Two nights in a row our starters were ass against AAA pitching. LMJ giving up 6 hits and 2 walks in 4.2 innings against that lineup doesn’t exactly make you feel great either.
First hit - ground ball down LF line. Didn't look especially well located near the bag. Correa was off the line and didn't get a particularly good reaction. He also slipped on wet dirt later. This is a groundout more often than a hit depending on positioning and footing. 2nd hit - flare into shallow left. 3rd hit - Correa slips losing his footing on a groundball that should have been a double play. 1st walk - called 3rd strike was 1/2 inch outside on challenge review. Nothing wrong with that. Good location on the edge. Most of the time its not challenged. Gotta live on the edges. 4th hit - soft flare into CF 5th hit - soft hit linedrive to CF. 2nd walk- pitch just under bottom of zone on 3-1 and not challenged. Close pitch. I have no problem with it. 6th hit- hard hit double past Correa- legit. Lance faced 22 batters over 5 innings He struck out 7 (4 looking and 3 swinging) walked 2 on competitive pitches Gave up 1 of his 2 runs on a groundball double play ball where the fielder lost his footing. Only one of the 6 hits he gave up was hard hit. I think the exact opposite- this final tuneup for Lance was very encouraging.
Great thing in baseball is two people can see the same thing and think totally opposite about it I saw Ullola looking like he is MLB ready
Yep Except we should expect way more games from Yordan, and a better overall year from Cam I also think we will get more from Loper and Brice than we did from all the backup OF we spun out there last year
Well - there are strikeouts........ then there are STRIKEOUTS....... and there are STRIKEOUTS. 100 strikeouts in a season..... not a big deal. 150 strikeouts in a season? Hmm.... okay. More than that and I think it gives pause. I will say though......... last year James Wood struck out 225 times and still had an OPS north of 800 and was a very good player. Mike Trout struck out 180 times and would have been over 200 with more at bats..... a lot of guys were striking out 33% of their plate appearances and most were still productive and in the middle of the order. So maybe Cole can be a productive starter with 250 K's? Seems absurd but Wood wasn't far off.
I honestly think strikeouts are better than hitting a lot of ground balls. The issue is strikeouts generally implies you seldom make solid contact. Who cares if you strikeout 3 times a game if the one time you don’t strike out goes for extra bases. Because of Cole’s speed, if he can just get on base one third of the time, I’m cool. The guy got an unassisted run from a walk a couple of days ago.
Adam Dunn (plus speed) is probably the best comparison point. He routinely had 200-ish K's and 100 walks and got MVP votes.
There are 27 outs in a perfect game. 250Ks are about 4 perfect games of nothing but strikeouts, more than the average OF in the majors. It takes a lot of thump to make up for that. Maybe my math is wrong, as the thought of 250Ks breaks my brain. The end result is how much a batter produces...just makes it very hard.
I agree with you. I am willing to see what happens with Cole. However I suspect there are some negative externalities not being considered. One positive is it at least takes three pitches to strikeout… I guess my next question is how many pitches does he take to strikeout? He draws walks so I doubt it is just 3.
Well if I am a pitcher, I am going to be extra careful with Cole at the bottom of the line up. He can homer, he draws walks and then he can steal bases.
A lot of “what ifs” Meyers needs to hit like last year and Cam of Cole need to establish themselves…. If we don’t have someone step up, we may see Dana Brown start working at shagging balls in right field.
He averages over 4 pitches which is close to what Paredes averages. He’s a patient hitter that seldom chases. He does everything right except make contact consistently. LOL
