Between Heads and Tails There's Guts...

It's not easy to determine how much of the universe is relevant to a given event, a pitch, an at bat. The event appears local; a pitcher on a hill of dirt, a batter 60 feet away. But every hitter and pitcher brings with them the mark of every hit and pitch from everywhere they've been, the stuff of prediction and maneuver.

Many psychological states are metaphorically described as physically concrete and tangible; a hitter may carry a burden, or the weight of the world into the batters box. These days, with adjusted and normalized stats, every pitch carries with it the entire league, the entire history of baseball even. Its only 4 feet by 6 in the batters box, but a whole lot can fit. If these stats are more predictive the more of the universe they encompass, are not these numbers carried with a hitter into the box, somehow making it- physically or otherwise- more or less likely that a particular something occurs? Or is the at bat isolated,a self-contained box of novelty and uniqueness? Are matters local, but statistics global?

I dunno, I just work here.

Its hard to predict playoff series, of course. Small sample size yes, flicks of contingencies and mood and clutchiness, sure, but there is also the question of relevance; which stats, if any, are most predictive in a short series? Throw out everything but that particular hitter/pitcher matchup? Or drag in the whole universe? Ignore Ortiz' stats vs. righties when Saunders is pitching? Is Ortiz the feared slugger temporarily non-existent in that scenario, or at least relegated to an irrelevant part of the universe? Or is he in there too, dormant or potent? Why am I using the rhetorical device of rhetorical questions today?

The recent head to head stats don't look good; the circumscribed universe looks confining. Beckett in two starts this year vs. LAAoA: 13.1 IP, 20 H- .345 opponents BA- 11 ER, 2 HR, 2 BB, 14 Ks. In a July 30 start at Fenway: 5.1 IP, 7 ER, 11 H, 8 K, 1 BB. And this start was sandwiched between 1 run in 7 IP vs the yankees, and 2 runs in 6.2 IP vs KC, not amidst a poor streak.

But of course Beckett is the postseason ace, the man who harnesses powers not implied by past performance, who spontaneously delivers something new and amazing, the man who finally lowers the axe after feeding the chicken every day hence (to borrow Bertrand Russell's illustration of the fowl's faulty induction; just because the farmer's always brought food, that doesn't mean tomorrow he won't bring the axe.)

New ace Jon Lester faced LA once this year, back in April: 5 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 2 HR, 2 BB 1 K. DiceK, he of the most unwatchable 18-3 record of all time, had one start, too: 5 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 2 HR, 2 BB, 3 K

But is that all that's relevant? Facing anaheim is similar, so that's one category to project, but postseason performance is another- does Lester's start against Colorado last year count for something now? Is it projectible? Does this baggage travel with each pitch?

From 2005-2007, John Lackey had a 5.53 ERA in 5 starts vs. Boston, and an underwhelming .344 opponents BA. But this year, Lackey was 2-0, allowing 7 H in 16 IP, 5 ER, and 10 K, stifling the Sox for a .132 BA. Which manifestation will show up? And Saunders was also 2-0, 3.38 ERA (though he did walk 9 and only whiff 6.)

Is that all they carry? Of course not; there are plenty of burdens and weights of the world to go around; we all know the Angels have lost 9 straight postseason games to the Sox going back to '86 (the relevance of which greatly decreases as we move backward in time, as we are wont to do), whereas anaheim has won 8 of 9 this year, including two recent sweeps.

So what projects, what predicts? Can we cherry pick; are they in season?

The Angels won 100, best in the league, but were 10th in runs scored, 9th in homers, and not even best in pitching; 5th in starting, 4th in relieving. These runs scored and against are the two legs that make the hypotenuse of their Pythagorean expected record a more humble 89-73, good for 6th in the league in +/-, just barely ahead of the Yankees, and well behind Toronto, who actually finished a run better than Tampa (+104 to +103, giving the bluebirds something to really be sad about; 94 shoulda wins.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Sox were 2nd in runs and 3rd in starting pitching (though 7th in bullpen,) but good for the leagues best +/-, and an expected record of 97 wins; that's 8 ahead of the the angels in the separate Platonic realm of ideal mathematical records. So does that project, or is it the bumbling too too real team that can't win one run games on the road that takes center stage on TBS, where, contrary to popular opinion, there's only one october?

It's tempting to predict one team or another in 5, but that means saying that it will be tied after 4, which amounts to the specific prediction that one particular team will win one specific game; a hazardous guess indeed. Statistical tendencies to understand the transpirings seem not applicable to single perspirings. At the level of sweat, as the joe morgan's of the world know, the players, not the numbers, play the game.

The playoffs are fun because worlds hang in the balance, teetering on the edge of uncertainty and contingency, with no time for regressing to the mean.

Shit happens, crazy shit.

Nonetheless, 95 wins down, 11 to go.

