Hurt's So Good
Great game last night. Great. Exactly what I wanted to happen happened - Big Frank had a great game, and the Sox won.
Thomas has always been my favorite Sock, and probably always will be. A lot of that has to do with the fact that his reign of terror on the AL took place from about the time I was ten until some time during college, formative years to say the least. But part of it also has to do with the fact that he was just an absurdly good hitter during that time. In my mind, he's not just a Hall of Famer, he's an inner circle Hall of Famer.
Don't believe me? Coming into this season, Thomas had the 11th highest career OPS of any player in history, and the 6th highest for a right-handed hitter. Of the five righties above him, three (Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Rogers Hornsby) are already Hall of Famers, and the other two (Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez) should be there some day. And keep in mind, Frank's career OPS has dropped precipitously in the past few years as he's declined; when you consider his peak seasons (1991-1997), he ranks even higher.
I was extremely proud to be a Sox fan last night when the crowd gave the Hurt a standing ovation his first time up. Sox fans get a bad rap due to a couple of admittedly horrible on-field episodes, and I have to admit that I was expecting something along the lines of what Jim Thome got this year in Cleveland, so to see them do the classy thing felt good. Frank launched a homer to left right after the ovation (his first of two on the night), a storybook event which I think he deserved after missing out on the playoffs last year.
Perhaps, as the media so often insinuates, Thomas is a big asshole. Perhaps not. They used to chastise him a bunch for caring so much about his personal statistics, but that never really bothered me. For starters, shouldn't he care about his individual performance? Those stats are how a player bargains his next contract. It's the same thing as a person caring about their grades in school, or a work evaluation by a supervisor. Baseball is Frank's career, after all. And furthermore, why should we care what he was thinking about, as long as he was helping the team win? And until Magglio took over the reigns in the late 90s, no one on the Sox made a bigger contribution in the standings than Frank.
Besides all of the hullaballoo surrounding Thomas' return, it was a very odd game. A squirrel ran around on the field for a few minutes, chased by groundskeepers in what easily could have been footage from a 100-year-old slapstick silent film. And more importantly, the Sox bench pulled out the win with some unlikely heroes.
Barry Zito was damn near unhittable. And I say that in the broadest sense, because Sox hitters actually did a good job of exploiting his one weakness - a propensity to walk batters. But all we could muster against him was a measly sac fly, and it looked like it would be an easy win for the A's. But super-sub Rob Mackowiak finally displayed some power - and clutch power at that - in the 8th inning, and Pablo Ozuna won the game with a bunt in the 10th. Chris Widger, starting in place of Pierzynski with the nasty lefty on the mound, was another contributor off the bench.
I actually wasn't so crazy to see Ozuna lay down that bunt. I mean, of course I was elated about the result, but as a tactic I think it's risky. Players who bunt are thrown out at least 90% of the time; perhaps that number is slightly lower when a player is trying to bunt for a single, but the point still stands - your chances of getting on via a bunt are lower than trying to get on via a full swing. And with two outs and the winning run in scoring position, you pretty much have to lay down the perfect bunt to score. Granted, Ozuna did, so I'm not complaining. But re-do that play 100 times, and most of the time the game goes into the 11th inning.
I thought the behind-the-plate umpiring was very inconsistent last night. Zito was getting a lot of calls that Garland wasn't, and Thome was called out on an absurd strike in the bottom of the 9th.
Lastly, there were two good examples last night of how hit-or-miss Hawk Harrelson's announcing can be. And I'm not talking about his shtick, which consists of about 20 or so expressions used over and over again - that you either like or don't. I'm talking about his baseball insight. His hit last night was when he said that when healthy, Bobby Crosby is one of the most underrated players in baseball. Hawk is absolutely right: just 26 and immensely talented, Crosby is a shortstop who most teams would take in a heartbeat. Hawk's miss was when he called Nick Swisher an "aggresive young man" at the plate. Swisher, another great young talent, has a career OBP 91 points higher than his career batting average; you're not going to find many "aggresive" hitters who walk that much. As if to prove my point, Swisher prompty drew a base on balls mere seconds after Hawk's comment.
