Pretty much all people are creatures of habit, meaning pretty much all baseball players are creatures of habit, meaning pretty much all pitchers are creatures of habit. There’s a reason why pitchers don’t like getting unusual rest between starts. There’s a reason why pitchers don’t like having uncertain roles in the bullpen. Pitchers are all about routines, all about doing the same things over and over and over. They know of a process, and they want to stick to that process.

If you want to take this to the extreme, there have been those pitchers who’ve said they don’t pay attention to who’s at the plate. Of course, that can’t be true, or at least that shouldn’t be true — the identity of the hitter is very important. Thankfully catchers are usually paying attention. Pitchers are mindful of who’s hitting, because different players should be pitched differently.

Thinking about this got me thinking about how pitchers pitch differently in different situations. Then eventually that got me thinking about how pitchers pitch against other pitchers, because I just wrote a post about Tommy Hanson’s offense, and pitchers hitting just fascinates me. We know that pitchers like to have a certain general routine, a certain general approach. To what degree do they deviate from this approach when the guy hitting just isn’t much of a threat?

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Through the whole course of baseball history, several thousand players have managed to bat at least 200 times. An enterprising position player might reach that mark in less than two months. Given that minimum, nobody’s been a better hitter, relative to the rest of the league, than Babe Ruth, who had a career wRC+ of 197. All right, not learning a whole lot so far. Given that minimum, nobody’s been a worse hitter than one Don Carman. The long-time Phillie batted 239 times and recorded a dozen hits, racking up a wRC+ of -79. After Carman, there’s Ron Herbel, at -73. And after Herbel, there’s Tommy Hanson, at -70. Keep in mind that these are large negative numbers and wRC+ has a plus sign built right into the name. By this measure, current Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Tommy Hanson has been the third-worst hitter in baseball history.

Thursday night, facing Barry Zito in San Francisco, was another normal game at the plate for Hanson. He batted twice. The first time, he grounded back to the mound with two runners in scoring position. The second time, he struck out swinging at a curveball. There wasn’t a third time, because Hanson also pitched poorly, and while the Braves surely would’ve preferred that Hanson pitch better, at least he spared them a third time watching him hit.

Hanson has now batted 47 times this season. That’s roughly a quarter of his career total. There are no signs that his offense is getting better. To his name this season, Hanson has a -78 wRC+ and one hit. What follows is the story of that one hit.

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In a start earlier Thursday, Justin Verlander just abused the Blue Jays for nine innings. In fairness to the Blue Jays, theirs was a lineup missing Jose Bautista, J.P. Arencibia, and Brett Lawrie, and it was a lineup with Omar Vizquel batting sixth and Jeff Mathis batting seventh, but outside of one pitch Verlander cruised, as he’s so often cruised. He threw another nine frames, with another dozen strikeouts and another paltry two runs allowed. Verlander is a leading Cy Young candidate, and every time he takes the mound, you expect him to do something not unlike this.

What Verlander has done is build a reputation of being perhaps the most consistent starter in baseball. He’s not just excellent; he’s routinely excellent, and a Google search for “Justin Verlander” + “consistent” yields nearly a million results. Of course, a Google search for “A.J. Burnett” + “consistent” yields more than 700,000 results so maybe this isn’t good science. Look at the performance record. I can’t pinpoint the precise moment that Justin Verlander became Justin Verlander, but it’s easy to put it somewhere between 2008 and 2009. Since 2009, Verlander hasn’t posted a FIP below 2.80 or above 2.99. He hasn’t posted an xFIP below 3.12 or above 3.52. He keeps starting and he keeps thriving. He keeps on being Justin Verlander.

Statistically, one can’t deny that Verlander has been consistent, nor should one want to. Perhaps consistency isn’t predictive, but we can identify it in retrospect. On the surface, Justin Verlander has hardly changed at all. Yet it’s interesting to see what turns up when you dig.

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In advance of the trade deadline, the Angels seemed poised to make a run, and that was before they traded for Zack Greinke. The Angels traded for Zack Greinke and at least on paper, that made their starting rotation laughably awesome. Even though the trade might’ve had more to do with the playoffs and signing Greinke long-term, the Angels still had to finish well in the regular season, and there was little reason to believe Greinke wouldn’t help them do that.

Greinke hasn’t helped them do that, at least not yet. He very easily still could — there’s a lot of season left — but so far the Angels are 1-4 in Greinke starts, and he’s averaged about a walk or a hit batter every other inning. He’s allowed 22 runs in 32 innings, and all in all he just hasn’t looked like the same Zack Greinke capable of posting comical strikeouts and walks. Greinke’s another player for whom the Angels are crossing their fingers, where the idea was that Greinke would be a player they could take for granted.

