Darren Oliver sporting a 2.88 ERA while pitching meaningful innings has to be one of the biggest head scratchers of the season. The only ones that are bigger off the top of my head are Balfour and Howell.
Like Pedroia stepping in the bucket, right? Objectivity? Like they were going to get swept? Like they were going to finish in 3rd last year? Like they should start making tee times if they traded Manny? Every "objective" prognostication reads like a 3rd graders wish list.
Batting Average on Balls In Play.....it's a measure of how often the ball finds a fielder. Those that study stats have found that pitchers have little control over it, it varies wildly from year to year, and except in rare cases, most pitchers are right around league average (about .300) for their career.
Now Danley's just being a dick. Pitch #2 to Figgins was at least 6" inside the strikezone in both directions. The umpiring attention whoring needs to stop. Automate the strikezone.
The mistake was being so careful with Vlad. He's been power deficient in the postseason, I make him continue to press. I also thought Pedroia could have made a throw to the bag. Beckett beat Hunter there.
Danley usually has a pretty fair strikezone, but it's damn tight tonight. The first pitch and ball 4 were strikes according to the rulebook, but who the f*** needs to play by the rules, right?
What to make of the Bengals? They'll be 0-5, with a bad loss to Tennesse, and ugly losses to Baltimore and Cleveland, but they took the Giants to the wire in NY, and could have pulled off an upset in Dallas.