The Genius Maker #41

I had mentioned I wanted 11 out of these 16 and so far we have 4 out of 5.

Nice game tonight from Vazquez. He mixed his pitches and location well and more important he was able to hit his spots most of the night. He did make a mistake to Patterson who hit a HR, but pitched out of a few jams. The ump had a very big strike zone that each pitcher got some good calls from. Vazquez' ERA is down to 6.06 so at least he has been better of late. he does seem to pitch better against the weaker teams. We basically won because Tejada made a bad error in the 7th inning allowing 2 runs to score. Tejada had all day to make the play, took his time and fired low to Wigginton who couldn't come up with the in between hop.

Granderson hit a homer against a lefty and had 2 hits the other night, but they were all on fastballs; I am surprised they throw him fastballs for strikes. later when Granderson was up with a man in scoring position I said to my daughter, if they throw him a breaking ball he won't get a hit...after explaining what a breaking ball was(and how to throw one) he struck out on a ...breaking ball (in this case a curve ball). Either way, it is good to see some production out of Granderson against a lefty, we need it.

Joba was excellent today with fantastic velocity. He threw 96 consistently and threw the hardest ball he has thrown in over a year when the gun registered 98! He sawed off Tejada on an inside pitch...that was a good sign!

The Genius Maker looked pretty good closing out a 3-1 lead. I would like to see him tail the fastball away to a lefty once in awhile. He hasn't done that yet and I think it would give him another option away. He looked pretty good though, but not as dominant as the other night.

Cano is batting .366 now.

Posada should be back tomorrow and after tex fouled one off his foot we may need back.

Yesterday Gardner was thrown out twice stealing, both on perfect throws and once on a pitch out. The 2nd one bothered me because the catcher had to come up after a low pitch and while the throw was great, the release was a little slow and Gardner usually will beat that out. I think playing every day has slowed him up (slightly as he is still fast).

Last night Cano made a terrible play trying to go to 2nd on a single when the throw went to 3rd in an attempt to get ARod with 2 outs. It was a stupid decision and of course he made the "home plate" slide into 2nd base.

In contrast in terms of sliding in a heads up fashion, Gruzelaniek (sp?) slid into first base on a high throw off the bag and was safe because of it; compared to all the times we get tagged out because we were not as heads up. I think we need a sliding coach. Oh and BTW, while everyone states that sliding into first base is always slower, I want to take the contrarian view on that. While it is usually the slower way, there are times where your stride is not correct and runners take anywhere from 1-3 short steps for themselves to touch the bag and times like that you are better off diving head first. If you are running to a finish line I would agree that you should run through the line because it is just crossing (although your arms do get you some extension), but running to 1st base is different because you have to touch/land on a specific spot. I am actually surprised that this has not been analyzed more??? Then again first basemen don't stretch toward throws from the catcher or pitcher either?

One other note that was brought up yesterday that I agree with. They talked about lefties not being able to throw change ups to lefties and the same for righties. I don;t agree with this at all. if it is an effective pitch it would still work against the same side, but the ball would not tail away form the guy it would tail in and you could get a free pulled foul strike. if a pitcher has a very good change, you might throw it a little less against the same side (righty to righty), but you need to still throw it. Later on a righty threw back to back ones against ARod and it worked.

As I write this I just noticed the Rays who were down 5-0 to Toronto; scored 3 in the 7th and put up a 4 spot in the 9th inning to take a 7-5 lead.