Up From the Grave They Arose

The season this year began on Easter.  It shows.

I am not a member of the church of baseball, even though I attend some of the services, but the story of the Canberra Kangaroos is still moving, nonetheless — as are the other stories today of redemption and stuff.

Perhaps there is hope, still, for Yordany Ventura?

 

 

Canberra: DNP, 1 – (-10);  .217, .296, .391; 14.7 ip, 3 er.   Probably the most controversial pick of the rookie draft, after the Amazing Alcantara, was the Kangaroos’ choice of Shane Greene near the end of the first round.  The Kangaroo Captain defended the pick, calling Greene “Fister 2.o”.   We all rolled our eyes, but were too polite to argue how silly that was.  Thursday Greene made his ‘Roo debut:  8.0 ip, 0.0 ER.  Better than the pick just before him (Daniel Norris) also taken by the ‘Roos:  5.7 ip, 3 er.  So now we know why Canberra thought Greene was worth $500,000 more than Norris.

Also, Aroldis Chapman got his first win of the year after a scoreless inning of relief, thanks to a walk-off fielding error by Wolverine Gregory Polanco (gulp!).

The end result of all this: Canberra completes a trip from last to first place in just three days. They missed some spots along the way.  We’ll make sure they get to visit them, too, before the season is over.

 

 

Peshastin:  DNP, 0 – 0. .176,.222,.235; 1 ip, 0 er.    Not much noteworthy happened in Peshastin Thursday, so I have a chance to mention something that I neglected yesterday:  Jake Odorizzi’s fine start Wednesday for the Pears: 6.7 ip, 0 er, 7 so, 0 walks, only 2 hits. Odorizzi is the Pears’ 5th starter, so this is pretty ominous for the rest of us.  We still have to focus on stopping the Alleghenys, but we need to keep an eye on the Pears.

 

Old DetroitL  W 1, L (-1).  0 – (-4):  .200, .273, .300; 12 ip, 2 er.   In his first inning as a Wolverine, Trevor Bauer walked 2 and struck out 3 in 26 pitches. In the second inning he struck out two  (10 pitches), then walked the next two (15 more pitches), then got a pop out on the third pitch to Jose Altuve, already up for his second time.  First 10 batters: 5 strikeouts, 4 walks, one fair ball out, 56 pitches. In the third Bauer needed only 17 pitches to get two strikeouts and a fly ball to center. In the fourth: 11 pitches for two strikeouts and a ground out to first.  Fifth: 8 pitches, another strikeout, a foul out, and a ground out to second. In the sixth: a walk, a strikeout, a ground out to short and a pop out to second in 21 pitches.  That’s six innings, 111 pitches, 37 balls, 16 called strikes, 16 swings and misses, 27 foul balls, 5 fair balls (one to the outfield), 5 walks, 11 strikeouts, and no hits. Thats a BABIP of 0.000.   In six innings he faced 23 batters, got 16 true outcomes (5 W,  11 K, 0 HR) for 69.6%. (Plus two foul popouts, which ought to be honorary true outcomes, which would make his rate 78%).

His opponent, a guy named A. Wojciechowski, made 88 pitches: 38 balls, 17 called strikes, 2 swings and misses, 13 fouls, 10 fair-ball outs, and 8 hits. That’s a BABIP of .444. In 4 innings plus he faced 22 batters, getting 6 true outcomes (2 k, 2 w, 2 hr) for a 22% true outcome rate.

According to Fangraphs, the average BABIP is about .300.  The average true outcome rate is also about 30%.

The average batter makes contact on about 80% of his swings.  The average batter against Trevor Bauer Thursday made contact with 67%  (32 out of 48) of his swings.  The average batter against Wojciechowski made contact with 94% of his swings (31 out of 33).  The average batter swings and misses on 9.5% of the pitches he sees. Against Bauer: 14.4%.  Against Wojciechowski: 2.3%.

I’ll take Bauer.

