Friday, April 22, 2011

KC/Cleveland Series Review

We came into the series with a one game lead over KC for first place. We leave with a one game lead over KC for first place.

Kansas City is playing some great baseball right now. Alex Gordon made some fantastic plays with the glove. They have 3 hitters on 10+ game hitting streaks. Bruce Chen is pitching well.

Splitting a series with KC is completely acceptable at this point in the season. Much like Cleveland, it is unclear how KC will play over the course of the full season, but right now they are playing very good baseball.

Jose Mesa's eyes (warning signs) - Ttfc giveth, and ttfc taketh away. In my review of the Baltimore series, I wrote that our 5 - 1 recorded (at the time) against left handed starters was a sign of hope. I explained, "The risk of a left heavy lineup struggling against lefties is that it tempts the manager to play bench players against left handed starters." Against left handed Bruce Chen, Manny Acta started bench players Adam Everett, Shelley Duncan, Lou Marson, and Austin Kearns. It is this lineup that I hoped we could avoid. Sure, sure, the bench players did alright in the game, going 3 for 12 with 2 walks. I don't care. This is a bad lineup. All of these hitters are mediocre at best. Playing them all at once is setting up the opposing pitcher to succeed. I want to never see these names together on a lineup card again.

We are a predominately left handed hitting lineup. It can be tempting to use several right handed bench players against left handed opposing starters. This temptation must me resisted. I hope that Tuesday's game can stand as an aversion therapy.

John Hart's vision (signs of hope) - I have a piece on Matt LaPorta coming out on The Hardball Times website. Here is a teaser. Matt LaPorta has a hitting streak, of sorts, going. For the second game in a row, LaPorta hit a breaking pitch for a base hit.

Update: My Matt LaPorta piece is online.

Alex Cole's batting average (misleading stats) - If Josh Tomlin was a band, he would be Guided by Voices or Pavement. Tomlin is low-fi. He doesn't have a polished sound, but he brings it on every song.

That said. Tomlin's 2.33 ERA is the misleading stat of the series. Right now, Tomlin has the 4th best BAbip in the majors. Tomlin has a .182 BAbip. That means the hitter are hitting balls at defenders a vast majority of the time. This won't last.

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