A Sea Of Red

How about them Rays?

jbock13 wrote:How about them Rays?

+1

I'm off work next week and hope to make it to game 3 or 4....we shall see

That should be an amazing experience postman.

I figured starting Matt Moore would work out, but wow, I didn't think it would work out that well. Hopefully we can win one at home finally and advance.

getting runs early was key. If the Rays weren't able to put on a couple runs early I am not sure if he would've felt as comfortable

... and this is why I don't like joe maddon. Shields needs to be yanked. NOW!!!

He doesn't even know how many outs are in an inning. That and its not funny to watch him and Shoppach play cricket.

Shields had to pitch 5 outs in the 5 run inning. The ump has a terrible strike zone. He wasn't sharp but he was toughing his way thru it until he was forced to get 5 outs in that inning.

Let's just hope we can win 2 games at home.

ToTheLeft wrote: Let's just hope we can win 2 games at home.

I'm not sure we can! We did in the end of the regular season though.

Well, Longo just hit a 3 run jack.

jbock13 wrote:

ToTheLeft wrote: Let's just hope we can win 2 games at home.

I'm not sure we can! We did in the end of the regular season though.

I think we have the better of the pitching matchups for those games, tho.

Price and Hellickson.

I don't have much confidence in Price. He's just turned into a predictable fastball pitcher and quite frankly he can be taken advantage of so easily.

jbock13 wrote:I don't have much confidence in Price. He's just turned into a predictable fastball pitcher and quite frankly he can be taken advantage of so easily.

... seriously? What makes you think that? The fact he struck out more often and walked less often this season? :\ Don't quite understand. He had a bad start to end the season, sure, but cmon now...

Who called the 3-2 fastball right down the middle to Texiera on Wednesday? Even if it was Shop, Price should have shook off on that.

I'm not saying he's not a good pitcher. But he's not lived up anywhere close to his ability this year.

That and also strangely we get no run support when he's pitching.

ToTheLeft wrote:

jbock13 wrote:I don't have much confidence in Price. He's just turned into a predictable fastball pitcher and quite frankly he can be taken advantage of so easily.

... seriously? What makes you think that? The fact he struck out more often and walked less often this season? :\ Don't quite understand. He had a bad start to end the season, sure, but cmon now...

he isn't nearly as sharp this year as he was last year thats for sure

thepostman wrote:

ToTheLeft wrote:

jbock13 wrote:I don't have much confidence in Price. He's just turned into a predictable fastball pitcher and quite frankly he can be taken advantage of so easily.

... seriously? What makes you think that? The fact he struck out more often and walked less often this season? :\ Don't quite understand. He had a bad start to end the season, sure, but cmon now...

he isn't nearly as sharp this year as he was last year thats for sure

Okay, sorry, gonna have to drop some knowledge...

K/9 this year (Strikeouts per 9 innings) up to 8.7 from 8.1 last year.

BB/9 this year (Walks per 9 innings) down to 2.5 from 3.4.

His fielder independent pitching (one of the best ways to judge a pitcher) is down from 3.42 to 3.32.

His BABIP, LOB%, and HR/FB Ratio are slightly up. Basically, he's been a bit unlucky.

And, most of all, he's in the bottom 15 in run support in the MLB among qualifying starting pitchers.

I would say David was BETTER this year than last. But if you judge by wins and losses, you're really just judging the RAYS and not DAVID PRICE.

stats are for losers

thepostman wrote:stats are for losers

And I am king among the losers.

no BJ has you beat for the most meaningless stats...sorry to disappoint you, haha

Hey, baseball sabermetrics are not useless. They're a bit over the top in some cases, but baseball is a sport where stats can tell you quite a bit.

all i know is when I watched david price last year as compared to this year I have seen a difference. I don't have any stats to back me up except for the fact every Rays starter has to deal with the lack of run supports...thats really all I've got.

David Price is capable of having a great outing and I sure hope he has one....

I will say this, he doesn't ever seem to have bad back-to-back starts...but I have zero stats to back it up so I really don't have any idea

I am just glad it seems the Rays are capable of scoring runs lately...

Look at Price's curveball. It used to be great, now it hangs so often he can't even throw it.

You can't be a one trick pony forever. Wakefield got figured out, even more so now. I think Price has potential but you can't just throw fastballs down the middle and hope you can avoid the barrel of the bat everytime.

Any person who has taken a stats class knows how to manipulate stats to get the answer that you look for. (Beej does it all the time) stats can be helpful, but they must be understood by context, (which is often more difficult to do than observe the naked eye). For example, let's say a left handed yankee hits 56 home runs in a season. Pretty good right? But what about the common NW wind that carries the ball? What about the short diminsions in right field? Better yet, by estimating distance, how many number of balls still wouldn't have gotten out in San Diego?

The human eye says, "wow, only in san diego could that ball not clear the right field fence."

While I'm not against stats, the 56 home runs example probably doesn't seem as impressive, when understood and taken into account the external affects of weather conditions and altitude.

jbock13 wrote:Look at Price's curveball. It used to be great, now it hangs so often he can't even throw it.

You can't be a one trick pony forever. Wakefield got figured out, even more so now. I think Price has potential but you can't just throw fastballs down the middle and hope you can avoid the barrel of the bat everytime.

Any person who has taken a stats class knows how to manipulate stats to get the answer that you look for. (Beej does it all the time) stats can be helpful, but they must be understood by context, (which is often more difficult to do than observe the naked eye). For example, let's say a left handed yankee hits 56 home runs in a season. Pretty good right? But what about the common NW wind that carries the ball? What about the short diminsions in right field? Better yet, by estimating distance, how many number of balls still wouldn't have gotten out in San Diego?

The human eye says, "wow, only in san diego could that ball not clear the right field fence."

While I'm not against stats, the 56 home runs example probably doesn't seem as impressive, when understood and taken into account the external affects of weather conditions and altitude.

Yeah, he's throwing the curve less, but his slider and change more to make up for it.

In the same way that stats can be manipulated, so too can the eye deceive. His change is WORLDS better this year, and his slider has improved. His curve has been woeful, that's for sure, probably the only real criticism I have about him.

And no one has "figured out" the knuckleball. It's just a matter of throwing it well. Wake can still throw it well, as can RA Dickey.

And Price is actually throwing FEWER fastballs this year.

Stats may be for losers, but I think maybe you just haven't watched the right games when DP is pitching.

Better yet, let's hope he proves me wrong tomorrow.

Oh and just fyi, I have extra innings and sun sports on my satelite so I do watch almost every game.

ToTheLeft wrote:Stats may be for losers, but I think maybe you just haven't watched the right games when DP is pitching.

I have watched all but I think 4 of his starts for the record