Perez got the same pitch: a 94-mph four-seam fastball. Sal pulled his heater to left. Right away, Royals manager Ned Yost thought it was gone — then it started curving foul. Curving, curving, curving until it hit the foul pole. Game over. The Royals snatched a ninth-inning win from the Angels 3-2.
A fantastic finish.
Game notes
• Of course none of what the offense did in the bottom of the ninth would have mattered without another superb effort from Jeremy Guthrie, the Royals’ starter, who allowed two runs, five hits and one walk in eight innings. His price tag keeps going up.
• After Alcides Escobar singled in the first, Greinke tried to pick him off about 78 times. (My math could be wrong on that, but Zack threw over a lot.) Some of those pickoffs could have been all Zack, but many pickoffs are called from the bench. The coaches know the runner’s tendencies and signal for the pitcher to go over to first base.
• If you’re watching a game on TV, you can see the catcher tell the pitcher to pick by flipping his thumb toward first.
• A pitcher who attempts seven pickoffs (OK, I was off by 71) can lose focus on the man at the plate. Greinke hung a curve to Alex Gordon, and Gordon singled.
• Escobar went first to third on Gordon’s single. With runners on the corners, managers often put on the contact play (the runner on third breaks for home on any grounder). This forces the defense to choose between throwing the runner out at home and attempting to turn a double play. Fail to turn two, and the offense scores. Cut down the runner at the plate, and the offense still has a runner at second.
• Escobar broke for home on Butler’s grounder and was thrown out at the plate. But that meant that the Royals still had a shot with Gordon on second and Perez at the plate. Sal grounded into a fielder’s choice, and the inning was over.
• Eddie Rodriguez, the Royals third-base coach, recently talked about the need to be more aggressive on the base paths against good pitchers. You’re not going to get a lot of hits against an ace, which means scoring chances are few and far between.
• When the matchup — pitcher vs. hitter — doesn’t favor you, find another matchup: catcher vs. runner or outfielder vs. runner.
• In the third inning with Escobar once again on first base, Gordon hit a double-play ball. Alcides tried to get to the Angels’ pivot man, Erick Aybar, to break up the double play. Aybar responded by dropping down (throwing from a low arm angle) to make Esky get down on the ground early. Esky had to choose: either slide early or wear one on the forehead.
• In the eighth, the Angels’ Torii Hunter hit a low line drive to right field. If you were watching the game, you know that Jeff Francoeur lost the ball in the lights. If a ball is on the ground or high in the air, there is no problem. Low line drives can reach the same height as the lights and stay there.
• Johnny Giavotella made his second error of the night on a double-play ball. His first error went off his glove. The second error was on a throw. I don’t know whether anyone keeps track of this, but at the amateur level I saw a lot of errors on attempted double plays. Fielders get in a hurry, the footwork can get complicated and the pivot man has to deal with a runner. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of errors are made on attempted double plays in the big leagues, too.
A look back
There was a lot of interest in Ned Yost’s handling of the bullpen Friday night, so let’s take a look back at the last few innings of that game.
After six innings, Royals starter Bruce Chen had thrown 93 pitches and was due to face the No. 8, 9 and 1 hitters in the Angels’ lineup. Bruce had a 6-4 lead, and the hitters due up were a combined 1 for 7 at that point. Kelvin Herrera was not available (he had thrown two nights in a row), so Ned knew he was a man short in the pen.
Bruce came out for the seventh inning, got Alberto Callaspo out and then gave up hits to Chris Ianetta and Mike Trout. At that point, Bruce had thrown 105 pitches and was about to face the winning run in the person of Erick Aybar. If a starting pitcher takes a lead deep into the game, Yost — and a lot of other managers — don’t like to put that pitcher in a position to lose the game.
Chen’s pitch count was up. He was about to go through the order for the fourth time. And Aybar already had two hits off him. So Ned went to the pen. With Herrera unavailable, Ned was left with lefties Everett Teaford (being used as a long reliever), Francisley Bueno and Tim Collins. From the right side, Ned could call on Louis Coleman, Aaron Crow, Jeremy Jeffress, Vin Mazzaro or Greg Holland.
Aybar has hit .339 against left-handers and .272 against righties, so Ned went with Coleman. Louis got Aybar to a 2-2 count and then gave up a double to right field. Ianetta scored, but Jeff Francoeur’s reputation for having a strong arm kept Trout at third. With first base open, Coleman intentionally walked Albert Pujols and then struck out Torii Hunter and Howie Kendrick. The Angels scored a run in the seventh, but the Royals still had a 6-5 lead.