Thomas has always been my favorite Sock, and probably always will be. A lot of that has to do with the fact that his reign of terror on the AL took place from about the time I was ten until some time during college, formative years to say the least. But part of it also has to do with the fact that he was just an absurdly good hitter during that time. In my mind, he's not just a Hall of Famer, he's an inner circle Hall of Famer.
Don't believe me? Coming into this season, Thomas had the 11th highest career OPS of any player in history, and the 6th highest for a right-handed hitter. Of the five righties above him, three (Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Rogers Hornsby) are already Hall of Famers, and the other two (Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez) should be there some day. And keep in mind, Frank's career OPS has dropped precipitously in the past few years as he's declined; when you consider his peak seasons (1991-1997), he ranks even higher.
I was extremely proud to be a Sox fan last night when the crowd gave the Hurt a standing ovation his first time up. Sox fans get a bad rap due to a couple of admittedly horrible on-field episodes, and I have to admit that I was expecting something along the lines of what Jim Thome got this year in Cleveland, so to see them do the classy thing felt good. Frank launched a homer to left right after the ovation (his first of two on the night), a storybook event which I think he deserved after missing out on the playoffs last year.
Perhaps, as the media so often insinuates, Thomas is a big asshole. Perhaps not. They used to chastise him a bunch for caring so much about his personal statistics, but that never really bothered me. For starters, shouldn't he care about his individual performance? Those stats are how a player bargains his next contract. It's the same thing as a person caring about their grades in school, or a work evaluation by a supervisor. Baseball is Frank's career, after all. And furthermore, why should we care what he was thinking about, as long as he was helping the team win? And until Magglio took over the reigns in the late 90s, no one on the Sox made a bigger contribution in the standings than Frank.
Besides all of the hullaballoo surrounding Thomas' return, it was a very odd game. A squirrel ran around on the field for a few minutes, chased by groundskeepers in what easily could have been footage from a 100-year-old slapstick silent film. And more importantly, the Sox bench pulled out the win with some unlikely heroes.
Barry Zito was damn near unhittable. And I say that in the broadest sense, because Sox hitters actually did a good job of exploiting his one weakness - a propensity to walk batters. But all we could muster against him was a measly sac fly, and it looked like it would be an easy win for the A's. But super-sub Rob Mackowiak finally displayed some power - and clutch power at that - in the 8th inning, and Pablo Ozuna won the game with a bunt in the 10th. Chris Widger, starting in place of Pierzynski with the nasty lefty on the mound, was another contributor off the bench.
I actually wasn't so crazy to see Ozuna lay down that bunt. I mean, of course I was elated about the result, but as a tactic I think it's risky. Players who bunt are thrown out at least 90% of the time; perhaps that number is slightly lower when a player is trying to bunt for a single, but the point still stands - your chances of getting on via a bunt are lower than trying to get on via a full swing. And with two outs and the winning run in scoring position, you pretty much have to lay down the perfect bunt to score. Granted, Ozuna did, so I'm not complaining. But re-do that play 100 times, and most of the time the game goes into the 11th inning.
I thought the behind-the-plate umpiring was very inconsistent last night. Zito was getting a lot of calls that Garland wasn't, and Thome was called out on an absurd strike in the bottom of the 9th.
Lastly, there were two good examples last night of how hit-or-miss Hawk Harrelson's announcing can be. And I'm not talking about his shtick, which consists of about 20 or so expressions used over and over again - that you either like or don't. I'm talking about his baseball insight. His hit last night was when he said that when healthy, Bobby Crosby is one of the most underrated players in baseball. Hawk is absolutely right: just 26 and immensely talented, Crosby is a shortstop who most teams would take in a heartbeat. Hawk's miss was when he called Nick Swisher an "aggresive young man" at the plate. Swisher, another great young talent, has a career OBP 91 points higher than his career batting average; you're not going to find many "aggresive" hitters who walk that much. As if to prove my point, Swisher prompty drew a base on balls mere seconds after Hawk's comment.
posted by Jake Berlin | 7:38 PM
1 Comments:
Big Frank deserved the accolades from the crowd and delivered with 2 mammoth shots. like days of yore
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