Throughout Game 2, it was clear that Red Sox hitters had a better command of the strike zone than the Rockies did. All night, it seemed that the Rockies approached their at-bats timidly, and the Sox pitchers took advantage by throwing strikes, while Red Sox hitters — as they have been all season — were patient and made the Rockies’ pitchers come to them. Let’s look at the breakdown of pitches by type that each team’s batters had:

The individual players who represented their teams in this were Kevin "Don’t call me Greek" Youkilis and Ryan "Not ready for DH duties" Spilborghs. Youkilis, of Moneyball fame, was behind in the count in all five of his plate appearances, yet either walked or put the ball in play each time. Spilborghs looked like what we used to say back in Little League, "a looker." And Boston pitchers made him pay.

Speaking of Youkilis, the lineup question of the week has been whom Francona should bench in Colorado for Game 3: Lowell, Ortiz or Youkilis. It’s actually a tough choice, as our handy little fielding and hitting matrix shows:

Some other thoughts and observations on Game 2:

• Willy T. in the first inning: Acting — brilliant!
• With the Rockies leading the way, will we see base coaches with helmets next year league-wide? (insert your own Rickey Henderson joke here.)
• Speaking of helmets: This isn’t the NFL, Manny; leave yours on.
• JD Drew, not the best reaction to the slider.
• Tim McCarver lauded Lowell’s decision to go first to third, gushing that "The third-base coach had nothing to do with that!" But it was because Lowell wasn’t looking at his coach in the first place, and FOX didn’t show us: Perhaps the coach was waving him around, and had Lowell not had his head turned back, he might’ve been safer by a bigger margin in the fourth inning.
• In the fifth, Hurdle should’ve brought in a ROOGy to face Lowell.
• Affeldt might be a lefty, but in 10 PAs against him, Drew has a .500 OBP and a .325 GPA. That’s why it’s not such a good idea to look at head-to-head BA when making your decision, Clint. Better to go against the grain occasionally: Righty LaTroy Hawkins has held Drew to a .167 OBP/.117 GPA in six appearances.
• Speaking of Hawkins, he would’ve been a better pick to face Varitek, too (.222/.183 in nine PAs).
• Is Matt Herges the first pitcher to play for all five NL West teams? We think so; outfielder Steve Finley, who like Herges went to college in Illinois, also turned the trick this season by playing for Colorado.
• The Aquos TV commercials crack us up. With MLB scheduling all of the WS games at night, and playoff games lasting three hours-plus, it’s ludicrous to think that baseball is developing young fans who longingly post bubble-gum cards of Hank Aaron or World Series programs in their rooms. Heck, the only reason we’ve been able to watch the first two games in their entirety is because we’re on the West Coast on business this week.
• We’re sure that being a color man is a difficult job: Millions of people observing you on the job seems like lot of pressure. Game in and out, you have ample opportunity to say stupid things, which we understand (hey, we write stupid things just as often!). So it seems harsh that entire web sites are devoted to hating on guys like Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan. And yet, we have to admit that Joe Buck’s sidekick does indeed drop some idiot bombs. Our top three from Game 2:
  • "You talk about an athletic move to get out of the way of that ball!" (on Papelbon’s life-preserving stagger).
  • "Jacoby Ellsbury hsa never stolen third base in the major leagues." Including Game 2, Ellsbury has played in all of 42 major-league games.
  • "… the guts he exudes back there" (on Varitek). Someone better clean that up!

  And yet, the most idiotic comment we heard was from ESPN "analyst" John Kruk, who exonerated Matt Holliday’s baserunning gaffe by explaining that "it didn’t end up costin’ them, ’cause Helton made an out."

This entry was posted by Pip on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 1:05 am and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.