The Futility Infielder

Rocket Science

Last night my friend and co-worker Lillie (and her husband) treated me (and my girlfriend) to Field Box seats at Shea Stadium for a Mets-Giants game. Thus I finally got to see Barry Bonds play in person. Bonds had a pretty quiet night, walking unintentionally on four straight pitches in the first, popping out to lead off the third, walking intentionally with men on second and third in the fourth. If he could have taken the Fifth in the sixth, we might all have been on a roll, but as it was, he flew out to leftfield instead. Reliever Kane Davis struck him out to end the eighth, one of four consecutive strikeouts Davis recorded (David Bell, Rich Aurilia, Bonds, and Jeff Kent, a pretty decent bunch) as the brightest spot for the Mets this night as they lost 5-1. Once again, I seem to be jinxing the home team.

Mo Vaughn had the other big Mets highlight, making a diving stop of a Tsuyoshi Shinjo smash in the fifth inning. I didn't know the big fella could move like that. But either Vaughn's in better shape than I thought or Barry Bonds is bigger than advertised; seeing the two of them standing side-by-side at relatively close range (as when Bonds walked) they looked alarmingly similar despite a listed difference of 40-50 lbs (Bonds is listed at 190 lbs on baseball-reference.com, 228 on ESPN.com; Vaughn is 230 on baseball-reference.com, 275 on ESPN).

Speaking of Vaughn, Nick and I spent the last couple of days laughing at his expense. The New York Times beat writer for the Mets, Rafael Hermoso, made a big issue of how Vaughn has discovered his new bats were heavier than their usual 36 ounces; apparently he switched from ash bats to maple, a denser wood. Hermoso, every bit the rocket scientist as the rusty slugger, broke the same startling revelation in three... diffferent... articles... spread out over three days. What follows is our email exchange:

Jay: Man, it took Mo Vaughn a month to figure out his bats were too heavy, and since changing back he's gone an astounding 1-for-6? That guy's some kind of genius. When the Over/Under on his HR output gets down to 17, put me down for 2 Large on the Over, and throw in another dime for Sideshow Mel...

Nick: Funnier still is the fact that...
"Vaughn said he planned to weigh each of his bats this week to determine which ones were 36 ounces."
Which doesn't make much sense, considering....
"It included two dozen 36-ounce bats and four batting practice bats, which weighed 38 to 40 ounces and which Moyer said were labeled MV42BP."
..and this...
"Vaughn's model, named the MV42 for his initials and uniform number, is a 36-inch, 36-ounce bat. Old Hickory gave it a special ebony finish."

Jay: Clearly he's got the whole department working on this one.

Nick: You'd think that at his age, he's want to avoid pulling a George Scott, and move to something lighter than a 36 oz bat.

Jay: I don't think he's gotten around to reading The Big Book of Big-Assed Sluggers, specifically the George Scott chapter about bat speed. Probably left it at the Foxy Lady a few years ago...

Now, I'm not a professional athlete. But I am a professional graphic designer, and I'm on an intimate basis with the tools of my trade: computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, etc. Having done this for more or less ten years, I'm fairly attuned to even the most minute variations in my equipment's performance. I can tell you which keys stick on which keyboard of the four computers I spend significant time at each day, when my mouse has a coat of gunk on the rollers, when two graphic items on a page are misaligned by one half a point (1/144th of an inch), and when our Fiery color printer is printing 5% too much magenta. Granted, I don't do all of this in front of 50,000 screaming fans a night, but it seems astounding to me that Mo Vaughn isn't as in tune with his instruments as I am with mine. Isn't that why they pay him the big bucks?

• • • • •

Caught a bit of the Yanks-Devil Rays game tonight. For the fourth time this season, Alfonso Soriano led off the game with a home run, putting him only 76 behind Rickey Henderson for his career. Right now Soriano is not only the Yanks most exciting player, but also their leader in batting average, home runs, runs, RBI, hits, doubles, total bases (about 50% more than his next closest teammate, Jason Giambi), slugging percentage, and OPS. He's at .349 AVG / 8 HR / 24 RBI and .377 OBP / .630 SLG / 1007 OPS. This just in: he's good. Yes, he's walked only 6 times, and that's up against 36 strikeouts, but if he's on pace to walk only 29 times, that also means he's on pace to hit 19 leadoff homers and 38 overall. You can go complain to the sabermetric police, but I'll take that ratio.

Taking a closer look at Soriano's splits reveals some pretty amazing stuff (yes, these are only 20 AB samples in most cases, but so what):

             AVG    OBP     SLG    OPS

0-0 count:  .600 / .600 / 1.100 / 1700  (connecting on the first pitch)

0-1 count:  .400 / .400 /  .750 / 1250  (wow!)

After 0-1:  .256 / .274 /  .476 /  750  (this is still pretty good)

1-0 count:  .500 / .462 / 1.083 / 1545  (pow!)

After 1-0:  .409 / .460 /  .705 / 1165

Adding them up, if he's connecting on 0-0, 0-1, or 1-0, he's 26-for-52 with 6 doubles and 6 homers, giving him a line of .500/.491/.962 (higher AVG than OBP due to one sac). Anybody still thinking of messing with his approach right now is nuts, because whatever he's doing is clearly working. Wow.

• • • • •

As the Yanks were beating the hapless Rays (handing them their 13th straight loss), Roger Clemens earned his 285th win, passing Ferguson Jenkins on the all-time list and moving into a tie with the original switch-pitcher, Tony Mullane (see below). When Ken Singleton was talking about Mullane, I felt like he could have been reading off of this page; he mentioned that Mullane didn't wear a glove and talked about the American Association as a major league, and he also referred to Greg Harris and Cal McLish. Seems like I anticiapted a timely topic.

By the way, I cited Mullane with 284 wins via baseball-reference, but my MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia lists him at 285, as did the YES broadcast, and CNN/SI pegs him at 287. Weird. Regardless of how long the late Mullane is able to hang with Clemens, the Rocket will be passing a few more pretty good names over the next three wins: Robin Roberts (286), Bert Blyleven (287), and Tommy John (288). WIth his six Cy Youngs, Clemens has the hardware on those three, but I wouldn't object to any of them in my rotation.