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As you can see from the paint job on the truck, sometimes the Big Bugs overrun your position. Karns' box score Wednesday was a hideous 2.1 IP with 8 H, 9 R, 7 ER, 2 BB and 4 K. Neverthless, the Mainframe gave him a solid B or B+ for the outing. In fact, it was a best-case situation for Dr. D personally, since it positioned James Paxton for the starting nod and did very little to take Karns' stock down.
There are times a guy pitches bad, and there are times he's a victim of circumstance. On another day, Karns might have thrown exactly the same pitches, left after 6 IP 1 ER, and had us all smiling. Sportswriters resist believing this, but sometimes you LOOK bad and PLAY good; other times you look GOOD but have played BAD.
As always, the Mainframe is well able to persuade (the ignorant layman) that --- > although its conclusions are insane, the processor itself is not. Here's the first batter, Marcus Semien:
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If you don't think the above blue #6 pitch is one whale of a major league pitch, then ... well, you're obviously not a pitcher. But! Semien pulled his elbows in, got the barrel out in front, controlled his serve, and tennis-volleyed a rifle shot --- > through a shift. (!?) Right then and there, Dr. D was in a state of agitation.
But you remember our central reminder. Many, many days occur in which a much better hitter than Marcus Semien tops this pitch to Seager, if not swings through it entirely.
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Here's the very next batter, Chris Coughlan:
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On an 0-0 count, game just started, you should be able to just pound the knees and get a "take." Karns did much better than that. He put a crisp fastball Right. On. Coghlan's hands - and Coughlan smoked it down into the RF corner. Billy Williams couldn'a done that more than 2 times out of 10. (Remember the Chicago NL dude? Billy Williams doll ... wind it up and it hits line drives.)
Runners on 2nd and 3rd. For the 900th time, Dr. D marvelled at the anomaly that is Billy Beane.
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By the way, Diderot asked for thoughts on --- > why 95% of lefties like the ball low-and-in, and can't do diddly squat with high and in. SSI doesn't have a great answer, but ... left hand people are a little smoother, a little more oiled-glass-bearings, a little more centrifugal. The low-in swing is a golf swing; the high-away swing is a kludgy chop-down-the-three swing. The low-in swing is keyed by knee action; the high-away swing is keyed by your deltoid muscles.
The right hand people are just a little kludgier. Dunno if that interests any, but thass' all I got.
Jeff Clement, by the way, was a rare "kludgy" lefty who uses a "hitter's triangle box," and he got disintegrated by the acid of RH pitchers coming inside on him. Food for thought.
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The third batter of the game, Khris Davis? The ExtermiNater threw a fastball up-and-in for swinging strike one. Then Karns threw a gorgeous curve ON THE SAME ARC, starting up-and-in but then swerving low-and-away. This is the right hand version of Clayton Kershaw's high fastball / breaking curve snake tongue:
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No idea why the F/X says "singles on a line drive." That's about as attached to reality as the average OSU student this spring. Davis leaned out desperately, performed a miracle and clipped the top of the ball, which bounced 25 times to the 2B but ... the M's were shifted. It rolled through.
Bang. See for yourself: three All-Star level pitch sequences from Karns, and the M's are down two runs with nobody out. Shtick happens. That's why the best team does not go 162-0.
Examples could be multiplied. The 4th hit, the one in the 2nd inning? Marcus Semien clipped the top of another wicked curve ball, which dribbled through a shift. Karns had walked a man or two, so when Chris Coughlan came up again ... Karns threw a 1-1 changeup right. on. the. black. and Coughlan put a Robinson Cano swing on it, tripling the other way. (Granted, that changeup was elevated -- the first mediocre pitch that got hit in this game -- but still.) And so it goes.
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Don't get me wrong. Karns didn't have his "A" game. Most of the time in the reg season, he'll have better command, and the air will make his pitches break so much the hitters can't make contact. And at the very end of the outing, well, anytime the other guys KO you with 9 runs, things do come unravelled a little bit at the end. Happens to even Felix sometimes.
And for the 900th time, Dr. D wondered what it would be like to try to explain all this to a ticked-off sportswriter. All you're ALLOWED to say is, "I fouled up," and wait for them to (implicitly) scold you for it. The ballplayers must love those postgames so much.
The takeaway is, you don't always go by the box score. Nate Karns showed absolutely nothing to worry about. But it might seal the deal on James Paxton. And as (very) good as Nate Karns is, he's not a poor man's Randy Johnson.
Enjoy,
Dr D