Sobyrd Up; The Goggles are Off

Plato contrasted Ideals, known through the pure intellect, with the imperfect world we see. I've been idealizing finesse pitchers lately, Paul Byrd being the salient instance, but what I saw Friday was certainly imperfect.

(Does Byrd just slightly resemble Socrates, by the way?)

Byrd was serviceable, technically delivering a quality start- 3 runs in 6 innings, though that amounts to an entirely common ERA of 4.50 (and being common, 'quantity' rather than 'quality' seems appropriate.) More important to me than the many hard hit balls that went for outs, though, disguising the weak showing, was the real lack of artistry on the mound. There was no one pitch sequence that wowed me; the art critics' epithets of 'pedestrian' and 'derivative' sprung to mind during this underwhelming performance. I never oohed nor ahhed. Pitches tailed back over the middle of the plate, Tek had to cross over, curveballs hung, suspended in mid air.

Worse, I felt critical of his approach to lefthanded hitters, rather than delighted; there was no magic, no suspension of disbelief, just a guy with his hand up a puppet's butt (as they say.) Byrd doesn't go inside enough on lefties, which amounts to pitching with one hand tied behind his back. After the Rolen double in the second, he got a called strike on a rare inside fastball to the lefthanded Zaun, which straighted him up. He then accidentally threw a changeup in, which also surprised Zaun, called for strike 2. Then he threw a backdoor curve that didn't even make it back to the outside corner, but Zaun drilled an RBI double to left anyway, obviously looking for the pitch away; Zaun saw through the smoke and mirrors, and even after two in, didn't think lightning would strike thrice.

Byrd has terrible splits this year; he pitches well against righties, .249 BA/.277 OBP/.418 SLG, but .313/.355/.528 against lefties (that's an .883 OPS). Of his 32 walks all year, 24 are to lefties, the asymmetry of which suggests trepidation, and 5 of his 7 hbp's are against righties, suggesting he goes in only to them. Remy called Byrd's "purpose pitch" up and in to Vernon Wells; finesse pitchers must pull off the illusion of looking like power guys sometimes. But to lefties too; they're not just righties in a mirror.

I think a large part of Mussina's renaissance this year has been his improvement throwing the front-door fastball to lefthanded hitters; it looks like its coming inside off the plate from the righthanded pitcher, but moves back over the inside corner. Byrd would benefit greatly from that pitch. (Mussina in 2008: .858 OPS vs. righties, .592 vs. lefties. In 2007, .822 OPS vs. righties, .799 vs. lefties.)

That pitch is magic, after all; it bends backwards, going against the grain, back from whence it came. It hypnotizes; lefties freeze in their tracks.

And as Derek Lowe showed both Terrence Long and Adam Melhuse in the '03 ALDS, that pitch comes about as close to approaching a Platonic Ideal as any one pitch can.

Byrden of Proof; off-day update*

Start with a quote: "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that," John Stuart Mill once wrote.

Elaborate: If he can't refute the other side, Mill continued in On Liberty, he hasn't grounds for his position, and if he hasn't understood why another would think differently, he doesn't truly understand his own view.

Show the relevance: Not everyone likes Byrd as much as I seem to, an opinion you may know from such blog posts as yesterday's (of which this is an update), and they have good reasons which I must face. For a hard hitting case towards that end, (though also a quite flattering reference to yours truly) see Jere's as always on-the-ball blog.

And in case you're into "evidence" culled from "objective reality" (weirdo), here are some statistical measurements:

Byrd: 98 ERA+, 101 with the Sox, 1.31 whip. With the Sox, 4.74 K/9, 1 HR and 1 BB per 4.75 IP, .792 opponents OPS overall, .826 with the Sox.

Wakefield: 109 ERA+, 1.21 whip, 1 HR per 6.8 IP, 2.9 BB/9, 5.72 K/9, and only .699 opponents OPS.

My ideological preference for finesse pitchers can blind me to the facts on the ground, making me a hawk for Byrd. But I can see the other side. As long as it's not because Byrd's tipping his hand, I'm ok with that.

End with a rallying cry: San Dimas high school football rules!

* This blog post contains almost 50% recycled material. Go green!

conCERNed with the 4th Boson starter

Obama knows division is bad; so who wants to win the division anyway? Wild Card it is, then. It has a nice ring to it. (Pun, as always, intended.)

So, it turns out that choosing the Sox' 4th (and final) starter for the playoffs is a philosophical dilemma. Assuming Colon is out of the running, (also intended), it's between Wakefield and Byrd. Both are perfectly capable of shut outs and getting bombed. Though Wake's numbers are a bit better overall, he has two stinkers lately, and the stats aren't too far apart. So what's left? Symbolism, naturally.

There's the dialectic of physics and luck, on the one hand, and of will. I like to think of pitching, where so much is in the pitchers hands (I'll stop point them out), in terms of the human categories of will, focus, and drive. Hitting, though, is reactive, and is so often physics and luck; trajectory, geometry, physiology, wind...ology. (By the way, for these notions applied to Beckett vs. Sabathia and the 'o7 ALDS, see here.)

