• Have something to say? Register Now! and be posting in minutes!

Series Thread: Elvis and Maz are rocking as the Rangers roll into Seattle - Apr 14-16

UK Cowboy

Happy Father's Day T-Roy
29,562
8,322
533
Joined
Aug 9, 2013
Location
Longview, Texas
Hoopla Cash
$ 1.36
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
You are right. There is no way this guy should be closing. He needs to be in the game right now when the game is not on the line. Used Claudio for 1 pitch. I can understand Banister expecting Dyson to do his job the 1st time he came in as closer and even the 2nd but after that not so much. Unfortunately I was not expecting much this year because of our pitching but never thought it would be because of Dyson.
Dyson looks like a little league SS who made 3 errors in the first inning and doesn't want the ball hit to him. As soon as the first runner got on, it was over. He didn't even throw over on an obvious steal. Brainlock choke
 

jta4437

Grumpy Cat
12,778
866
113
Joined
Aug 9, 2011
Location
College Station, TX
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Dyson looks like a little league SS who made 3 errors in the first inning and doesn't want the ball hit to him. As soon as the first runner got on, it was over. He didn't even throw over on an obvious steal. Brainlock choke

There was no reason to throw over bc Dyson wasn't even taking a big lead, he stole that with almost no lead whatsoever... Dyson is kinda fast.... throwing over wasn't going to matter there
 

UK Cowboy

Happy Father's Day T-Roy
29,562
8,322
533
Joined
Aug 9, 2013
Location
Longview, Texas
Hoopla Cash
$ 1.36
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
There was no reason to throw over bc Dyson wasn't even taking a big lead, he stole that with almost no lead whatsoever... Dyson is kinda fast.... throwing over wasn't going to matter there
Yes it would LMAO. A lot of fast base stealers take bigger leads when they are NOT going and short leads when they are. The purpose of throwing over isn't to "keep him close", it's to pick him off when he jumps. Come on lol
 

saddles

Be Patient and Finish Right #TakeBackTX
37,865
6,738
533
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Location
Fort Worth
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
I don't see why anyone would be calling about Beltre this season.
You mean because he has another year left on his contract after this one or because he started the season out on the DL? Or something else?
 

saddles

Be Patient and Finish Right #TakeBackTX
37,865
6,738
533
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Location
Fort Worth
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
You are right. There is no way this guy should be closing. He needs to be in the game right now when the game is not on the line. Used Claudio for 1 pitch. I can understand Banister expecting Dyson to do his job the 1st time he came in as closer and even the 2nd but after that not so much. Unfortunately I was not expecting much this year because of our pitching but never thought it would be because of Dyson.
Good to see you back on here.
 

BULLPEN FAILURE

Headed to a more competent location
16,985
5,036
533
Joined
Jan 12, 2015
Location
Bullpen, TX
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
You mean because he has another year left on his contract after this one or because he started the season out on the DL? Or something else?

That he is injured now and has a history of leg injuries and he is in his late 30's.
 

DT LUNA

Vietnam Veteran
36,538
5,095
533
Joined
Jul 2, 2013
Hoopla Cash
$ 950.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
You are right. There is no way this guy should be closing. He needs to be in the game right now when the game is not on the line. Used Claudio for 1 pitch. I can understand Banister expecting Dyson to do his job the 1st time he came in as closer and even the 2nd but after that not so much. Unfortunately I was not expecting much this year because of our pitching but never thought it would be because of Dyson.
I don't know where you came from but glad you're back. Yes sir! Welcome back!
 

saddles

Be Patient and Finish Right #TakeBackTX
37,865
6,738
533
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Location
Fort Worth
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
That he is injured now and has a history of leg injuries and he is in his late 30's.
Yeah, it would definitely take a team that is desperate due to a long term injury of their own and a need at 3B. In 2011 had we had a significant injury in June or July we might have been desperate enough to trade for a similar player, but those situations don't come along very often. If that unlikely scenario occurred I think I would be tempted to move him, but I certainly wouldn't try and trade him simply to trade him.
 

saddles

Be Patient and Finish Right #TakeBackTX
37,865
6,738
533
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Location
Fort Worth
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Jamey Newberg had soem interesting insights this morning.

Hamels is really good. He still is. It fires me up that he gets the ball here every fifth day. He’s holding opponents to a .234 batting average and has thrown 12 scoreless innings out of those 18. A lot of those leadoff baserunners are getting stranded, because he’s Cole Hamels.
But all those leadoff baserunners also lengthen innings and extend pitch counts, and that has factored into him averaging six innings a start when the surface numbers and the track record might suggest he’d be giving you maybe 7.1 frames each time out. Instead, he’s leaving nine outs on average for the bullpen to record, and it’s a bullpen missing a couple major pieces right now and getting very shaky work out of another major piece, and though Hamels has entrusted his relief crew with the lead three times out of three, it’s not all on the bullpen that he has yet to log a win.
Maybe if Hamels had managed to throw fewer than 96 pitches Sunday and, accordingly, just five frames, Tony Barnette and Alex Claudio and Jeremy Jeffress and Matt Bush pitch, in some sequence, and get to the finish line without engaging the very important Dyson project at all, especially in a ninth-inning situation, ahead by one.


