Good day, whoever you are, and welcome to the second part of The Worst Of The Best’s first ~half in review. Right here is a link to the section with all of the posts in this series, starting from the first, naturally. This is the day after the All-Star Game, meaning it’s a day without major-league baseball. Thursday, too, will be another day without major-league baseball, and a common complaint is that the break is too long and there just aren’t any sports to watch. For one thing, the players themselves probably don’t think the break is too long. Players with things like “families” and “desires for a little downtime before facing the hellish, unforgiving grind that is the season’s home stretch.” Also, just because there’s no live major-league baseball doesn’t mean you can’t watch some new major-league baseball. That’s what the MLB.tv archives are for! That’s not actually what the MLB.tv archives are for, but, if you feel like it, go back to some date and watch a game you didn’t pay attention to. As long as you don’t see the final score, the game’ll be full of surprises. It’ll be new baseball to you, just like how a lot of the .gifs below are probably new baseball to you. A day without baseball doesn’t have to be a day you don’t learn something about baseball.
Earlier, we checked out terrible pitches. Now it’s time to check out terrible swings, by which I mean full swings — not attempted checked swings — that didn’t take place in hit-and-run situations. I don’t think a batter should be laughed at so much if he almost thinks better of swinging. I don’t think a batter should be laughed at so much if the swing decision is taken out of his hands. The swings you’re going to see? These batters should be laughed at, albeit probably from a distance, without their knowledge. Coming up: five swings at the pitches furthest from the center of the strike zone, as determined by PITCHf/x and me. We’re covering the whole season to date. Get ready to think about Vladimir Guerrero.
Read the rest of this entry »