Assuming this schema, I can't stand watching Wakefield "pitch." He's all physics and luck; the knuckleball simply exploits laws of physics, it doesn't finesse them. There's little craft (though of course there's skill.) Off it goes, and, as is so often said, once it leaves Wake's hand, even he doesn't know where its going. Because 'he' doesn't have anything to do with it; it's in the universe's hands, now.

By amusing to me contrast, consider what I wrote about Paul Byrd a few weeks ago; in short, that Byrd can continue guiding the ball as it travels to the plate (it's kind of like in Nintendo's RBI Baseball); that's how subtle and sly the craft of the finesse pitcher is. I like to imagine a metaphysical extension of the self in the finesse pitcher; his will extends beyond the confines of his body to continue to finesse the ball as it travels to home, its teleological destination. Wake is detached at the albeit finely filed fingertips, and the ball is as likely to end up at the backstop as anywhere else; no natural home-seeking motion with the indiscriminate blind particle that is the knuckleball.

So I just can't leave the postseason to chance. For some, the postseason is the most meaningful of events. For others, it's too small a sample size. For the postseason to be meaningful, it has to be thought of as definitive, not random, the result of the virtues- perseverance, talent, and all that etc- not either statistical determinism or fluctuation, a blip off the bell curve. People are right to feel a sting at the disproof of the existence of clutch; it's a moral category replaced by measurement. Clutch is meaningful, not metrical.

So even if Wake can throw a gem- which of course he can- it doesn't mean the same to me. I want to see Byrd battle the elements, his physical shortcomings in the form of an 87 mph fastball, the battle against physics and luck for the sake of will and guts, even if those guts get splattered, rather than take the trial and error that maybe proves that there's a Higgs boson and maybe blows up the universe that is Wakefield.

Though I could be a bit biased. I was at the Aaron Boone game, after all.

Bullp*n!

They say baseball's relationship to time is unique among sports; only a baseball game can be infinitely long, where it's merit, and not time, that continues or ends the game. As such, predictability goes out the window, as we could be here awhile.

Not so when watching an archived game on mlb dot com; the video player likes to say how much time is left in the file. So when I can't watch a game live, mlb punishes me, destroying the illusion of infinitude, endless possibility and unlimited expanse; they insist on not just finitude, but the precise amount. They say if you can't quantify it, it don't exist, but, well...

So it wasn't enough that after missing the live game after teaching, avoiding newscasts and emails to watch the battle for first unencumbered by what was by then historical fact, free to revel in my own narrativologizing (not a real word, methinks), that the internet had to crash in a game tied at 1 in the 8th inning, and I had to wait until Wednesday morning to see the predetermined conclusion. No, I had to sit there, watching the Rays get the lead runner on in the 9th, and see that there was about 3 minutes left in the video file of the game. When you can see the end of the tunnel and there isn't any light...

Now of course they can't hear you when you scream at the tv, and they really can't hear you when the game isn't live, but that swing and miss by Pena on a 1-1 count with a runner on in the 9th that got reversed like a McCain policy in a campaign (ha), because apparently an umpire had called 'time', not simply to name it but to stop it, because Tampa's answer to 'what part of 'bullpen' don't you understand?' is 'pen', you know, the 'enclosure' part, because a stray ball just moseyed onto the field just before the pitch, though unbeknowst to the relevant parties, and so the strike didn't count and Pena ended up walking on a full count instead of whiffing, well, i still yelled 'horsesh*t' at the computer and its stupid finite video file. Or horsepen, or whatever.

In any case, Beckett was fantastic. Threw two tons of curveballs, with great command. Got some called third strikes on fastballs after setting them up with a curve. (See how that works, Josh?) Beckett and Tek even seemed not to bicker, for once. At one point, (the 4th?), Tek went out to the mound on a full count to Hinske, 1st and 2nd one out, and Beckett threw his first changeup, to get the whiff. Good communication, good strategy, not a law of nature that Beckett has to throw a fastball there. He's ready for the playoffs.

Logical Fallacy of the Week: Says Me

It won't be until the next generation of Sox fans that the Schopenhauerian pessimism and anxiety that comprised the Sox fan identity before '04 will really be cured.

But as a positive, self-affirming, Stuart Smalley step in the here and now, to combat the scars, I'm simply going to assert that the Sox will win the division, sweep Chicago in the ALDS, beat Anaheim in 6 in the ALCS, and then win another world series title against whoever that quadruple A league throws to us lions.

And I'm going to go all zealot on this one. I'm going to say providing evidence and argument in favor of this conclusion is to concede and sew seeds of secular humanist doubt, and that real faith is just saying something and deciding it's true. Yup, I'm committing the fallacy of assertion here- that I say it, I say, is an argument for its truth.