As much as I love Odor, I really look forward to the time when his approach at the plate matures situationally. Do what the games asks you to do, Wash used to say, and Clint Hurdle used to preach, but when the game situation calls for a baserunner of any type, or a productive out, the 23-year-old’s eyes seemingly get bigger, and the violent swing longer, as if to say I’ll show you a productive “out” — by putting the next pitch out of the park.
I’m not going to take the time to go back and look at the number of instances over these 12 games that Odor has had a runner on third with fewer than two outs — that is, a sacrifice fly opportunity — but I do know that in his 10 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, he has two hits (a home run on Opening Day and a huge triple in Anaheim), and in the other eight trips he’s failed to drive a run in.
In the third inning yesterday, with Texas up, 3-1, Odor stepped up with runners on first and third and one out. He popped out to shortstop. That failure to get the run in ended up was obscured, happily, when Jonathan Lucroy and Choo followed with a single and double.
Odor came up with the bases loaded in the seventh, after Seattle put Napoli on base intentionally with two outs and Texas ahead, 6-5. A base hit would have been huge, obviously, as Elvis Andrus would have been breaking from second on contact and scoring behind Jurickson Profar on any ball hit safely to the outfield. (I was thinking back to Kyle Seager’s approach on his tie-breaking single Saturday night.)
But Odor, charged undoubtedly by the affront of the point of Napoli to first, swung big and missed, took two pitches outside the zone, swung big and missed again, and then flew out to right to end the inning. Grand slam intent on each swing, when a base hit would have changed the game meaningfully.
(It wasn’t the story of this game, but what happened in back-to-back at-bats in the seventh inning was notable: Odor flies out with the bases loaded to end the top of the inning, right after which Guillermo Heredia homers off Barnette to lead off the bottom of the frame, his first of the year and second of his career, to tie the game, 6-6, erasing what had once been a 6-1 Texas lead.)
Ninth inning. Nomar Mazara had homered off Edwin Diaz to start the inning and reclaim the lead. Napoli fouled out, and Odor was up.
Ball one.
Ball two.
Ball three.
There’s not a better hitter’s count, obviously (assuming there aren’t runners in scoring position with first base open). Green lights on 3-0 aren’t handed out liberally, but in certain situations they’re granted, giving a certain type of hitter the opportunity to ambush a get-me-over strike and do a lot more damage than a base on balls. The hitter has the luxury of sitting on an exact pitch location he knows he can punish, and otherwise letting the pitch go by, knowing he’ll still be in a hitter’s count if it’s not ball four.
Diaz delivered what would have been ball four, 97 up and in, a location that clearly could not have been in the zone Odor was sitting on. But he swung anyway, rather than taking his base (or, at worst, falling to 3-1 if the pitch was somehow called a strike), and he popped out to the catcher.
I love Rougie. A lot. He’s going to forge the identity of this team once the third baseman is finished playing. But there are areas of his game that he can improve, and needs to.

 

saddles

Be Patient and Finish Right #TakeBackTX
37,865
6,738
533
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Location
Fort Worth
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Also this by Jamey Newberg.

The last time the Rangers were swept in Seattle was 2007, which was also the last time this team was strategically dismantled in an effort to shift windows.

I like this team a lot. Texas has as much ability to turn this around, less than one-twelfth into the six-month season, as the 2-10 Jays or the 5-7 Indians or the 3-9 Cardinals do.

But at the moment the Rangers have as many wins as Neftali Feliz has saves, and the latest loss was a bad one, marked by a handful of issues on the mound and in the field and at the plate that are going have to change for this team to play 162+ for the seventh time in eight years.

There are things that have to change, regardless of which pitcher gets the ball to protect a ninth-inning lead.
 

jta4437

Grumpy Cat
12,778
866
113
Joined
Aug 9, 2011
Location
College Station, TX
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
Yes it would LMAO. A lot of fast base stealers take bigger leads when they are NOT going and short leads when they are. The purpose of throwing over isn't to "keep him close", it's to pick him off when he jumps. Come on lol

He was already close, it was pointless, Dyson was taking off with a small lead no matter what

I contend it wasn't going to matter one way or the other and there wasn't anything a throw over there was going to do about it
 

PDay8810

Well-Known Member
22,298
8,875
533
Joined
Jul 22, 2013
Location
Texas by the Grace of God
Hoopla Cash
$ 7.77
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
"As much as I love Odor, I really look forward to the time when his approach at the plate matures situationally. "

BOY....do I ever agree with this statement
 

UK Cowboy

Happy Father's Day T-Roy
29,562
8,322
533
Joined
Aug 9, 2013
Location
Longview, Texas
Hoopla Cash
$ 1.36
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
He was already close, it was pointless, Dyson was taking off with a small lead no matter what

I contend it wasn't going to matter one way or the other and there wasn't anything a throw over there was going to do about it
The size of the lead is irrelevant, it's the jump that matters. What throwing over there would have done is given our catcher a chance. It wasn't the lead-off batter in the first inning, it was the tying run in the 9th with a speed guy on. He was going on the first or second pitch without question. You don't throw over once, you throw over 3-4 times so the guy doesn't get a running jump. Compete
 

jta4437

Grumpy Cat
12,778
866
113
Joined
Aug 9, 2011
Location
College Station, TX
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
The size of the lead is irrelevant, it's the jump that matters. What throwing over there would have done is given our catcher a chance. It wasn't the lead-off batter in the first inning, it was the tying run in the 9th with a speed guy on. He was going on the first or second pitch without question. You don't throw over once, you throw over 3-4 times so the guy doesn't get a running jump. Compete

I get what you're saying, and most of the time that holds true, but in this case it wouldn't have mattered one bit

Should he have thrown over a couple times, yes, would it have mattered? not in the slightest
 

saddles

Be Patient and Finish Right #TakeBackTX
37,865
6,738
533
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Location
Fort Worth
Hoopla Cash
$ 1,000.00
Fav. Team #1
Fav. Team #2
Fav. Team #3
New thread is up.
 
Top