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Cory Lidle was against the four-man rotation idea. If he believes that he's better pitching every fifth day, that makes it so. Robert examined the signifcance of Lidle's rest prior to his latest start. If the Jays can adjust their rotation to accomodate Cory in a week with an off-day and a rainout, so much the better.

He was cruising along for five innings against the Cubs that afternoon, then about ten minutes after I typed, "How do we like Lidle on normal rest?" in Sunday's game thread, he imploded. I don't know why, but it wasn't the first time. Keep repeating: Cory gets better in the second half. An unknown quantity to the exhausted, depleted Expos, Lidle has sharp control of an assortment of pitches, so I don't see why he shouldn't join Doc as a 10-game winner. Mr Tosca will have lots of pinch-hitting options, including Josh Phelps, so depending on the score and the batting order, we should see the bullpen in action early and the debuts of both new Toronto relievers.

Javier Vazquez, one of the pitchers I would most like to see in a Toronto uniform, has retired countryman Carlos Delgado in eight previous at-bats, but this is a different year. He tired in the seventh against Oakland in his latest at around the 100-pitch mark, so the Jays will again be conscious of their deep-in-the-count philosophy. Should be a good game, the best of the series on paper, and if the Jays win, another sweep is a distinct possibility.
Game 73: Routine Night For Lidle | 33 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
_Shane - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 06:33 PM EDT (#99508) #
Livan Hernandez, who starts sundays game, is doing so on three days rest? Ohh, that going to be tasty.
Craig B - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 07:33 PM EDT (#99509) #
I still can't watch these games, it's worse than ever. I'm trying to pull for the Jays, but I just can't...
_Shrike - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 07:34 PM EDT (#99510) #
I know what you mean, Craig. I keep hoping for a tie. ;)
_Gwyn - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 07:35 PM EDT (#99511) #
Ah so those rumours of Montreal having a team are true...I've spent the best part of the last four weeks there and you would never know.
_Chuck Van Den C - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 07:57 PM EDT (#99512) #
Runners on 1st and 2nd. One out. Wells hits a mile high popup to shortstop. What do you reckon the odds are that Rob Faulds knew that was an infield fly?

What percentage of players do you think know what an infield fly is?
Joe - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:06 PM EDT (#99513) #
Ah, c'mon, Chuck, making fun of Faulds is like shooting fish in a barrel.
_Spicol - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:19 PM EDT (#99514) #
Who's shooting Faulds in a barrel?
_Chuck Van Den C - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:19 PM EDT (#99515) #
Ah, c'mon, Chuck, making fun of Faulds is like shooting fish in a barrel.

True enough. My remark was actually more filled with anger than frivoloty, however.

Knowledge of the infield fly rule should be one of the many requirements of the job of a play-by-play man. Not that it is so important in and of itself, just that it represents a level of knowledge that those in the profession should have.

I can imagine that there are numerous broadcasters who would kill for Faulds' job. That he has the job with virtually no baseball knowledge, and precious little in the way of redeeming qualities, reflects very poorly on RSN and infuriates the hell out of me.
_A - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:22 PM EDT (#99516) #
I had a bantam coach come up to me last weekend and ask if the infield-fly rule was in effect (this is about 8-10 weeks into the season), so lets call it an all around ignorance to the "details" of the baseball rulebook.

But almost as bad as Fauld's commentary was Woodward's ugly attempt at Vasquez's lolipop...and the fastball looks absolutely as devistating (in terms of movement and location), which was very apparent on Delgado. There was nothing Carlos could do, Vasquez put it in a perfect spot - up in the strike zone but lots of upward movement, pushing it, in the end, out of the strike zone and out of the batters' reach.

Game note: Vasquez is over 75 pitches in the 5th and he's got a depleated bullpen waiting in the wings. One 20 pitch inning and the 'spos can kiss the game good-bye.

Is Frank Robinson's whining about the battersbox for real? Or is he *that* desperate?
_A - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:26 PM EDT (#99517) #
"Hudson goes two Metro stops to make that play!"
-Rob Faulds

PS, sorry for the grammer in the last post
Craig B - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:40 PM EDT (#99518) #
Fear this offense.
_Chuck Van Den C - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:48 PM EDT (#99519) #
Fear this offense.