Of course there are reasons for doubt. The Sox only scored 3 runs against Tampa's, what, number 4 starter? The pen's put the 'argh' in 'inconsistent' all year, and obviously the coin has landed heads for Anaheim in our recent head to head.

But I won't put my critical period pre-rings pre- everyday sellout psychology as a basis for worrying about the future; I'll emphasize Lester's nastiness, his season high 9 ks, his beautiful sequences, like getting a called strike two on a backdoor curve in the 2nd to Navarro, and then dropping the slider in the inside dirt, inducing a meager half swing that died and went to limbo, or a fastball for a called strike on the inside corner to Baldelli leading off the 5th, followed by a cutter further in on the hands, off the plate and on Baldelli, chopping him down as he hacked, and then freezing Rhode Island's Own on a paint job, 93 mph outside corner at the knees.

Yeah, all that instead of the 1-0 fastball Lester grooved to Pena with 2 on and 1 out, as the tying run in the 6th, that Pena just got under and skied to center, or that Perez' scorcher to lead off the 8th was caught at short, that Zobrist missed a dong by about the length of the word 'dong' two batters later, and that Pena's double that knocked Lester out of the game bounced into the stands, saving a run, or that Francona doesn't trust Okacarmen in tight spots and had Lester start the 8th already having thrown 105 pitches, ultimately tossing 119 before going to Papelbon.

No, all that con stuff is for ol' timey Sox fans, and that pro and con stuff in general is for rational people. Funk dat. I don't care about bases of inferences, only bases and outs. Sox all the way. Woo. I believe it, therefore its true.

So there.

Hitting From the Bottom of the Deck

When the skills decline, what's a player to do? Cheat, of course. Varitek continues to get beat on fastballs fair and square, so what other recourse does he have?

Tek, in the 2nd inning of Monday night's 6-3 Sox victory over Baltimore, pulled a 94 mph fastball for a homer to right field, just his third in 64 games. And then in the 7th, he pulled a grounder down the first base line on a 92 mph fastball.

How does such a slow bat get around so early on fastballs? What's the ace up his sleeve? Simple. A 2-0 count in both cases. A hitter's count. A fastball count. A count where Varitek can cheat.

I've noticed this for a few weeks now; Varitek is cheating in fastball counts, looking fastball, and starting his swing early, so he can get around on the predictable pitch. This is a last ditch effort to survive, using brains over that other quality, the one that fades earlier than brains.

Of course, cheating risks getting pinched; it's the price for living dangerously. And if Tek gets an offspeed or breaking pitch in a fastball count, he's apt to get caught redhanded. In the 8th, against stupidly named Rocky Cherry, Tek was ahead in the count 2-1. A count where one is to be selective, waiting for that perfect pitch, and only then making a move. But Tek tipped his hand; gearing up for a fastball, Tek starting his swing early, and had no choice but to chase a slider down and out of the zone. And then guessing fastball again on 2-2, he chased another slider down and out of the zone, for the whiff. In the 9th, Tek had another 2-1 count, and this time was well ahead of a changeup, fouling it off, only to then take a belt high fastball for a called third strike.

Tek was caught cheating on the basepaths last week, too. On Thursday, he tried to get an early start on a stolen base, and left before the pitcher delivered. The pitcher stepped off the rubber, and caught Tek in a rundown, the result of which was not in doubt.

Of course, I can't help concluding that all this cheating business relates to mortality; wishing to stave off infirmity, Tek is looking to cheat death any way he can, to get whatever edge he can muster before old age catches him in a run down. But of course death catches everyone in a pickle of inevitability; it's just a question of staying in it long enough for the other runners to advance.

Anywho, in cheerier news, Bay slammed two dongs, and Lester continued to be the my-subjective-ace, defined as the guy who prompts me to say to myself 'phew, he's pitching tonight.'

Yeah, I say 'phew'. Even to myself. And in private moments, no less.

Wishing Upon a Star Pitcher; Sox Really Win 5-1

One of the White Sox announcers- since they're so obnoxious I won't do them the honor of distinguishing them- said, after the Red Sox broke the game open in the 9th, that this game had "turned into one of those nights you wish hadn't happened."

That's false, of course, if the second person pronoun is referring to me. But I wasn't about to let this instance of moral relativism or grammatical ambiguity vanquish the joy of this aesthetically pleasing victory.

Monday's finale of the 4 game series with Chicago had a purity, a good ol' solid baseball game-ness to it. One pitcher- Danks- took a no-hitter into the 7th, expertly moving his fastball in and out, working his slider in on righties, and keeping the changeup away. The other- Beckett- dotted fastballs around the corners of the strike zone without filling in the area, striking out 8 in 8 innings, walking none, and allowing just one extra base hit (a double.) Lest such a game be too picturesque, butts played a key role; Ellsbury's getting hit by a pitch on the butt broke up a perfect game in the top of the 6th, and Crisp fell on his whilst snagging a potential RBI double to end the bottom-pun is there, whether intended or not is immaterial- of the 6th, holding the Sox deficit at just 1-0.

