Running 2011 Baseball Thread, Vol. I: Dedicated to spnited

I'll second that. The problem wasn't that he was giving a very generous corner of the plate, but he was giving both sides. I think all hitters will agree that they won't complain if the ump is generous to one side, but that has to mean that he is especially tight to the other.

 

Wow. Bad enough baseball stacks the deck financially against the Pirates. Now the umpires are ripping them off, too?



(Sorry. Couldn't resist).

 

To be fair, MLB isn't stacking any financial deck against the Pirates, they are doing that all by their lonesome.

 

After Buster Posey had his leg chopped in half by a slide, you would think "catcher has the ball and is holding it well ahead of the runner, tag looks decent" logic would be an easy call.

Now I guess the catcher needs to bloody the mouth of the runner just to make sure there was enough contact for a called out.

 

Here's one for you ... Clint Hurdle managed 18 1/3 innings without using arguably his best pitcher, Joel Hanrahan. Guess he was waiting for that save situation to show up in the 20th ...

(And yes, the call was hideous. I just figured that had been covered already).

 

Passan, as usual, nails it: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AsQ66a9mTMPX69kQkdUJJ5s5nYcB?slug=jp-passan_pirates_braves_blown_call_replay_072711.

 

Have to give MLB.com credit for putting all the video of the play up on their site.

 

Daniel McCutcheon was the right man in long relief to be able to save Hanrahan until a possible close situation came around. He is more of an innings eater, a starter in the minors I believe, although it is rare to pitch for more than two innings as a middle reliever. I think he played it right, considering how much he has used his bullpen in previous games and Atlanta blew the best of their bullpen before the 11th was over. Plus, if the Bucs did scratch out a run, how demoralizing would it have been to not have your closer, and have some scrub give up 2 in the bottom of the 20th?

 

Christhian Martinez and Scott (!!!) Proctor (!!!!!!!) combined to pitch a complete-game shutout for the Braves.

 

Jerry Meals is on the same crew with C.B. Bucknor.

I guess his stupid is permeating the whole crew.

 

Replays of the Lugo play at the plate look inconclusive to me. Yeah, Meals had a horrible night behind the plate, but if you've got to examine it in slomo and stare at multiple still photos to decide whether he got it right, the call he made in real time doesn't deserve the criticism it's getting. He'd have gotten no criticism for an out call, to be sure - the first time I saw it at real speed, I thought it was horrible too - but it's not as cut-and-dried as it's being made out to be.

 

From some of the stills, it looks like you can see the catcher's mitt bending.

It's bending because it's compressed on his leg.