And that's without Hinske, Stewart and Phelps.

Hudson is obviously having a great game what with the homer, the Alomaresque play on Calloway's grounder and, in general, his strong pivots on DP's.

Somebody on the coaching staff deserves a ton of credit for turning a clueless daydreamer, seemingly hell bent on pissing away a career, into a bona fide major league ballplayer. This is not a transition I would have banked on, so it definitely has to rank as a very nice surprise.
Craig B - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:48 PM EDT (#99520) #
Is Frank Robinson's whining about the battersbox for real?

Pure gamesmanship. Robinson knows that if he argues ball/strike calls, he'll get run sooner than a bull at Pamplona. So instead of yelling at Paul Emmel that his strike zone is moving all over the place, he comes out and starts bitching about the batter's box. Emmel knows perfectly well that the Jays are digging in where players (including the Expos) always do, about two to six inches behind the rear line of the box, and Robby knows it too. But Emmel will understand, crystal clear, what Robinson is upset about... his calls.
_Gwyn - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:50 PM EDT (#99521) #
That was a beautiful curve...
Craig B - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 08:53 PM EDT (#99522) #
Heh... Lidle worked two 3-1 counts in a row, and hit two pretty decent flies. This guy can swing the wood.
Dave Till - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 09:11 PM EDT (#99523) #
Can anybody explain why Greg Myers has suddenly become SuperCatcher?

Wow, these guys can hit and hit and hit and hit.
_Gwyn - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 09:14 PM EDT (#99524) #
Can anybody explain why Greg Myers has suddenly become SuperCatcher?

I just looked it up on the Lee Sinnins cdrom

Myers is having one of the top ten seasons ever by a catcher by OPS.
_Gwyn - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 09:19 PM EDT (#99525) #
SEASON
C

OPS YEAR OPS
1 Mike Piazza 1997 1.070
2 Bill Dickey 1936 1.045
3 Gabby Hartnett 1930 1.034
4 Rudy York 1937 1.026
5 Mike Piazza 2000 1.012
6 Mike Piazza 1995 1.006
7 Roy Campanella 1953 1.006
8 Chris Hoiles 1993 1.001
9 Rudy York 1938 .995
10 Bill Dickey 1937 .987

Myers has a .997 OPS going into tonights game.
_A - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 09:27 PM EDT (#99526) #
I call brutality on you! (attribute that quote to Snake from the Simpsons) but that inside the park "homerun" was step-by-step what NOT to do on a fly ball to the outfield. First, Johnson misplays the ball off the wall (not so bad with a 6-run lead), then looks it as it rolls away from him (keep in mind Wells is not anywhere close as a backup on the play), finally picks up the rolling cow skin, gets it into the infield, which may have kept the runner at third or atleast had him at the plate except Delgado was still in the infield when he should have been 10-15 ft into the outfield waiting for the relay.

Coach, you need a tape of this play to add to your collection of interviews in prep for next season.
_Eric C - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 09:55 PM EDT (#99527) #
Eck... Service didn't look too good in his Blue Jay debut. Flashed a curve, splitter and a fastball that elevated. By my count, that's 5 hard hit balls (including his 3 outs), all pitches elevated. Even the soft hit by Macias was a high fastball. He's not going to be sucessful if he pitches that way.
Joe - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 10:22 PM EDT (#99528) #
Playoff bandwagon: Boston was rained out today. With the win, the Jays now pull into a tie for 2nd place in the AL East. (temporarily?)

Which brings up the question, just how is "games back" calculated?
_Dr B - Friday, June 20 2003 @ 11:14 PM EDT (#99529) #
Credit where credit is due: Tosca used his bullpen well, and used his mop-up men to mop-up. Everyone including Lidle will be fresh and ready for next time.
robertdudek - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 12:57 AM EDT (#99530) #
Games behind is: (# of fewer wins + # of extra losses) divided by 2.
_A - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 01:43 AM EDT (#99531) #
My favourite statistical formulas, in order, are:

Offensive winning percentage (OW%):
The theoretical winning percentage of a team comprising nine of the same players (e.g. nine Ken Griffey Jrs.) 1) Figure runs created per 27 outs [Note: Total outs = (AB - H + C + GIDP + SH + SF)]. 2) Divide by league average runs per game. 3) Square the result. 4) Divide that figure by 1 + itself

Game Score (GSc): Start with 50 points. Add 1 point for each out recorded, (3 points per inning). Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. Subtract 1 point for each walk.