Close, well pitched games tend to turn on a single sequence; after a cutter down and away that Drew missed, the next pitch was a fastball in the same spot, and Drew shot it into the gap in leftcenter for a 2 run double, putting the Sox up 2-1 in the 7th. There's often a point in aesthetically pleasing games where the competitive element creeps back in and this was it; the appreciation of an opponents' game, even while we're losing, is broken by the 'fuck yeah' of a 2 run go ahead double. This tends not to happen in art museums, and is just another reason why baseball is better than everything. Take that, art.

Part of baseball's betterness involves the contingency and luck, the element of absent design that must be admitted on pain of reality. Up 2-1 in the 8th, Cabrera's liner couldn't have been closer to the left field foul line, just missing a lead off double which would have put the tying run into scoring position. Instead, he flew out to left. The kind of thing that one- one- might wish never happened. But one- me- doesn't.

And Jed Lowrie continued to show why the concept of Lugo should no longer be instantiated. With 2 out in the 7th, Drew on second and Lowrie down in the count 0-2, the kid calmly took a changeup away, the pitch (and location) that Danks had masterfully used for the bulk of his K's that evening. Lowrie took another, and then another, running the count full; Lowrie was able to flip the pressure from him to the pitcher, (can pressure be flipped?) who was now responsible to make the perfect pitch, rather than Lowrie having to hit whatever he got. Danks didn't, and Lowrie earned the walk. In his next AB in the 9th, Lowrie turned on an inside fastball on a 2-0 count, driving a 2 run double to left, turning a 2-1 nail biter into a 4-1 nail filer, breaking open the game, revealing it's juicy series-splitting insides.

This had turned into one of those nights you wish hadn't happened, I guess, if you are Julio Lugo. Which you are probably not. But if you are, well, sorry.

Varitek the Wise Pitch Caller; Fastball Fastball Fastball Fastball Fastball Fastball Fastball Fastball

Ted Williams hated pitchers. Thought they were dumb. As an amateur pitcher: hey! As an everything else, he may have a point.

But somebody has to be smart out there. Crash told Nuke "Don't think, Meat, just throw." If the pitcher's the meat, the catcher's the soul, the ghost in the fleshy machine.

So we leave it to Captain Varitek to steer the ship, (to be the homunculus piloting the meat-craft?). After all, Tek is renowned for his preparation. And we all know how well he handles the pitching staff.

But in the last game before the non-waiver trading deadline, the Sox were humiliated by the Angels 9-2, who swept the Sox for the second time in 2 weeks. And Varitek put down the fingers.

Beckett breezed through 3 scoreless innings. In the 4th, Maicer Izturis lead off. Fastball, fastball, fastball, fastball, fastball, fastball for a double. Beckett then starts Teixeira with a fastball strike, drops a curve, and then gets the whiff with the fastball. Fine. But then Vlad Guerrero steps up. Fastball, fastball for an RBI single. Then Torri Hunter. Fastball, Fastball for a double, 2nd and 3rd. 1 out. Anderson steps up. Fastball. 2 run single.

John Farrell visits the mound. Kendrick to the plate. Curveball, curveball, curveball, curveball for strike 3. Then Mathews. Curveball, Fastball, fastball, and then Beckett took something off, and got Mathews to tap back to the mound.

I bet John Farrell could hit .215. But that's not his job.

After Beckett tossed a scoreless 5th, and the Sox got 2 back to cut the lead to a single run, Remy calls on Ace Beckett for a "shut-down inning" in the top of the 6th.

Beckett starts Hunter with a curve for a ball, then walks him after 3 straight fastballs. Then 3 more fastballs to Anderson, and the shot hooks around the Pesky Pole for a two run dong faster than you can say Hanley Ramirez.

When Beckett is a two-pitch pitcher, he's hittable. When he's a one-pitch pitcher, he's terrible.

But he's just the meat.

The fastball that Anderson hit for the 2 run single in the 4th was down and away, possibly even out of the strike zone. Perhaps not such a bad pitch. I believe it was at this point that Remy said "you've got to tip your hat to the hitter sometimes." Maybe so. But that particular pitch shouldn't be hittable, and a pitcher- and a catcher- do bear some responsibility for allowing it to be hit.

I have a theory of pitch complements. Basically, every pitch needs a complementary pitch that looks like it but isn't, in order to create doubt and hence delay in the hitter's mind on any given pitch. A fastball down and away, as textbook as it sounds, is worthless without a changeup (or splitter) down and away that that fastball might be, as far as the hitter is concerned.

