I’m not sure what the Twins were thinking when they intentionally walked Angel Berroa to load the bases with 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th inning. John Buck then stepped to the plate, and Juan Rincon buried a pitched that got by Joe Mauer scoring Reggie Sanders from third. That run broke the 3-3 tie. Buck then smoked a double to right-center to drive in the other two runs, putting the Royals up 6-3.
It was another great game for the Royals, who have really been playing well over the last 4 or 5 weeks. Starter Brandon Duckworth pitched well, going 6 innings and giving up 3 runs. The bullpen contributed 3 scoreless innings and Ambiorix Burgos pitched a rather calm ninth inning for his 14th save.
The offense pitched in with some timely hitting, including Buck’s 2 RBI double. David DeJesus’ 11 game hitting streak ended, but he did drive in a run with a sacrifice fly.
The current hot player in MLB right now is Joe Mauer, the catcher for the Twins. Mauer is hitting around .390 and is showing signs of being a significant hitter for the Twins for years to come. Mauer looked somewhat mortal in this game, though. In the first inning, Mauer couldn’t handle a throw from left field as Mark Grudzielanek scored. He also had the run-scoring passed ball in the seventh, and had a poor throw to second on an attempted stolen base. Mauer did reach out and smack a pitch for an RBI single in the fifth inning, and is now batting .391.
Buddy Bell was ejected after arguing a strange call. I’ve seen this before in my son’s little league games, but I’ve never seen the rule come into effect in a pro game. With a runner on first, the batter foul-tipped a pitch into John Buck’s mitt. The runner was running on the pitch, and Buck tried to grab the ball out of his mitt to throw it down to second. He bobbled the ball, then (very intentionally) dropped the ball to the dirt. The umpires huddled and ruled that the runner could stay at second base. This goes against conventional wisdom since foul balls are typically dead balls and runners cannot advance, and if foul balls are caught, they typically are outs. But in the case of a foul tip with less than three strikes, it is not an out, it’s simply a strike and if the catcher catches it, runners may advance at their own risk. In this case, Buck did catch the ball, but dropped it when trying to throw to second. The umpires made the correct call, but Buddy Bell disagreed.
The Bell Curve
Actual Record 23-50
Expected Record 26-47
Runs Scored 363
Runs Allowed 501
Projected Record 52-110
Pythagorean Record 56-106
Pythagorean Winning% 0.344
Let's go get 'em
No comments:
Post a Comment