The Royals added a run in the bottom of the inning, and the score was 7-5. Aaron Crow came out to pitch the top of the eighth, got Vernon Wells on a grounder to short, gave up a single to Mark Trumbo and struck out Alberto Callaspo. Switch-hitting Kendrys Morales then pinch-hit for Chris Ianetta.
With Morales at the plate, let’s look at Ned’s options:
1) Let Aaron Crow face Morales: Crow was, in Ned’s opinion, pitching well. Crow has allowed right-handers to hit .277 against him, while left-handers hit .160. If you only look at those numbers, Crow facing Morales is a slam dunk decision, but let’s look at the other option.
2) Bring in Tim Collins to turn Morales around: Morales had hit .290 and slugged .467 against right-handers, .221/.456 against lefties. Collins had held right-handers to a .194 batting average, lefties hit .234.
Ned went with Collins. This turned Morales around to his weaker side. Morales, looking for a fastball, got one on the first pitch and homered. The game was now tied and Collins, who needed one more out to finish the inning, gave up two more hits and then hit Pujols with a pitch. The bases were loaded, and right-handed Torii Hunter was coming to the plate. Collins had faced four batters and retired none.
Ned had three right-handers left in the pen: Holland, the closer (who was unlikely to be used in a tie game in the eighth inning), Vin Mazzaro and Jeremy Jeffress. Mazzaro has a 5.77 ERA, and opponents have hit .323 off him. Jeffress has a 0.87 ERA, and opponents have hit .238 off him. Jeffress also walks almost one batter per inning. On the other hand, Jeffress strikes out more than one batter per inning, so he can be good or bad or both. Choosing between Mazzaro and Jeffress, Yost said he went with “stuff.”
Jeffress walked in the winning run.
As I’ve previously pointed out, managers, coaches and players have to make decisions before they know how the decisions will work out. Waiting for the results and then deciding what should have been done is a luxury reserved for fans and members of the media.
Saturday afternoon, Ned was asked about the decisions he made Friday night. Yost said that the hard decisions are the ones that are 50-50, but he wasn’t trying to put anything off on anyone else. It is Ned’s job to put the right guy in the right situation and accept the criticism when it doesn’t work out.
Clarification on the cutter
I talked with Dave Eiland, the Royals’ pitching coach, and he wanted to make sure I understood that he’s not in favor of eliminating Luke Hochevar’s cutter. He just wants Luke to limit its use. For Eiland, throwing it 5 to 7 percent of the time is the goal. Overuse of the cutter is the issue. Dave isn’t trying to take the pitch away completely.
Guthrie
Butler
Perez
Daniel Wesley
8 months, 1 week agoJust like I think Ned over-managed in last night’s game, I think Scioscia is guilty of the exact same thing tonight. There was zero reason to take Zack out.
Still, their loss is our gain… fantastic win!
Terry Payne
8 months, 1 week agoA dream win if there ever was one.
I have nothing against Zach, still that was one fantastic comeback victory.
I think Daniel is right. If this game had been played in the late ‘70’s, Zach would have been left in to finish what he started.
Chalk this one up to Tony LaRussa’s “Committee Theory” of bullpenning. or ” Chain Theory” or whatever the crap you theory idiots want to call it - “It” backfired on all of you.
Don Aubry
8 months, 1 week agoI took a look at the season points standings, and they confirm how much Billy stands out among all of the Royals as a hitter. It’s already been documented that, because of his lack of speed, Billy earns every point on his batting average with strength of his bat. The points system used here further demonstrates his value as a pure hitter. Even though he leads in the standings, he nets only six points as a fielder. Each of the next three have well over 100 points, and Salvy, despite his limited time, has 91. Even with Gordon emerging as a respectable three hole hitter, it’s only his production in the field that gets him close. It’s a good thing that we had an exceptional hitter doing his thing tonight.
However, I don’t have to go out on a limb to predict who will be at the top of the leader board next year. It will be the guy who hit the second homer.
Thayne Griffin
8 months, 1 week agoAnd the baseball gods said: “Zack Greinke will never win at the K!”
Lee Judge
8 months, 1 week agoThis morning I looked at MLB.com and read the Angels recap. According to many of the people leaving comments, Mike Scioscia is the worst manager in baseball and should be fired.
(One guy also thinks Jim Leyland is either the worst or second-worst manager in the game.)
