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Q.  After blowing away the first three guys, Maurer then gave up SEVEN hits the next TWO innings?  HOW?!?

A.  Like Danny Farquhar does.  He follows two Cy Young pitches with one absolutely brainless pitch.  

Dr. D knows you don't believe him, so he'll specify the feeblemindedness on the first two hits.  After that you can return to taking his word for it...  here is the first hit that Maurer gave up, a double that Matt Dominguez crushed off the CF wall.  This ball left a vapor trail about 30 inches in length, reaching the wall long before Michael Saunders could get anywhere near the warning track, so we got the infamous "fake glove I got it" deception from Mickey.. .

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Maurer had hit Dominguez with heaters of 97, 96, and 96 MPH earlier in this at-bat, as well as a crackling 74 MPH curve that had Jay Buhner swoooooning.

Now then, RIGHT AFTER he threw Dominguez a 96 hot tamale juuuusssst outside his bat -- enticing Dominguez to lean out there to see it -- Maurer then threw the same pitch, -8 MPH, at the same eye level, about -12" nearer to Dominguez.  Just for his convenience, so he didn't have to lean out so far this time.

The effect is as if you had Pedro Martinez throwing six awesome pitches...and then one pitch of Jarrod Washburn quality.  What happens is that the terrified hitter goes into laser focus to survive...and then you tee one up?!

Maurer is often a victim of the quality of his own electric stuff.  It puts the batters on high alert... and then POOOOF here comes the belt-high slider, following a high-90's fastball.  How could you miss?

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One more example, the 2nd hit, a lasered double into the RF corner by the LH Matt Krauss.

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Dr. D is not a major league pitcher.  But if he were, he would not show a batter his VERY BEST-EST FASTBALL EVER and then, next pitch, DOUBLE IT UP ARE YOU KIDDING ME --- > except a little slower, and right into the hitter's very best-est hot zone, low and in.

If for some reason Dr. D wanted to challenge a LH'ers ability to handle a fastball in his wheelhouse ... Dr. D would not "set up" the pitch with a fastball at the same eye level as the challenge pitch.

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Examples could be multiplied.  When Brandon Maurer gets hit, it's cause he don't know ANYthing. ...

::sigh:: OK, we'll multiply the examples.  The other five hits:

• Sharp single -- Slider LO and IN to a lefty hitter (!) ... "set up" by a slider previous pitch
• Ground ball single -- first pitch, ball just went through, no complaints
• Sharp single -- slider on 6th pitch, following TWO hot fastballs... location?  Wait you gotta see this

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On 2-2 here, Mariano Rivera would throw the cutter IN AND OFF the plate ... if Rivera threw it ON THE BLACK, that would be daring.  You feel me?

Instead o' that.  Check the location.   Such a pitch is usually hit, it deserves to be hit, and it was hit.

Anyway ... the other two hits, before Maurer got his country can yanked:

• Long double -- belt-high fastball exactly bisecting the plate
• Ground ball single -- this one simply rolled thru, no complaint

The takeaway?  Maurer's pitches don't have to get better, and it wasn't even his command that was the issue.  It's just that, in terms of game intelligence, he's hopelessly out of his depth.  Has been all year.  It's not getting better.

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