Maxbialystock

After 5 innings, Pivetta has thrown 78 pitches and Cole 79.

What are they saying about their catcher?

How big does the crowd look tonight? It's the Yankees in September, but not exactly a good year.

Pivetta final gets a call--a good call--for strike three.

Mean, but still very good.

I do like that 6'4" stretch at 1b.

Pivettaboutit. Is that the first time? Another gem. 29's a pretty big number--agree.

Boy, do you have that right. So far, an absolutely fascinating game, which I did not expect. I figured Cole to shut our guys down, but not so Pivetta with the Yankees (excuse my spelling). Lots of game left, however. Baseball can really surprise, by that I mean Pivetta's useless knuckle curve, which he just four straight of to K Cabrera. Earlier, he had trouble getting it in the zone. There is no substitute for how the pitcher and catcher can work together to get the most out of what the pitcher had on any given night. I don't know if Wright was smart or lucky, but calling for 4 straight was genius, to say nothing of Pivetta's execution. Lefty bats have both Sox dingers and all 3 rbi's.

Great point! I love it! Galarraga loses a perfect game 12 years ago because a very competent ump called a runner safe when he was actually out, which would have been the final out of the game. That story is still told because it's so great. Joyce, just as you say, was hugely remorseful and said so publicly--that he blew the call at 1b. Amazingly, Galarraga commiserated with Joyce immediately after the game was over and Joyce came to him and apologized. I defy anyone on Talksox to recite from memory even half the perfect games that have been pitched, but almost everyone remembers this imperfect game. Need I also add that a perfect game is simply one in which one team not only gets no hits, but gets no one on base. But such perfection is not entirely in the hands of the pitcher who gets the credit. There are usually one or more amazing defensive plays, to say nothing of hard hit balls which simply go straight to a fielder. If you want real perfection, it would have to be 27 K's--with all strikes and no balls thrown and, of course, a robo-ump calling balls and strikes. It's one of the better stories about the great game of baseball and is all the more memorable because it's about imperfection and being human.

You do realize, I hope, that the game of baseball is much, much, much, much more like that Model T Ford than it is to the latest Ford electric vehicles or the Ford Thunderbird or whatever.

That's 110 years--or 150 years--of fallible umpires who nevertheless have served the game well because they have been authoritative and decisive where and when those qualities were needed. I like those qualities and do not think making home plate umps infallible will in any way improve the game as it is played. It remains to be seen whether their authoritativeness and decisiveness will be eroded. Moonslav says umpires--at least, when they are behind the plate--should jump all over robo-umps because of the seamlessness with which that will occur. A little voice will whisper ball or strike to the umpire alone, and he still gets to signal or shout ball or strike. He's still the guy in charge. Or is he? I am of course aware that how the game is played is not nearly as important as the lens through which we see it. Thanks to technology, those authoritative, decisive umps are showing some warts, and goodness knows we can't have that in a game which is all about being perfect.

It's something you can see--I think defined as the area between the offensive tackles.

Come on. Give me something hard. The refs can see holding penalties and can make a judgment call. I'm in favor of those, just like I'm in favor of the calls umpires currently make, including balls and strikes.

Far be it from me to argue against progress when we know how much humanity has benefitted from it. Language itself, the means by which we are discussing this topic, was a huge step forward. That said, we are talking about a sport, not the internal combustion engine, the advances made in medicine, or the exploration of space. Consider how much science and technology have changed--and changed our lives--since 1901 (advent of the AL) vs. how little baseball has changed. Mounds are lower. The baseball is livelier. The DH. Foreign substances on the pitched ball have come and gone. Gloves are better. Bats are still wood, not aluminum, and about the same sizes/dimensions. Bases are about to get bigger, I think to prevent injuries. And pitch clocks are about to get serious--a massive intrusion which is probably necessary. Nevertheless, watching a game in a ballpark today is very similar to watching one 111 years ago when four umpires were first used. More to the point, think back to all the great games, World Series, records, players, etc you can remember or have read about. All of those wonderful moments were achieved in the context of fallible umpires, who were on the field when Don Larson pitched that perfect game, when Babe Ruth hit 60 dingers, when Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, when Sandy Koufax was so brilliant for such a relatively short period, and when the Sox ended the Curse of the Bambino in 2004 and then won again in 2007, 2013, and 2018.

Nice try, but I've already said I'm completely in favor of stuff you can see: foul lines, bases, batters box, pitching rubber, lines defining what's in the park and what's out of the park, bats, balls, gloves, etc. Indeed, since you mentioned football, please name or describe something central the game of football that is analogous to that strike zone which no one can actually see. We can see the plate with its odd shape and we can see the varying sizes of the batters, but then we have to interpolate where the strike zone is.