As I try to point out on a regular basis, these guys have to make decisions before they know the results of those decisions. If the results are bad it’s usually easy to construct a story line that also makes the decision look bad.
Let’s say Scioscia left Greinke in and the exact same thing happened: Billy homered. It would be easy to criticize Scioscia for leaving a tired Greinke in to face a guy who came very close to hitting the ball out of the park on the previous at-bat.
I’m not arguing that I’ve never seen a bad managerial decision in the major leagues (Trey Hillman had me scratching my head on more than one occasion), but much of the time, if you go back over why managers did what they did, it wasn’t crazy. There was some logic behind the move.
Friday night, Yost made some moves that didn’t work, Saturday night it was Scioscia.
Joel Kallem
8 months, 1 week agoLee, your comments point out exactly the problem with web sites like this that let fans second guess decisions without having to take responsibility for them. There is always an alternative that can be constructed when a move doesn’t work out. However, the 10 other moves that did work out can be shrugged off. As you point out, managers do make bad moves, and we can and should point them out. However, we should also acknowledge the many “right” moves they make during the course of the game to provide balance.
Luke Healy
8 months, 1 week agoI understand the sentiment—focus too much on the moves that didn’t work out and you miss all the ones that did. Hindsight is always an unfair judge.
But in school if you get an 79% on a test you don’t focus on all those questions you got right, you look at the ones you missed to figure out why you’re stuck with a C and how to do better the next time. In business, if a guy does really well most of the time but then makes a big mistake that costs the company money, he’s gonna hear about it.
These players and managers are paid a lot of money. They should be held to a level of accountability. Do they have to be perfect and never make a mistake? No of course not. But I don’t think it’s unfair or a “problem” to second guess some and expect someone making millions of dollars to be good at their job—not just 70 or 80% of the time. We don’t have to take responsibility because we ain’t getting the millions.
I’m not a Ned Yost hater. Do I think he’s the best manager out there? No, but this is the Royals and he has done some good things for this young team despite criticism he has taken (believing in Escobar behind the plate is the biggest one that comes to mind). But let’s not coddle them and give them an “S” for satisfactory like a 2nd grader, and give the F or the C when they deserve it. They should take ownership of it as well.
Didn’t get to see this game but looked like a good win. Have to wonder what Greinke was thinking after the game. Guthrie performing well is grand and all, but I’m worried about the price tag being based on such a small sample size. Will the Royals pay that high tag for a three year deal and get bit when/if he goes back to Colorado Guthrie? I would like to hope for that not to be the case but I didn’t just become a Royals fan last week.
Larry Tindle
8 months, 1 week agoThe atmosphere at the park last night after the game was unreal. The energy in the stand was something I had never experienced. People just kept hanging around. People that think DM needs to sign Guthrie can’t possibly think they are not talking. DM likes to keep everything under wraps until it’s official. DM said last year they wouldn’t spend on FA until our core players were in place. These last 2 months have shown that the core is here. When we get good SP this team plays with anyone in baseball. I expect them to pursue SP hard this off season.
Joel Kallem
8 months, 1 week agoGuthrie is worth pursuing, but we shouldn’t expect an encore on his current run. He obviously is a good pitcher in our park, but he has been on a tremendous hot streak and it is unfair for us to think he will duplicate it as we move on to next year. He is a definite improvement in the starters, and we should sign him if we can agree to fair terms to both the player and the team.
Terry Payne
8 months, 1 week agoLet’s let the Angels fire Mike and the Tigers fire Jim. I still like Ned, but I would take either of those first ones, in a heartbeat.
Fans, the best of us, do not realize how difficult it is to manage a doughnut shop, let alone a MLB team.
Josh Cooper
8 months, 1 week agoGreat post, Luke. Agree entirely. There is a difference between calling for someone to be fired and acknowledging their mistakes.
Thayne Griffin
8 months, 1 week agoFor Guthrie, he got an unusual number of groundouts last night. Don’t know what caused that since he is primarily a flyball pitcher, right? He had 13 groundouts through 6, but I don’t know what he finished with. Anyone know what was going on? Did he have more sink on his pitches?
Terry Payne
8 months, 1 week agoLet’s take a fair look @ Ned.
Do we seriously think he’ll still be managing once the “kids” are grown and the team becomes competitive?
Let’s give Ned some credit, and tip him for being a good babysitter.