From Anderson's point of view, he sees the pitch moving down and away. But there's no chance that that pitch is a breaking ball because breaking balls can't start that low, and because Beckett NEVER THREW A CHANGEUP, that leaves a 100% chance that that pitch is a fastball. So Anderson's neural timing mechanism yells 'swing, dummy', and he is able to get out in front and pull a Josh Beckett fastball that is down and away from him, and hook it into rightfield, which should be next to impossible.

If Beckett's been dropping changeups there all night, or at least once in a while, there is no way Anderson leans out and hooks that pitch. Instead, concern about the change either has him take that pitch, or slows him down enough that he tops over it and grounds out to second.

And whose job is it to have Beckett drop some changeups down there? Captain Varibelli, that's who. He's the brains of this operation. The guy whose great catching and pitch selection is what makes his atrocious hitting palatable. Everyone knows Manny isn't the leader. Varitek is. And he hasn't figured out how to lead the staff against the Angels, who have battered the Sox for a 6.26 ERA over these 8 straight Angels victories.

I've said it before- Josh Beckett is only as good as his changeup. In '06, there wasn't enough differential between his 95 mph heat, and his 90 mph changeup. In '07, he got the change down in the mid to high 80's, and was dominant. Now, he's abandoned the change, it seems, in favor of two seamers and an alleged cutter, in the 90-92 range. Not good enough. He needs that third speed, an offspeed pitch down in the zone to complement the low fastball, to get the hitter a) looking low, and b) waiting on a low pitch, both of which then make the high 4 seam fastball that much more difficult to reach.

I don't care if Beckett isn't "feeling" the changeup that day. Meat doesn't feel. Meat's a zombie. Meat throws. Varitek should know better.

King Hippo They Ain't; Sox Drop M's, 4-2

The Mariners' only weakness is their lack of talent. The Sox' weakness is that they aren't perfect.

This was not a game played between equals; while the Mariners struggled to keep up, the Sox sparred.

Though the cliches are true- the games aren't played on paper, these are the teams you're supposed to beat- and there is always joy in any victory, imperfections were visible, the kind that are noticed when victory goes without saying, and a team is really playing against it's idealized self.

Dice-K lamented not going 9- "If I couldn't throw a complete game today I don't know when I'm going to do it." The Sox wore down M's starter R.A. Dickey without even a single strikeout, but left 10 men on base. Papelbon notched the save, but failed to record a strikeout.

These imperfections were hidden by the dim light of the last-place Mariners, but they might appear under the bright lights of the postseason. The '08 Sox aren't yet ready for the big stage; a training montage might still be necessary.

Dice-K has shown better command of the breaking stuff, which is most effective when it catches plenty of the plate and falls off the table, rather than starting on the corners and leaving familiar territory.

But Seattle is last in the league in runs scored and OBP, and 12th in walks. If Dice-K couldn't keep a low pitch count today, I don't know when he could. And even when successful, Dice-K is never entirely in control; a Seattle broadcaster appropriately described him as "effectively wild," as he walked 3 in 7 1/3 shutout innings; his control was intermittent. At times his fastball was spotted at the knees, in the classical style, other times he'd decapitate a righty if only a lefty wasn't up.

Papelbon's jabs are true, but his haymakers haven't made hay lately; though saving consecutive games, he hasn't recorded a strikeout in either. He of the 12.96 K/9 IP in '07 hasn't had a multi-strikeout game in 10 outings, dating back to June 24 in Arizona. As Rob Bradford pointed out a few days ago, Papelbon's getting fewer swings and misses, and far more ground balls this year. That characteristic explosive escalation on his fastball has stalled, and hitters are not just making contact but are even getting on top of the ball.

Championship teams, even in victory, can ill-afford to overlook their imperfections. There are always hungry contenders out there, looking to knock the champs' block off while the champ wrestles Thunderlips for charity and comic relief.

Lester Returns Home, Claims Territory, Inhabitants

Jon Lester crowds righthanded hitters. He gets all up in their grills, or their kitchens, or wherever they prepare foodstuffs.

His cutter is relentless, and territorial. Lester lays claim not just to the inside part of the plate, but inside off the plate, even spilling into the righthanders' batters' box. There's nowhere to go. Lester's cutter invades hitters' personal space.

Just watching him makes my studio apartment feel smaller. Lester's a close talker, and he's saying 'broken bat.'

Personal space is about boundaries, and exclusion. If matter is impenetrable, two things can't exist in the same place and time. But Lester's cutter gets in there. And something's got to give. Those maple bats sure look penetrable.

In going 7 1/3 scoreless, Lester was dominant, and efficient. Only 3 three-ball counts, and no walks. A hitter's count implies possession, but tonight hitters had no title, no claim, no land, no property. The batters box provided no sanctuary. Lester owned, moved in, and planted his flag in the righthanders' batter's box.

Lester won his 8th, lowering his ERA to 3.20, good for 7th in the league. The Sox looked at home against a second-division Mariners club, shutting them out 4-0. The Sox' struggles on the road this year are well known. Regaining their imperialistic tendencies- claiming soil foreign to Fenway and annexing exotic batters' boxes- would go a long way towards capturing glory and treasure.