Runs Created (RC):
[(H + BB + HBP - CS - GIDP) times (Total bases + .26[BB - IBB + HBP] + .52[SH + SF + SB])] divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH+ SF)

And then people wonder why baseball's a science?
Pistol - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 09:27 AM EDT (#99532) #
Somebody on the coaching staff deserves a ton of credit for turning a clueless daydreamer, seemingly hell bent on pissing away a career, into a bona fide major league ballplayer.

I think that's highly overstated, but how about giving credit to Hudson?
Pistol - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 09:32 AM EDT (#99533) #
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1056147011020&call_pageid=969907739730&col=970081600908
Griffin is in rare form today. Check out the link in the name.
_Lurch - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 10:21 AM EDT (#99534) #
Giving credit to Hudson? That'd be a rare sight!
_A - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 10:44 AM EDT (#99535) #
He probably already took the credit, but no body understood him at the time ;-)
Craig B - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 12:20 PM EDT (#99536) #
Griff's carrying old grudges from his days riding the Expos' ticket.

TV blackouts certainly suck, and shouldn't have any place in the game (nothing makes baseball seem more like a cartel) but they were part of the game that every franchise grew up with in those times.

The Jays and Expos each had huge "local" TV markets... most of the country... to exploit. The fact that the Expos failed to exploit that market has much more to do with the success of the Blue Jays in the early 1990s, followed by the (deliberate) collapse of the Expos in the late 1990s.
Pepper Moffatt - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 02:56 PM EDT (#99537) #
http://economics.about.com
The Jays and Expos each had huge "local" TV markets... most of the country... to exploit. The fact that the Expos failed to exploit that market has much more to do with the success of the Blue Jays in the early 1990s, followed by the (deliberate) collapse of the Expos in the late 1990s.

The Expos shot themselves in the foot well beflore then. During the early 1980s they had more top-line talent in baseball than any team in the majors. It wasn't even close. Compare the top four players on the '82 Cardinals or '83 Orioles or even the '84 Tigers. None of those teams had a foursome nearly as good as Raines, Carter, Dawson, and Rogers.

The Expos problem was that they always had a horrible bench and one or two of the worst regulars in baseball playing everyday in the lineup (Doug Flynn, anyone?). Had the front office been able to build even an average supporting cast around their front line talent, the Expos would have one atleast one World Series.

Mike
Craig B - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 04:43 PM EDT (#99538) #
Mike, that's right, but the team's failure to win wasn't a failure from a business perspective - the Expos did well at the gate up to the 1990s and always had nearly as many games on national TV as the Jays. The deliberate dismantling of the mid-90s team was a business disaster, and was directly responsible for the parlous financial state of the team today (that, and the Big O problem).
_rodent - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 05:26 PM EDT (#99539) #
Griffin, however appropriately convinced that the Jays "never have cared about the survival of the Expos" and that "...when the Expos move..." it will be "mission accomplished" is really just a bile merchant, and reveals himself, I think, not so much a Jay hater as a Toronto hater. Who cares, Richard?
Pepper Moffatt - Saturday, June 21 2003 @ 06:55 PM EDT (#99540) #
http://economics.about.com
Mike, that's right, but the team's failure to win wasn't a failure from a business perspective - the Expos did well at the gate up to the 1990s

That's not entirely true:

1983 Attendance 2,320,651 2nd out of 12
1986 Attendance 1,128,981 11th out of 12

Even in 1994 they were 11th out of 14, though that would have certainly increased with the pennant race.

The Expos had a chance in the 1980's to be a big Atlanta Braves style regional team, even with the Jays around. However they completely killed any chance of that happening by mismanaging the team. They certainly would have still been a viable team had 1994 not happen, tho. I remember hearing their front office saying that the work stoppage was necessary for the 'Spos to keep their good players. So of course once it's over they start getting rid of everyone. You, and I, and a couple million other fans felt completely lied to, which turned a weak team (attendance wise) into a dead team.

Mike
Game 73: Routine Night For Lidle | 33 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.