Probably the biggest baseball story of last week was Carlos Quentin charging the mound after a hit-by-pitch and in the process badly injuring Zack Greinke. At first it looked like Quentin had done something completely stupid, then after some additional consideration, it looked like Quentin had done something completely stupid and Greinke also hadn’t helped himself. (Nuance.) The pitch that hit Quentin wasn’t that bad of a pitch. Quentin is no stranger to wearing it, and generally when you have a guy who gets hit a lot, that selection will include both wild pitches and surprisingly close pitches.

Dave put up a post about Carlos Quentin’s hit-by-pitch zone, which you can see here. As can be observed from the image, over the years Quentin has been hit by a few pitches that might’ve otherwise been borderline strikes. That gave Dave the idea to ask me about other hit-by-pitches that were at least borderline strikes. With the invaluable help of friend and colleague Matthew Carruth, I present to you an overall, league-wide hit-by-pitch zone map.

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As a rule, Mondays suck, but as Mondays go, this is always a good one, as the Red Sox play a frightfully early home baseball game. On 2013’s Patriots’ Day, the Red Sox hosted the Rays, and it was 2-1 Boston in the top of the sixth when Evan Longoria batted with two down and runners on the corners. In a full count against Ryan Dempster, Longoria returned a grounder up the middle, but Stephen Drew made a diving stop and threw to Mike Napoli for the out. The inning was over, the Rays didn’t score, and the Rays would end up losing by a run a few innings later.

Things were that simple, and things were also a hell of a lot more complicated. Longoria was upset with the call at first base, because the play was close, and had Longoria been ruled safe, the game would’ve been tied. This was one of the higher-leverage moments of the game. Below, you can see it all for yourself:

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Saturday night in Seattle, the Mariners were playing the Rangers, and the score was 1-1 going into the top of the eighth inning. Carter Capps relieved Joe Saunders, and the broadcast warned that Capps shouldn’t walk leadoff batter Craig Gentry, because Gentry is one of the quicker runners in the league. Also because you shouldn’t walk anybody if you can help it. Capps subsequently walked Gentry, and Gentry scored, and that run would prove to be the winning run in a 3-1 final. Gentry walked on seven pitches and a full count.

It was a walk not without its controversy, although it looks like a bigger deal now than it seemed at the time. With the count 2-and-2, Capps threw Gentry a fastball in the low-away quadrant that easily could’ve been called strike three. Gameday shows that the pitch was within the strike zone, and during the game other strikes were called in the area. The pitch was ruled ball three, and the next pitch was a far less controversial ball four. Hence the walk, hence the run, hence the loss. It didn’t sit very well with Carter Capps, not that the one pitch was the reason the Mariners lost the ballgame.

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And now we’re to the second part of the second edition of The Worst Of The Best. In this part, as in the second part of the first edition of this series, I encountered a problem where I logged into MLB.tv too often in too narrow a window of time. What happens then is you get your account suspended! Very temporarily. So it is something of an inconvenience, hence the delay in getting this post up on the page. So be prepared if you’re ever going to load a bunch of different MLB.tv archive games all willy-nilly. Don’t load them from Gameday or from the scoreboard page; load them through the actual MLB.tv window itself. Having had this problem twice, it’s clear that the penalty after the first infraction wasn’t enough of a deterrent to teach me a lesson, but I won’t worry about my cognitive function until or unless it happens a third time.

Incidentally, when I did something like this last year, sometimes people would write in about really ugly swings, wondering why those didn’t show up on the list. Like, swings where the batter fell down, or something. Those are bad swings, but these are the swings at the wildest pitches, which is different and which is based on PITCHf/x instead of observation and judgment. Someone, probably, should keep track of all the swings where batters fall down. But because that information isn’t easily recovered on a computer, I’m not going to worry about it, myself. Here are wild swings at pitches way out of the zone. That’s all this is, and nothing more. Off to the top five, or the bottom five, depending on your perspective.

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Hello friends, and welcome to the first part of the second edition of The Worst Of The Best. Here is a link to the first part of the first edition, in case you don’t know what this is. So, read that, or just read on because it dawned on me I don’t know how I’m supposed to introduce these things each week. I don’t feel right just launching into the images and the commentary, but I also don’t know how I’m regularly supposed to start with something original and fresh. This sort of meta-commentary right here isn’t going to fly every time so I’m all but out of ideas. It’s April 12.