Jim Fetterolf
8 months, 1 week agoI think Ned Yost has done a fine job: the Royals have a competitive team, even with four major players still out, and are impacting playoff chances for a lot of teams. I think with better health and a little more experience of the players, Ned Yost and Dayton Moore will start to look more like geniuses.
Thayne, don’t have time to post the link but you can go to Brooks Baseball, enter Jeremy Guthrie in player card, then scroll down to select game, and see exactly what he was throwing. Zackie also had a bunch of GBs, might have been the ump allowing a low, wide zone.
Daniel Wesley
8 months, 1 week agoJoe, what do you mean, “let fans second guess decisions without having to take responsibility for them”? I post under my real name. I’m not hiding anything. If Ned Yost or Mike Scoscia saw my posts and asked me, I’d tell them directly that I think they both over-managed and cost their respective teams wins the past two days.
Do you think players, managers and front-office staff are above reproach? Do you think it’s somehow unfair to criticize - no matter what - even if we’re about to wrap up our sixth consecutive losing season under Dayton Moore?
Daniel Wesley
8 months, 1 week agoSorry, my previous post was directed to Joel, not the unknown “Joe”.
Jay Hall
8 months, 1 week agoBilly Butler deserves a lot of credit. He is both consistent and clutch, something that very few players are.
He rarely slumps, which means that we don’t see him get into a lot of hot streaks, so he doesn’t carry the team offensively for weeks at a time, but he contributes just about every night. That as consistent as you can ask.
At the same time though, he’s hit an 8th inning go ahead homer against Boston in May, a game tying bomb in the 9th at St. Louis, a walk off against Seattle and another game tying blast in the 9th last night. That’s as clutch as clutch can get.
I’d argue that Billy Butler should be this year’s Royals MVP because I can’t even imagine where this team would be if his bat wasn’t available.
Jay Hall
8 months, 1 week agoOn another note, Ned Yost’s comments today about guys needing to stay healthy and how that affects Dyson and Cain seems a bit unfair, at least to only single out those guys.
As I said the other day, Chris Getz, while solid this year, has missed significant chunks of time in two of the years that he has been in KC. If health is that big a factor, he should have been mentioned, too.
Bruce Chen has been a guy that traditionally has struggled to stay healthy and make 30+ starts or throw more than 160 innings until this year. Prior to the last couple of years, the same could have been said for Luke Hochevar.
It really makes me wonder about things when they make a statement like that regarding a specialist like Dyson, or a guy that doesn’t have as much of an injury history like Cain seems inconsistent.
If the Royals tender Hochevar and Getz, and don’t shop Chen, but cut ties with Dyson and Cain (both of whom are pre arbitration) under the argument that those guys can’t stay healthy, it will really call into question what exactly they are evaluating.
Terry Payne
8 months, 1 week agoJay - excellent points, all. I am a huge fan of Chris Getz, but I would trade him at the first heartbeat, due solely to his inability to stay healthy.
And as important as Billy B is to this offense, I would still trade him if the right deal for a pitcher came along. As good as he is, Billy is still a one dimensional player. I hate to state the ugly facts, but there you have it.
Jim Fetterolf
8 months, 1 week ago“If the Royals tender Hochevar and Getz, and don’t shop Chen, but cut ties with Dyson and Cain”
Haven’t seen “cutting ties” suggested, neither Hoch nor Chen have missed starts this year, but Getz has, so that at least is a point and will likely be considered, although suffering a concussion on a thrown ball, getting blown up by a base runner, and getting hit by a pitched ball doesn’t make a player injury prone like a tendency to pulls does. Strained equivalency all the way around.
Terry Payne
8 months, 1 week agoJF - I’d say Getz has as much chance of making 2013 Royals as I do of being Duke of Richmond. And, again, I’m a big fan of Chris G. What sez you?
Joel Kallem
8 months, 1 week agoDaniel, wasn’t referring directly to you with my comment, but to fans in general who comment about what managers should have done after they get to see what the outcome was of what the manager chose to do without ever acknowledging the many good choices the manager may have also made. None of us (as fans) take responsibility for our choices because they do not come in the flow of action and come after the fact. As I said, managers do make bad moves and it is fair game to criticize them and offer alternatives that they could have chosen in a given situation. However, we will never know if our choice was any better than theirs was since it does not actually change the game and that’s what I mean about taking responsibility.
Lee Judge
8 months, 1 week agoI’m getting to this late Sunday night so I don’t know if anyone will see this, but Ned did mention Chris Getz when he was talking about players who have been injured.
It just didn’t get reported.