No Bones; Sox crumple, lose to O's 7-3

Clay Buchholz entered the game with an ERA+ of 78, and he lived up to the billing, allowing 4 runs in 5 innings as the Sox dropped a snoozer to the Orioles, 7-3.

Much has been made of the attempt for Clay to increase his command of the fastball, but tonight that big overhand curveball that makes scouts drool was all seasoning and no meat. He consistently left the curve high and inside on righthanded hitters and away from lefties, which belies an early release point and perhaps some here-you-take-it anxiety.

Perhaps to hide the criminal neglect of his talent, Buchholz flashed his potential like a fake badge, striking out 5 in the 3rd and 4th innings. In the 4th he whiffed Luke Scott on an archetypal changeup, down and away, a pitch that added to the sum total of beauty in the world.

But true baseball beauty comes in patterns and repetition. The mechanical aspect of pitching in command is the discipline to duplicate previous motions; Clay was not pitching so much as his body was throwing, and save that one stretch, was not in control of anything. With 5 walks and 107 pitches in 5 innings, he fought a losing battle.

The game as a whole had no bones; and before the last gasp failed rally in the 9th, the Fenway crowd was unusually silent. Sox hitters uncharacteristically took a rather blase approach to mediocre Orioles starter Brian Burres, who somehow made it into the 7th inning with a low pitch count despite walking 3. Instead of the grinding approach characteristic of the Sox that erodes top starters and pulverizes the middling, the Sox seemed to think that with minimal effort on their part, the bats would hit Burres' underwhelming stuff for them. But sluggish is not slugging, and the Sox failed to capitalize on the Yanks and Tampa losses.

Adjusted Legendary+; Schilling, Mussina and the Hall of Fame

Two caveats before we begin.

First, I'm not entirely sure this kind of thing is kosher, but this post is an expanded version of a comment I left on this Joy of Sox post. But as a footnote using-academic who's also busted people for plagiarism, I figure I can get away with it on the strength of self-anointed authority alone. (They call this bootstrapping, I think.)

Second, though this one's based on new fangled sciencey numbers, I do end on a philosophimical note.

So with only some further ado, there's been talk of Schilling's and Mike Mussina's Hall of Fame candidacy recently. (The comment I posted was in response to a discussion of the latter's.)

Judging Hall of Fame candidacy requires comparing pitchers from different eras, and ERA+ is a one-stop metric that shows how good a pitcher is relative to the league (and thus era) in which he pitched.

More precisely, and to quote Joy of Sox from the same post,

"ERA+ is the ratio of the league's ERA, adjusted to the pitcher's ballpark, to that of the pitcher. 100 is league average. Top-shelf starters will finish their seasons with ERA+s around 140."

For completeness, here's the all-time career list. For relevance, perhaps gerrymandered, here's a condensed list. Pedro Martinez, at 157, is far and away the best all time. Roger Clemens, that cheating douche, is at 143. Johan Santana 141. Sandy Koufax, 131.

Tom Seaver, a Hall of Famer, is at 127, which is the same ERA+ as Curt Schilling and John Smoltz. Jim Palmer, a HoF'er, is at 126.

Juan Marichal, who's in the Hall, has a 123 career ERA+. Mike Mussina has a 122, which is better than HoF'ers Don Drysdale's 121 and Warren Spahn's 118.

In the comments of his post, Joy of Sox suggested that Mussina's comparables are Schilling and Marichal.

So, that's the backstory.

According to my calculations, and by 'calculations' I mean 'copying from columns I see',

Mussina's 6 best full seasons for ERA+ are 163 (in the strike year of '94), 157, 145, 142, 137, and 134 (and no more above 130.) But he's also had 6 seasons at 109 or lower, including 3 out of the last 4 under 100 (not including this current bounce-back year.)

Juan Marichal's 5 best seasons of ERA+ were 169, 168, 167, 144, and 132, (and no more over 130), and had only 4 seasons of lower than 113 (not counting his last two seasons, which totalled 60 innings), though 3 were under 100 (98, 97. 95)

As a starter, Curt Schilling has 4 seasons in the 150's, 2 in the 140's, and 3 more in the 130's. In seasons with at least 90 IP, he's had just 1 season under 100- 99 in '93- and just one other under 120.

It looks to me that Marichal's peak was better than Mussina's in the same amount of time, and Schilling has been better for a longer period of time than Mussina.

Burt Blyleven has just missed the cut for the Hall many times, and is the recent archetype of the borderline Hall candidate. His career ERA+ is 118, but a quick glance at Burt Blyleven's ERA+ numbers show him to be the better comparison to Mussina. Blyleven recorded 6 seasons over 130 (158, 151, 144, 142, 140, 134), but 7 under 110.