I do remember saying each would pitch over 200 innings and each would contend for the Cy Young. Oh, well. Actually, I was barely cognizant of what they could or might do, but I was very aware of Hill's age, 42.

Great comment. Seriously.

You could be right. I'm in favor of unions, but . . .

Hey, don't blame Angel Hernandez on me. I'm all for using the camera and computers for evaluating umpire performance. The problem is that umpires are unionized, which I think means that any evaluations are treated as "nice to know." I'm pretty sure the union also insists that seriously overweight umpires should not be penalized.

Great description! Wild applause. I never fully understood it before now. Thank you very much. It does, however, lead to some questions. For example, the rectangle we see on our boob tubes is two dimensional, but you have made it clear that the ball can pass through the strike zone through any part of that five sided home plate. So I would submit that the 2-dimensional rectangle is in fact wrong. Like you, I agree that very few pitches are likely to pass through just the pointed bottom of the pentagon, but it certainly could pass through the squarish rest of the plate. And then of course there's the upper and lower limits of the strike zone: "midpoint between a batter's shoulders and the top of the uniform pants and just below the kneecap--when the hitter is in his batting stance." Lots of luck with that, especially when the rectangle we see on the screen is, as I keep saying, defined to microscopic accuracy. When I use mlb.com's graphics--in lieu of getting the video which is denied me when the game is played against a blackout restricted team--that strike zone has a buffer zone, a rectangle within a rectangle. I believe the intent is to suggest that only a pitch that stays outside the buffer zone must be called a ball and one that stays inside the buffer zone must be called a strike. Any pitch that touches the buffer zone could be called either way. I like that buffer zone if only because of the idiosyncratic nature of the strike zone as you have described it. Moreover, I think that buffer zone also defines the limits of what the players can reasonably be expected to see. Indeed, I seriously doubt that even Ted Williams could see his own strike zone as you have described it. Of course, where I'm headed with this is to say that the buffer zone should allow umpires to continue to call balls and strikes. I do not at all object and in fact applaud the use of cameras and computers to provide feedback to umpires and to evaluate their performance.

Agree on "not bad." He's started 22 games and pitched 102.2 innings, so a tad under 5 innings per game. He more than any pitcher on the team must have exquisite command to succeed. When he has it, he can be tough, but even then he's chancy beyond 5 innings. He's done that 4 times. He is 8-6 on the season.

Sox gave up 3, 4, and 0 runs at Camden Yards. Is it time to give the pitching staff some credit?

And I agree with SPLENDIDSPLINTER. FWIW, Dugo's DWAR is -0.9, 2d worst DWAR on the Sox. It was -1.1 when he was in left field and his improved since he moved to RF. That deep fly/line drive to right center he caught--right against the wall in Fenway--was a gem he hasn't come close to doing in left field. Yes, he missed the carom of the wall (on another play) and had to chase it forever, but then he made a terrific throw right on the money to 3b.

Agree. RF at Fenway is much tougher than LF, but he seems to handle it well. Plus apparently he's got a decent arm.

Well, I have to admit that you and moonslav have made some persuasive arguments for robo-umps. So well done--and I do mean that. But to me it goes back to the simple fact that the strike zone is the least real thing on the field of play. All other calls are based on did a player catch the ball or not, touch the bag or not, get tagged before he touched the bag or not, hit a fair ball or a foul ball, hit a double or a home run, balk or not balk, etc, etc. In other words, something you can see. Balls and strikes, on the other hand are called based on the width of the plate, and an interpretation of the top of the strike zone and the bottom of it, based on the physique of the batter, which, I hasten to add, can vary during an at bat. To make it even more complicated, the pitch itself changes trajectories and must intersect the strike zone, I believe, at the front of the plate. In other words, it's entirely possible the camera/computer have the wrong strike zone for a given hitter, but we accept it because its based on technology which dominates our lives in 2022. I recently saw a large photo of at least 100 people walking up and down stairs some wide outdoor stairs (I think at least 30 stairs), and every single one of them was fixated on her/his cell phones. So, pardon me for saying so, but, if the batter and the pitcher are humans doing their best to pitch or hit (or not swing at) those pitches which not even technology can be trusted to get right, I want a no-baloney fallible human umpire giving his best shot at whether the pitch was a ball or a strike. It's worked for 150 years. I have yet to read a quote from any retired player, HOF'er or not, blaming the umpires for preventing him from being all he could be. And I look forward to continued griping by hitters, catchers, pitchers, managers, coaches, and bench jockeys because griping is good for the soul. Done by the best, griping can even be entertaining.