Postgame April 22
Trying to focus on the positive ... :- )
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=== Jakubauskas ===
Didn't see the whole game, but the AB's I did see, Jaka wasn't hitting his spots. Which underlines San-man's caution that you might want to judge new pitchers after seeing both their best and worst games :- )
That said, Jaka did not give up an HR; the M's defense converted 7 outs out of what, 18 balls in play, for about a 40% DER ... Dr. D is not rattled by Jaka's getting knocked out of a game in which the balls missed fielders, even if several of them were hit hard by talented Rays batters...
Onward and upward; looking forward to Jaka's next start to see if he recovers the plus-plus command ...
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=== M's Defense ===
Equal Time Dept: Dr. D likes defense (paid for by citizens for fair-and-balanced coverage).
The M's "Defensive Efficiency Rating" -- that is, a simple measure of the % of balls (not HR or K) in play that get turned into outs -- had tumbled to .707 on Tuesday, an unremarkable #4 in the American League. That DER will tumble further after Wednesday's very inefficient defensive game.
Fangraphs has the M's with a relatively unremarkable DER / BABIP, but oddly, its theoretical UZR stat has the M's as saving by far the most defensive runs in baseball. This is a weird dissonance that underlines the relative unreliability of defensive metrics.
The only way that you could IN REALITY have an ordinary DER, but a great UZR, would be if the enemy hitters were giving you an unusually large number of balls to dive for. Then you'd be diving and catching a lot of the "tweeners," and playing great physical defense, and saving a lot of runs -- but the unlucky bloopers would make your DER / BABIP look worse.
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Let me tell you something: exactly the opposite has happened in the games that I have watched. The M's pitchers have given up a relatively FEW number of balls to dive for. They have given up a large number of sky-high fly balls and two-bouncers.
Without the slightest bias or rancor, my own take on this is that UZR is way wrong on the M's for the first two weeks. For example, I don't think Griffey is saving 50 runs a year with his glove in RF. That's my opinion; I could be wrong. :- )
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Again, I like defense and I like UZR. We're all working at understanding defense better. Up to the point to where we exaggerate its importance, or get overestimate our ability to measure it, I'm wit'cha.
Endy Chavez caught a foul pop on the LF line, RIIIGHHHHHT up against the pads, which was a mirror of the one that Carl Crawford dropped a bit earlier. Endy can really move out there. He's fun to watch.
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=== Mark Lowe ===
Threw a routine 96-97 mph, which is more than you could say for Brandon Morrow the chilly night before. Lowe, if his arm can take the workload, is threatening to become an 8th-inning mainstay.
Is short-arming the ball more than he used to. I guess because it hurts less.
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=== Jose Lopez ===
Had practically no weight transfer on the HR that he blasted deep to left-center. Just flicked the bat and WHAPPED it through the cold air, deep over the fence. The kid is SUDDEN.
One of these days, he's liable to WHAP forty dingers. For somebody else. ;- )
Well, maybe twenty-five or thirty, not for somebody else. At second base that's doing a whale of a lot to help the club win some ball games.
See you at the park,
Jeff