=== The Complexity of the Problem, Dept. ===

I like to compare pitching to shooting 3-pointers, or to shooting a handgun at 25-yard targets.  All pitchers are hitting their targets.  You're talking about where on the target they hit...

Kevin Durant doesn't toss up a 3-point shot and miss the rim, you know what I'm saying?  He hits the rim, every time he shoots -- he shoots 1,500 times in a season and hits (at least) the rim on like 1,497 of them.

The difference between success, a swish, and failure, the rim, is hair-fine.  Think about the preposterous challenge of throwing a huge ball through a small hoop, 25 feet away, with no time to aim.

So nobody is suprised when Kevin Durant hits 7 of 13 three-pointers on the road, April 6, and then comes home and clanks 1-for-5 the next game.

....................

We all understand, intuitively, that shooting 3's is such a hair-fine task that ----- > factors like how much coffee you drank, and whether your wife yelled at you, and slop like that, changes your performance.

Talk to a pistol champion sometime about this.

What baseball fans (Sullivan, an ex-pitcher, notwithstanding) sometimes miss is that ---- > factors like mood, and coffee, etc., can easily be the difference between SWISH and the rim...

.....................

What is weird about Cliff Lee is that, eight games in a row, he shot 8-for-10 from three.

His performances are so beautiful to watch.  He's a poet.  I'm very glad to be reminded that he's human, and that it's baseball that he's playing.  Somehow he's more impressive now.

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=== The NL vs AAA ===

Check me if I'm wrong; I'm just noodling.  I can't see any AAA team beating Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson 11-7 and 9-0 in consecutive games.  The occasional AAA Verlander-class pitcher notwithstanding, it seems just about impossible to me.

A picture's worth 1,000 words -- we're guessing that Sandy will be very glad to have had us reminded that the NL is about as good as the AL.

Reminded visually, reminded powerfully, reminded viscerally and with everybody watching:  you don't get to think of the National League as less than you. 

Statistically, yeah.  Viscerally, nah.

..............

Wherever you are on AL vs NL, you'll agree that there are no AL players who enjoy facing Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Buster Posey.  We're not debating here.  Just chatting baseball.

When I watch the Giants play the Rangers, I'm not thinking that the game is anything other than an exciting, dramatic fight between the best teams from two majestic - and comparable - rival leagues.

The American League is deeper, stronger, and tougher these days.  But for me, the National League need not spend its time arguing that it is a "major" league.  Tim Lincecum can do its arguing for it.

And right now, the team that needs to spend some time proving its competitiveness is the Rangers.  Did you think that, except for Cliff Lee, they truly belonged where they are?

Just asking.  :- )

..............

It does seem possible, however, that a top NPB team could possibly do what the Giants just did, though.  You?

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=== Sandy Koufax Dept. ===

I'd pitch Cliff Lee in games 4 and 7.

Of 9,000 factors for and against doing that, the factor that I'd weigh most heavily would be:  if I do, I might win the World Series.

;- )

Right now, you get me to Game 7 with 80% of Cliff Lee, I'll take it.  The Rangers don't have Roy Oswalt in the three slot.

Come to think of it, 80% of Cliff Lee might be the second-best pitcher in baseball...

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Cheerio,

Dr D