I was watching a Cardinals game a couple of days ago (I believe it was the Sunday night one against the Mets) when one of the announcers mentioned that it was harder to bunt pitches that were elevated in the strike zone. The idea is that, since a successful bunt is almost always going to […]

Mets 6, Cubs 1: A pitchers’ duel until the 7th when the Mets unloaded on the Cubs’ bullpen, courtesy of an Angel Pagan homer, a Jason Bay double, an Ike Davis single and a Sean Marshall wild pitch. The Pagan at bat was hilarious. Jose Reyes was on first base, getting a few throws over, […]

Earlier today, Rob Neyer wrote about Ubaldo Jimenez’s no-hitter at his Sweet Spot blog at ESPN. He linked to an article by Thomas Harding about Jimenez’s switch of pitching deliveries mid-game: It was after the fifth-inning leadoff walk that Apodaca mentioned the idea that saved the game and set up Jimenez for history. At the […]

Braves 4, Rockies 3: Heymaker. The Braves trailed 3-2 with two-down in the bottom of the ninth. Heyward comes to the plate with the bases juiced and hits a two-run single to left field and that’s the ballgame. He had earlier walked with the bases loaded, giving him three RBI on the day. Martin Prado […]

Mike Leake will make his seventh professional start tonight. His debut in the majors came against the Cubs, and now he’ll face another division foe in Pittsburgh. In case you forgot—as many have—Leake pitched in the Arizona Fall League in 2009. While he certainly skipped the “minor leagues” and the long schedule and grueling travel, […]

Braves 6, Padres 2: Throwback uniform day at Petco. San Diego’s throwbacks were fairly hideous. Many people lump all of their yellow and brown uniforms together, but there were many variates working off that color scheme. Some were pretty sweet, actually. Yesterday’s, not so much. As for Atlanta, I like their current classic home duds […]

In 96 pitches over seven innings, Francisco Liriano limited the Red Sox to four hits and two walks, striking out eight. Those numbers dovetail perfectly with his observed stuff. Thanks to the glorious dead-center camera angle utilized by Fox Sports North, the movement on Liriano’s fastball was readily noticeable. Using MLB’s Gameday tool, let’s take […]

Here’s a visualization of a David Ortiz article written a few days ago by Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. I used a word tree program to visually summarize the article. Kind of cool what these programs generate.

Giants 6, Pirates 0: Inside the park home run for Aubrey Huff. See it here. To say that Garrett Jones played that one off the wall poorly would be like saying that King George made some fiscal miscalculations when he increased the tax burden on the colonies to help pay for the Seven Years War. […]

Blue Jays 4, White Sox 2: A no-hitter into the eighth inning for Ricky Romero, broken up by a two-run homer by Alexis Rios. Should it have been a solo shot? I’m not sure because I was on a plane last night when it happened and I haven’t gone back and checked the video yet […]