 

Kaline: DNP, 2 – 1.  .385, .500, .615; 1.3 ip, 2 er:    I think the chulkiest  EFL performance from Thursday was the sextuple chulk produced by Andres Torres in his Drive debut 0.3 ip, 2 er.  It’s only a very small sextuple chulk, they don’t come any smaller.  And I sincerely hope it’s the last one by Torres, who was a Wolverine last year. But perhaps it doesn’t matter — the Drive are clearly resilient.  If their pitching stumbles a little bit, they just go out and paste the ball around the diamond and win anyway.

 

 

Haviland:  DNP, (-3) – 0.  .217, .217, .435; 0 ip, 0 er.      The Dragons went into Thursday’s games weighted down with two starting pitchers at replacement level or worse, but also bouyed by four hitters with OPS over 1.000:  Jake Lamb (1.302), Alcides Escobar (1.267), Steve Pearce (1.152), and Casey McGehee (1.051).  One of those is not like the others, and he played on Thursday, going 1 for 3 with a double which brought Escobar’s OPS down to 1.105.  Meanwhile, JD Martinez was going 2 for 4 with a homer to bring his OPS up to 1.154.  So that’s 5 superhitters.  Poor old Paul Goldschmidt, moping around in shame that his OPS is only .983, .122 below Alcides Escobar.  The rest of the team is following Paul’s lead, and did nearly nothing Thursday, so the team lost three runs on the season.

 

Cottage: L, 3- 6.  .207, .303, .310;  r ip, 7 er.      The Cheese moved heaven and earth to get Kendall Graveman into their pitching rotation.  They tried to activate him as a starter to replace the injured Alex Cobb but had to settle for activating him as a reliever to replace Drew Pomeranz, who they switched to starting.  Graveman actually started Thursday, which makes him eligible to be a starter next month, if the Cheese so desire.  But I wouldn’t bet the pantry on it: Graveman’s line was 3.3 ip, 7 er, for the first chulk by a starter in the EFL this season.

 

Portland: DNP, (-2) – 0.   .167, .200, .167; 0 ip, 0 er.  I hope they realize in Portland that eventially they are going to have to let their pitchers take the mound.  So far the Rosebuds have only had three pitchers appear in a game, with a team total of 12.3 ip.  They could have done some catching-up yesterday, but the staff is apparently still shellshocked by Yordany Ventura’s sudden demise.

 

Flint Hill:  W 1, L (-1); 0 – 0.  .182, .250, .275;  1 ip, 0 er   On April 8, Xander Bogaerts was hitting .143, .150, .143.  That day Fangraphs came out with an article titled: Xander and Hanley: Wunderkinds at 22. The premise: Bogaerts at 22 is about where Hanley Remirez was when he was 22.

At 22, Ramirez debuted with the Red Sox, and got 2 plate appearances. That offseason he was a) dealt to the Marlins and b) ignored in the Rookie Draft by the entire EFL, including the dummy computer managers. The next year, at age 23, Ramirez went .292, .353, .480 and create 4.4 WAR.  That was followed by years of 5.2 WAR, 7.5, 7.1, 4.2 — so we missed out on 28.4 WAR over the 5 years he would have been an EFL rookie.

Bogaerts is ahead of that curve. He just turned 22 last October, and already has a season under his belt. But then, he was batting only .143 as of Thursday morning.

On Thursday — the day after the article — Bogaerts went 3 for 4 with a triple and a walk. Now he’s batting .364, .462, .545.  He was originally a Wolverine — we saw him first — and we want him back now.

 

Pittsburgh: L, 2 – 6. .250, .286, .536.       When the ‘Roos traded Stephen Strasburg to the Alleghenys, many of us despaired. Not only was Strasburg going to seal the 2014 pennant race for Pittsburgh, but he’d be there for the entire 2015 campaign, as well, before his rookie status ran out.  How would we ever find a way to beat Pittsburgh after that deal?  Well: here’s Strasburg’s line from his Allegheny debut: 5.3 ip,  3 er. Not a disaster, but there isn’t a team in the EFL that couldn’t compete with that 5.06 ERA. So — did the Kangaroos know something the rest of us didn’t?

 

 

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