Pepper, 8.30.09
Austin Bibens-Dirkx' mom wrote in at Detect-O-Vision on Aug. 25th. The Cubbies have made him a starter and he's rocking to the tune of a 41:7 control ratio in 58 IP.
AB-D was smokin' along in the M's org with a 90+ sidearm pitch -- almost unheard of to generate that power from that angle -- and then he was derailed by a project to raise his center of gravity (to get more action on his pitches).
He immediately got injured, but since he's healthy and pitching very well right now, we assume the Cubbies let him get back to his natural Gimli-esque release point.
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=== Chicks Dig the Long Ball, Dept. ===
So that's 20 home runs for Jose Lopez, and 20 home runs to straightaway left field. Don't you score a "Century" wicket or something for that?
Has that happened before? 20-for-20 home runs to one field in a season.
Come to think of it, it's probably not unusual: we heard that every one of Dustin Pedroia's 17 homers last year went Adam Dunn had 16 balls > 400 feet that were NOT homers.)
When Jose got his pitch in 2007, he turned on it, and smoked a sizzling ground ball to one side of the third baseman or the other. (You could look it up: his GB% was verrrrrrry high in his early years.) He has since learned how to loft it on purpose.
Don't miss the lesson learned! Guys were wondering, "how will he ever hit home runs with a 50% grounder rate?!" We sez, back then, "They learn to deliberately yank the mistakes when they're older."
Right?
Grounder rates can be changed by a hitter's choices. Guys learn to swing fo the fences. Baseball isn't all Strat-O. :- )
.................
The 20th homer came on a fastball that was in off the plate, both too far inside, and too high, to be a strike. When a pitch is a ball if he doesn't swing, and a HR if he does, the pitchers call that "not fair."
Real quick here, pitchers will have only the outside half of the plate to pitch to.
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=== Forty Homers, Sayonara ===
Herniated disc. 33 years old. Yuck.
Pretty soon, Capt. Jack is going to be signing a fistful of Bedards, Branyans and sundry M*A*S*H* stars for the league minimum in 2010. :- )
Annnnnd .... as Baker pointed out, the entire M's lineup including Snell was making less than $5M in salary on Saturday. (Standing O for the single-minded, grandmasterly focus on the objective: figuring out the best 2010 players.)
But! The guys who were going to make money, now can't. Who's Jack going to spend the jack on? Dunn dee dunn dunn DUNNNNNNN...
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=== Just 'Cause I'm Such a Positive Guy Dept. ===
On an unfathomably great scoreboard day, about $12 per base that Jack spent... we noticed another 0 BB's and 6 K's offensively.
Last we checked, the M's 30-day scan had their EYE at 0.30. Has it gone up or down since den?
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Cheers,
Dr D