The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

The Reds are winning again.

 

The Mets have lost again.

 

Los Angeles Dodgers

Tonight, the Dodgers celebrated the anniversary of the Legendary Infield of Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Bill Russell and Davey Lopes 50 years after the exact date of their first start together.



Don't see Lopes.

 

For a painfully long time I thought it stood for “equipe le baseball.”

 

The Penguin. The Toy Cannon. Mr. Clean. Dusty. Sutton, Hough, Rhoden, Rau.

My best friend and I played "Dodgers-Tigers World Series" on the baseball field of the local church every day during the summers of 1974 and '75. Once it got dark, he could listen to Vin and Jerry on the radio.

Then he bought Giants season tickets after San Francisco moved to PacBell Park and switched allegiances.

 

Arraez back at .402 after a 3-for-4 night. As someone who, ahem, watches his stats daily, it's at the point where you almost expect him to have 3 to 5 hits a night.

 

He's the modern Wee Willie Keeler.

Saw a fascinating analysis of why he rates so low on Statcast rankings. His barrel and launch angle rates are terrible but he's not a classic slap-and-dash player. He has an incredible balls in play percentage and it's no fluke that he's successful at what he does despite having no wheels.

In fact, he squares up the ball and hits line drives as much as or more than anyone else -- but his average exit velocity is between 90-95 mph and most of his hits are between 5 and 15 degrees -- and Statcast expects the average big leaguer to exceed 95 mph and launch at 10-25 degrees because the majority of players are trying to hit it far.

That's not Arraez's strategy, which is completely refreshing. The claims that his BABIP is unsustainable don't hold water because he's not swinging for the fences. He's a singles hitter who understands that's what he does best.

 

This is really cool.

Also, how does Steve Garvey never age and how does Fernando look younger now than he did in 1981?

 

Miami is next-to-last in first-inning runs. So what good is Arraez? He's been on base 135 times and only scored 33 runs. Dude is on base 45% of the time and can't get around the bases. A fraud!

 

TSP, in 2004 on a Red Sox road trip to the West Coast I saw Ichiro have the following classic box score line. Four at bats, four singles, stole second four times. No runs scored.