I don't know where exactly the cut off should be, but it might very well be around Blylevan and Mussina. And as of now, Blyleven has 1000 more K's than Mussina. Mussina might reach 3,000 k's (he's around 2700), and he might get pretty close to 300 wins, which obviously would help his candidacy.

At its best, the Hall might represent the dialectical synthesis of statistics and legend, of quantity and perception.

And I think the numbers show Mussina to fit a certain perceptual type; not quite the ace, never the very best pitcher, not the The Man you want on the mound in the big game, but instead a very good pitcher for a long time.

Schilling, on the other hand, has the regular season numbers to match his well-documented postseason heroics; for an entire decade, he was one of the very top pitchers in the game, and when healthy, never mediocre. I think Schilling is in.

One way to look at the debate is whether certain milestone numbers are both necessary and sufficient for Hall entry, or whether such numbers are only necessary, but insufficient without the stuff that legends are made of.

In other words, there's a symbolic debate here; is the Hall exclusively for the very best, those few players of each generation who attained the revered status as The Man, the kind of guy the old timers tell tall tales about, or is it also for those players who performed well-above league averages for a long period of time, but never reached the heroic levels that encourage the formation of legends in addition to statistical analysis?

I don't know. I just work here.

Choosing a pitch from the list; Tampa squeezes Sox, 3-1

Connoisseurs are selective, discriminating. They distinguish between the good and bad, the worthy and the base, and select only the finest. What is common and bountiful is vulgar. Only the perfect sample will do.

There are plenty of pitches. Pitches are common. The selective hitter, especially when in a hitters' count, discriminates between the pitch of his liking, and everything else. He knows what is worthy of his swing.

In two crucial at bats in the 6th inning, J.D. Drew and Manny Ramirez opened the wine list, couldn't read French, and pointed randomly.

Two runners on, Sox down 2-1, top of the 6th. Drew up with a 3-1 count. He hacks at a fastball on the inside corner- a pitchers' pitch- shatters the bat, and pops out. Manny, up next with a 2-1 count, chases a high fastball out of the zone, fouls out to first.

Foul indeed. Gauche, even.

The 3 and 4 hitters, on a championship team, down by a run, late in the game to the division leaders, have to show poise and selection. They have to be connoisseurs. When the pitcher is ahead in the count, they take what they can get. But this wasn't one of those times.

The Rays come away with the victory. They came through in the clutch. They chose the right pitches, they attacked the strike zone with fastballs, forcing the Sox to take what they were given.

This is going to be a race.

Lord of the Orange Groves

Wade Boggs would be rolling over in his grave.

If he were dead.

How else to express the betrayal by his beloved Tampa Bay Famous Original Rays?

In first place. Widening their lead, even. They're spitting on Bogg's legacy. And Fred McGriff's. And Brent Abernathy's. How could they?

People love an underdog. Speak truth to power. The meek shall inherit something or other.

I used to tease a friend of mine who would always root for the underdog by saying he had to switch allegiances with every lead change.

Nietzsche saw 'master morality' as the identification of strength and goodness; virility and virtue are one. Slave morality is the inverse; power is oppression and subjugation. To automatically root for the underdog is to identify weakness with goodness. It's a sort of slave morality.

Tampa's a good team. They are strong. James Shields has great 12-1 movement on his fastball (tailing back into a righthanded hitter.) Javier Lopez should not have thrown a fastball strike to the righthanded Gomes on an 0-2 count with the sacks full of Rays, but they earned it. The Sox are no longer the underdog. That aspect of the narrative has played out.

What we have here is a rivalry. When Gerald Williams charged Pedro, I was indignant. How dare a commoner? I took umbrage. That was a peasant revolt. He should have known his role. But now, well, the 3rd estate is moving up in the world. The Rays are contenders.

Sox fans who were in it for the underdog story, the plucky rag tag fighters against the Evil Empire, might have a hard time making the transition to playing the bully, the establishment, the $140 million juggernaut, squashing the upstart Rays and their impossible dream.

Not me. Last I checked, the point was winning. That master/slave thing is for losers anyway.

Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Pitching But Were Afraid to Ask

From the Archive: June 9, 2008

Ok, ok.

So a few time units ago, some people either claimed they didn't know much about pitching or prodded me (you know, in the good alien way) to explain stuff, starting from first principles.

So I’ve actually gone ahead and done that- written an expository, pedagogically friendly essay on the basics of pitching. Find the link to the pdf. file below.

And yes, by normal people email standards, its very long. But in all honesty, if you don't know that much about pitching, you might get a lot out of it, and if you do get a lot out of it, you will understand baseball games a lot better, which will make them a lot more fun. So it might be worth a shot.

On the other hand, if you think I’m a pompous long winded grandiloquent jerk, you might not want to read it. Unless you simply want confirmation.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3576978/An-Introduction-to-Pitching-Goldwater?secret_password=spvq8bj71tulhma4c15