The idea: highlight the bad. The deeper idea: acknowledge the greatness by highlighting the bad. Everything is PITCHf/x derived, so I’m limited by PITCHf/x completeness and accuracy, but that sounds worse than it is because PITCHf/x is pretty damn complete and accurate. Every time I do something like this, someone leaves a comment to the effect of “I can’t believe [X] didn’t make it.” Believe it. Maybe, just maybe, PITCHf/x got things wrong. More probably, the example you’re thinking of just didn’t meet the qualifications. This is a top-five list. It can only have five things. Let’s look at and talk about those five things, now.

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Probably my favorite Petco Park story is everybody’s favorite Petco Park story. Some time ago, when the Padres had Phil Nevin and Phil Nevin was good, and Petco was still pretty new, Nevin drove a ball deep to right field that wound up going for a double instead of a home run. Nevin subsequently slammed down his helmet and pointed at where he figured Kevin Towers was, as if to suggest the park was ridiculous. Indeed, it was ridiculous, for dinger-hitting. My favorite Safeco Field story is Felix Hernandez’s perfect game but that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Basically, as everybody came to know, Petco and Safeco were extreme ballparks. They had areas to which it wasn’t that hard to hit a home run, but by and large, taken overall, home runs were difficult. Too difficult, it was determined.

So this past offseason, Petco and Safeco both brought in the fences. Not everywhere, but in the difficult bits. Here, you can read about the Safeco adjustments, if you’re in the dark. Here, you can read about the Petco adjustments, if the same. Interestingly, the Padres had already moved in the fences at Petco once before, but that was years ago and they didn’t actually change that much. This most recent renovation was far greater in scope, and in intended consequences.

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The other day, Marty Foster got himself in the headlines when he made a controversial call to end a close game between the Rays and the Rangers. “Controversial” is a more charitable way of saying “bad”. On that night, Foster’s judgment helped the Rangers win. On Wednesday afternoon, Foster’s judgment helped the Rays win instead, but this hasn’t generated nearly the headlines, because it’s hardly controversial. Allow me to briefly set the scene, with Foster umpiring at second base.

The Rays were leading the Rangers 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth, but the Rangers had the bases loaded with only one out. Mitch Moreland subsequently grounded to Kelly Johnson, and Johnson threw to Yunel Escobar at second in an effort to start a double play. Escobar double-pumped while throwing to first, though, and Moreland beat the throw, allowing a run to score. Yet the run was immediately erased and a double play was awarded. The Rangers wound up losing by that same 2-0 score. Foster awarded the double play, and Foster was not wrong to do so.

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Between August 14 and August 17 in 2011, Giancarlo Stanton hit home runs in four consecutive games. One of baseball’s premier true power hitters, Stanton has never put together a longer streak, although in fairness his career is still just beginning. Between September 23 and September 27 in 2011, Adrian Beltre hit home runs in four consecutive games. Beltre is undeniably strong, but he’s never put together a longer streak. Troy Tulowitzki has topped out at four games. Matt Holliday has topped out at four games. Jose Bautista has topped out at four games. Ryan Howard has topped out at four games. Coco Crisp has topped out at four games, but the difference is that his streak is still active.

Five days ago, Crisp went yard off Brad Peacock. Four days ago, he went yard off Bud Norris. Three days ago, he went yard off Lucas Harrell. Yesterday, he went yard off C.J. Wilson. Crisp also has five doubles to his name in the early going, and it all adds up to a .343 average, a .829 slugging percentage, and a .486 ISO. That ISO presently ranks fifth in the league, between Mark Reynolds and Colby Rasmus. Justin Upton and Chris Davis, for the sake of your own curiosity, lead the way.

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I’m probably always going to remember Ryan Franklin for three on-field performances. One, as a starter in the minors, Franklin was involved in two consecutive no-hitters — the first one combined, the second one done by Franklin all on his own. Two, in April 2005, Franklin went head-to-head against Mark Buehrle in Chicago in a game between the Mariners and the White Sox, and it was all over in just 99 minutes. Three, I actually just have those two, because this is Ryan Franklin we’re talking about and I’m a little surprised I’ll remember him for anything. Anything, at least, having to do with his performance.

On that day in 2005, Franklin was a quick worker. Working in his favor is that he threw strikes and allowed plenty of contact. But he was opposing the very king of quick work, a guy who manages to spend so little time between pitches you’re reminded all over again of how much you can’t stand Jonathan Papelbon. I wouldn’t refer to Pace as an ability, per se, but in one statistical category, Buehrle is the undisputed leader.

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