Rangers vs. Cardinals - WORLD SERIES!

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by Male30Dan

Come on... It was a low fastball. It would have been called a strike - borderline, but a strike. You do NOT throw a strike in that situation. Hell, you don't throw a borderlilne strike that might get barely called a ball in that situation. That is my point.

He regularly does it and I would LOVE to see the stat showing how many base hits are allowed up 0-2. Dude would have to lead the league. Not like this is anything new and he avoided damage in the first two rounds, but he just attacks, attacks, attacks. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. Must learn how to pitch SMART. He obviously can pitch and can throw and obviously he has great stuff.

That pitch isn't why we lost, but it definitely played its role in preventing us from winning.

That's fair, I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly a meat ball. Although I don't necessarily agree that you should ALWAYS throw a junk pitch on 0-2. For all we know the scouting report on that particular hitter might show that he expects the junker and is susceptible to the 0-2 strike. Ogando is defintely an aggressive pitcher, but I don't necessarily hate that 0-2 pitch. As I mentioned, it DID induce the kind of contact that is going to result in an out the majority of the time.

Did you have a beef with Washington beyond the German pinch hit (which was weird, for sure)?

[Male30Dan]

Originally Posted by jthig32

That's fair, I was just pointing out that it wasn't exactly a meat ball. Although I don't necessarily agree that you should ALWAYS throw a junk pitch on 0-2. For all we know the scouting report on that particular hitter might show that he expects the junker and is susceptible to the 0-2 strike. Ogando is defintely an aggressive pitcher, but I don't necessarily hate that 0-2 pitch. As I mentioned, it DID induce the kind of contact that is going to result in an out the majority of the time.

Did you have a beef with Washington beyond the German pinch hit (which was weird, for sure)?

Obviously there are times to attack there, but even if he is susceptible to the 0-2 strike, given the situation, I still think you try a couple of pitches to get him to swing and miss.

Bottom line, as you said, it was slider time and he throws a fastball strike. Just can't do it. Just can't. Hell, even if you want to throw a strike, make it a borderline slider after 2 straight fastballs to get to the 0-2 count to begin with.

Hell, he could be the best slider hitter in baseball and it would still be better to throw a junk pitch slider to see if he chases vs. throwing a fastball strike that - as was obviously proven possible - can be slapped into right field for the winning run in a World Series game.

Mentioned the other core issues I had with Washington in my last post...