Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Nibbles

So I'm a pretty huge Marc Rzepczynski apologist. Call me whatever you want, I'm just a sucker for left-handedness and general effectiveness. Totally enamoured with the high level of usage he's been given this season, I was predictably impressed that he only walked one batter throughout 11 appearances in the entire month of May.

For your consideration, you can imagine how I felt after THIS happened last night with a runner on and 2 outs in bottom of the 7th of a 1-run game.

That's uh... not great.

If you're good at counting, you'll notice that there are 12 green blips up there, correlating to 3 consecutive walks. The Blue Jays lost this game. Sure you could argue that he got squeezed on a couple pitches but there are two walks worth of balls nowhere near the zone. If you need me I'll be ignoring this information and going back to my regularly scheduled blind praise of the man they call Eye Chart. Some nights a guy just doesn't have it and can't get a break to save the lack of 'stuff'. Right??? Right?? Right.

/sadface

{Follow Archi on twitter here}
{Photo Courtesy Art Of The Wire}
{Pitch F/X Courtesy Joe Lefkowitz}

6 comments:

  1. Ehh, not completely right. I have no idea why Farrell decided to pull Camp who had been pitching well just to face the mighty Alex Gordon. Sure Scrabble is at fault for sucking as bad as he did, but there was no need to put him into that situation at all. Camp stays in there, we win this game. Period.

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  2. Ehhh, the mighty Alex Gordon currently owns a tidy .359 wOBA. There was a runner on first and RZep's been the Jays best reliever this season.

    Second guessing the move is easy in retrospect, beefing with going to RZep isn't really a worthy fight.

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  3. Scrabble is also the holder of a career 4BB/9. Sure he's been better this year, but small sample sizes. While I think there are relievers who are capable of coming in with men on (Jansen and Frasor are very good at this) I don't think this is a skill Rzep has developed yet.

    While I had my problems with Cito, I do think he managed a better bullpen than Farrell does. Dotel saved us last night, but too often he has been brought in to face lefties. Too many times we've wasted a single reliever to face an average batter. If the batter is Adrian Gonzalez sure, but Gordon doesn't need to be pitched around.

    As for Mark, he is fine as a reliever if he is used properly. Brought in for a full inning, brought in at the start of the inning and left there.

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  4. I don't really think Zepczynski's walk rate as a starter plays when discussing his results as a reliever. Not the same situation.

    I agree Gordon doesn't need to be pitched around, which is why you bring in the reliever best suited to retire him. If he does, Rzep can stay in to flip Melky around and face Hosmer in the 8th. Didn't work out that way, which sucks.

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  5. Sure looked like he got squeezed pretty bad.

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  6. What I've noticed about Zep is that when he's wild, he's VERY wild. He only has 10 walks this season, but I think 6 have come over just two outings. Perhaps Farrell should have yanked him as soon as he came in throwing balls, but I have no problem with the strategy of bringing him in there in general.

    I think it's a typical problem for a good lefty to have...their stuff is so dynamic, coming from that psuedo-sidearm, fall-off-the-mound delivery, that sometimes the plate is the size of a pea. Just got to learn when he's effective and when he's not.

    And did you include the Prez pic because of the Polish name, or because he looks exactly like Scrabble? Either way, nails.

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