What a pathetic game. First of all, bunting was a terrible decision. Second, fuck Papelbon and this team.
i kind of think bunting was a good choice, considering we had 2 .300 hitters coming up after. not to mention green's average has leaked a ton in the last couple weeks. and the defense tonight, as well as the pitching, was atrocious. letting up 21 hits to the oakland fucking A's is inexcusable.
sounds like IATA's AIM account. That's one inactive Twitter account right there. His only post in the last 12 days was to say that someone else's post was false.
Whatever. Penny is obviously not pitching well tonight, but he's been good pretty much all year while Smoltz has been nothing but shit in just about every start.
i think that pretty good is blown out of proportion. im curious to hear what your take is on dice k (where does he rank as being 'good'?) the guy doesn't eat any innings. as i've said before, im a huge fan of the stat k/bb. smoltz' is a 5.5 k/bb, which means he's making guys miss while not giving a free pass to guys. IMO, this means he will turn it around. just look at the guy, he's a HOFer with basically no bad seasons under his belt. penny has been shit since the 07 all star game, and that includes this year.
Again, outside of 3 starts his ERA going into tonight was 3.78. That's pretty good, especially for a 5th starter. You know what I'm a big fan of? Pitchers who don't get pounded every time they pitch. And Smoltz does not qualify. The guy just isn't a starter anymore. He's not "eating any innings" either, and guys are teeing off on him. He's not walking guys because they are hammering him instead. Some examples: Opponents have an OPS of .875 against Smoltz, and a SLG of .523. Opponents are hitting .318 off him. A ridiculous 13% of plate appearances against him result in extra base hits (Lg avg of 8%), and 43% of hits he gives up are for extra bases (lg avg of 34%). The guy is getting hit. HARD. In the first appearance against Smoltz, opponents hit .220 off him which isn't bad, and have an OPS of .604, SLG .300. In the second PA those jump to .360, .860, .500 which is not good. In the third PA it's even worse, jumping to .400, 1.353, and .933! That's to the point where it's only a slight exaggeration to say you or I could do better. The league averages for these are as follows: 1st PA- .253/.730/.402; 2nd PA- .272/.766/.432; 3rd PA- .281/.801/.457. Other than the first time through, he's been absolute garbage. This STRONGLY suggests that he belongs in the bullpen at the very least. A starter who is incapable of facing a batter more than once and still be effective is not a good starter.
i would have no problem moving smoltz to the pen, but not before penny goes. I do understand the facts that smoltz gets killed after he sees someone once, and I think that's related to fatigue, or just not enough strength yet. but even penny has no more than 2 effective pitches, which is useless as a starter. and as you can see tonight, he doesn't have his curveball, and guys are just teeing off on him. his ERA is high 4's. end of story. you can say this with inconsistent pitchers all you want. AND the Fact that he can't eat innings at all kills me.
Also, Penny's opponents hit him at a .235 average after his 1st PA. that's pretty good. it jumps to .353 for 2nd, .272 for 3rd. It's tough to justify that he is effective facing guys more than once through the order MORE than smoltz.
You know, you could have just typed "I'm going to ignore the facts and stick with wanting Smoltz based on name and reputation" and saved yourself a lot of typing.
Um, he is. The second time through is pretty even with Smotlz and the third time is not only FAR better than Smoltz, it's better than average.
i looked at the stats, but if you by these in april or may, then you were probably vying for beckett and lester to get kicked out of the rotation.
No, because Beckett and Lester are top of the line pitchers in their primes. Smoltz, however, is an over the hill mid rotation guy (at BEST) coming off major arm injuries (again) with diminished velocity and spotty command.
Smoltz is a real question mark for me, I just don't get his results right now. His peripherals look good, but whenever I watch him it seems clear something is off. His BABIP is high, but that might just balls in play being hit hard rather than bad luck. I do think in the bullpen he would be perfect. If he only pitched in 1-2 inning spots he would probably have a lot more velocity and would easily be one of the pen aces as he could consolidate all of his effort on select pitches.
you make it seem like penny's 3rd time through splits are something to brag about. they are both shitty. I just don't understand why you can't have more faith in smoltz than penny. I am going mainly by name and reputation, and penny's numbers aren't nearly good enough to make up for that.
