Aero Bars

Lovely Lady #1 suggests, "Get the Aero Bar"

Lovely Lady #2 responds, "...but it tastes like soap!"

Lovely Lady #1 retorts, "It has all those air bubbles in it, so there's less calories."

Occasionally I overhear conversations and I smile. This was one of those moments.

Latin America: Cultural Hot Bed.

Regardless of subject, be it art, literature, or economics, I find myself perplexed by most references to the works of influential Latin Americans. Latin American names, you see, apparently coincide with the baseball portion of my brain. 

Without fail, any reference to Diego Rivera will illicit an impromptu scouting report: "Couldn't hit a change-up, but mashed the straight stuff. Got stuck in AA and never lived up to his potential"

MLB.com, Hrm.

I'm not really a Star Wars fan, but in Toronto, raising one's hand while forcefully lowering the other hand onto the head of a robot of the opposite sex signifies enjoyment whilst receiving a dirty gummer.

How this is the ultimate father-son experience is beyond me, but our boy C3PO looks to be having one hell of a time.

PS: I have Arizona (-1.5) parlayed with LAA (-1.5) and PHI (-1.5) for a pretty decent payout. Hopefully this turns out well. We'll see though.

Drabek on the Mound: Redux

Before Drabek's start, I posted words on the internet.

What I'd Like To See Today:

1. Continued control over the change-up.

1. Improved control on the sinker.

1. Some whiffs on the bender which he only threw five times against the Red Sox

Let's go ahead and peg Drabek for 7IP, 3ER, 6K, 3BB. You'd take that, right?

I would say that Drabek outperformed my optimistic guestimate with his 7.1 IP, 2R, 1ER, 1BB, 6K performance.

Now, to the points:

The Drabek Change-Up:

Hot damn. Drabek threw eleven change-ups and didn't disappoint. It again had terrific sink to it and managed a swinging strike rate of just under 45%. Dirty.

The Drabek Two-Seamer:

I would say throwing 40 two-seamers and getting 27 strikes aint all that shabby. Toss in an average velocity of 93.7mph and it's pretty gosh-darn good. Drabek only managed three swing and misses on the sinker, but the pitch was incredibly effective for him.

The Drabek Breaking Pitch:

Drabek only threw fourteen breaking pitches, but managed strikes on eight of 'em. Of course, he only got whiffs on two of those fourteen pitches, but he really didn't to use the bender as an out-pitch.

All and all, a pretty impressive outing.  Here's some brooks' data to sort through:

Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %	Swinging Strikes / %	Linear Weights	Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	93.41	95.3	-3.64	7.19	34	21 / 61.76%	1 / 2.94%	1.6453	0.402
CH (Changeup)	84.99	86.8	-6.80	1.19	11	6 / 54.55%	5 / 45.45%	-0.1644	0.439
SL (Slider)	80.64	81.7	4.39	-4.44	9	5 / 55.56%	2 / 22.22%	-0.9009	0.463
CU (Curveball)	80.42	81.6	4.06	-4.31	5	3 / 60.00%	0 / 0.00%	-0.4157	0.465
FC (Cutter)	90.90	91.9	0.21	4.09	4	1 / 25.00%	0 / 0.00%	-0.6174	0.408
FT (TwoSeam Fastball)	93.76	95.2	-8.04	4.86	40	27 / 67.50%	3 / 7.50%	-0.7651	0.401

Kevin Gregg: The Worst.

Kevin Gregg is the worst pitcher in the entire history of ball sports, including but of course not limited to, baseball.

Thanks, Buddy.

Old-Timey, New Timey.

Multitasking is something that my generation does remarkably well. Sure, old-timey housewives could manage a family while smoking, cleaning, and drinking copious amounts of red wine, but it's my generation that reigns supreme in the realm of multitasking.

The objects that we interact with are built for multitasking. My broom, specifically, acts not just as a sweeping tool, but also as an air guitar. It is currently functioning quite well as I've recently discovered Katy Perry. Also, my apartment is very dirty. I may be embracing Katy Perry's hit anthem Last Friday Night a little too much.

With that said, my television seems to be built as a single purpose device and is certainly unsuitable for baseball. Unsuitable at best! 

Baseball deserves nostalgia. Baseball deserve analysis. The television offers neither. Hint: Buck Martinez is stupid.

As such, I'll continue to crank the radio to the Fan 590 AM while viewing the Blue Jays pfx data via MLB Advanced Game Day. I'll do both these things while typing up a blog post and listening to Katy Perry's artistic masterpiece, Teenage Dream.

Over 99 million people watched this video on youtube before me and I sincerely hope that you were one of them.

Drabek On The Mound

So Kyle Drabek's set to take the mound against the O's later today and I'm cautiously optimistic. Drabek's currently sitting pretty with just a single earned run against in five and change innings, but the secondary statistics are still reason for concern.

Drabek's first start against the Red Sox was an intriguing one. Only righties were able to snag hits off him (Youkilis, Pedroia, Ross) and only lefties managed walks (Ortiz, Sweeney, Ellsbury.) Drabek finished up with a WHIP of 1.125, but the K:BB ratio of 1.33 wasn't exactly...ideal. With that said, Boston's fairly patient and Drabek showed some serious improvements.

First, he felt comfortable going to his change-up against lefties. He had pretty solid command and control over the pitch, and really only made one blunder. Against Boston's big lefties, I incorrectly assumed that Drabek would go cutter-heavy. Brooks Baseball listed two pitches as cutters, but you could probably argue for a handful more after viewing the pfx data. Drabek's change-up looked decidedly major-league level. There was added sink, further velocity separation, and quality arm-side run.

The only real issue Drabek had against the Sox was locating his sinker. The pitch had terrific velocity, sink and arm-side run, but was all over the zone. Drabek went to it about a quarter of the time, but almost 61% of the pitches went for balls. Against lefties, Drabek somehow managed to toss almost 70% of his two-seamers for balls. On the plus side, the Red Sox just couldn't do anything with the pitch when they swung. They'd miss it, foul it, or pound it into the dirt.

Now, for the phrase that you've heard a thousand of times:

Kyle Drabek needs to trust his stuff.

Drabek looks primed for a break-out sometime soon if he can just trust his stuff. He may never be the 8K-per-9 pitcher that everyone expected, but he's got the arsenal to be a very good player.

Baltimore's a righty-heavy squad so Drabek should fair well. Only Markakis, Davis and the switch-hitting Wieters will have the platoon advantage. If Drabek pitches a good game, we could see some solid strike-out numbers. If Drabek tries to get too fancy and makes mistakes, the Orioles certainly have the power in their bats to make him pay.

What I'd Like To See Today:

1. Continued control over the change-up.
2. Improved control on the sinker.
3. Some whiffs on the bender which he only threw five times against the Red Sox

Let's go ahead and peg Drabek for 7IP, 3ER, 6K, 3BB. You'd take that, right?