What follows isn’t intended to explain everything that has gone wrong. I think the best explanation for what’s happened with Greinke might be Baseball!, just as that’s the best explanation for how Chris Davis earned a win over Darnell McDonald. What follows might not actually explain anything, but Greinke’s struggles provided a convenient opportunity to bring this up and I’m nothing if not opportunistic. Actually that isn’t true, one could never be nothing. By definition, one is always something. I am something, and possibly opportunistic. All right, moving on.

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Let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way now: there’s no such thing as a good time to lose a starting pitcher like Bartolo Colon. Over 24 starts with the A’s, Colon posted a 3.43 ERA and peripherals that make him look only a little less good, and Colon has been a big part of Oakland’s attempted playoff push. Now he’s done, having been found out for cheating, and at this writing Oakland is five games out of the division and just a half-game out of the wild card. If the A’s were terrible, this would be too bad, but it wouldn’t be potentially devastating. The A’s aren’t terrible. The starting rotation has lost value right when the season leverage is getting its greatest.

But while there’s never a good time to lose a Bartolo Colon, there are worse times and there are better times. In one regard, this was a profoundly bad time for the A’s given their position in the playoff race, but on the other hand, Colon was suspended a day after Brett Anderson made his 2012 season debut. Anderson was excellent against the Twins Tuesday night, and Anderson figures to be a major stretch-run contributor right when it turns out the A’s could really use one of those.

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There exists the idea of a kind of proof-of-concept game, that I’m rather fond of. In any individual baseball game, a player’s performance is essentially unpredictable. The range of possible outcomes spans every possible outcome, as looking at one game is no way to evaluate a player’s true talent. But it stands to reason that a guy can fluctuate around his true talent by a magnitude of only so much. Kerry Wood established in one game that he was capable of 20 strikeouts, and, say, Kirk Rueter could never have done that. Juan Pierre has had games where he’s finished with zero hits and five hits, but he’s never had a game where he finished with multiple homers or four or five strikeouts. Extreme performances are notable, because they demonstrate that a given player is capable of such an extreme performance. It’s within the error bars around his true talent.

Tuesday night, against the Tigers, Ricky Romero put together such a proof-of-concept game. Those who followed along know I don’t mean that in a good way. Tuesday night, against the Tigers, Ricky Romero faced 29 batters, and he walked eight of them while striking out zero of them. Romero and the Blue Jays, unsurprisingly, lost.

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Consider for a moment that the top three teams in the American League wild card standings right now are the Rays, Orioles, and Athletics. Now consider in the following moment that the three teams right behind them are the Tigers, Angels, and Red Sox. This is not new information, for any of us, but it seems like the kind of thing we might not be appreciating for everything it’s worth. Regardless of how things turn out, this is the way things are toward the end of August. Baseball is amazing.

Now then, because it’s August, trades can still be made that affect regular-season and postseason rosters, and because the wild card race is so tight, teams are looking to make even slight improvements. On Monday night, as announced during their own game, the A’s made what they feel like is an improvement, acquiring Stephen Drew from the Diamondbacks in exchange for minor leaguer Sean Jamieson. Nothing against Sean Jamieson, but this is the last time he’ll be mentioned in this article. For the Diamondbacks, this was not about the talent return; it was about saving money. For the A’s, it was about getting a little better where getting a little better might make all the difference.

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Friday night in Colorado, Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run. It was a long home run; it was the longest home run, of this season. This is what it looked like, and ESPN’s Home Run Tracker gave it a distance of 494 feet. The game was played at altitude, sure, but the wind was blowing in. Then Saturday in Colorado, Stanton hit another long home run. That one had a distance of 465 feet, making it Stanton’s second-longest dinger of the year. That home run also allowed Stanton to set a record. Saturday’s was Stanton’s sixth career game in Coors, and it was his sixth career game in Coors with a homer. Stanton became the first player to do that.

It makes perfect sense that Stanton would make a mockery of Colorado, just as it makes perfect sense that Wily Mo Pena would make a mockery of Japan, even though he isn’t, exactly. Stanton’s game is the jaw-dropping longball. Colorado’s game features a lot of longballs. The idea of Stanton playing in Colorado more often brings to mind the idea of some incredible records.

Sunday, Stanton played his seventh career game in Coors. In zero of his plate appearances did he hit a home run.

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Hello friends, my name is Jeff. You might recognize me from Lookout Landing or Baseball Nation, or from being my mother, Mom. Beginning today, right now, I’m going to be doing a lot of writing over here, and I hope that we can get along famously. If we don’t, remember that it wasn’t my idea for them to hire me. People make mistakes. Now let’s talk about baseball.

I was nervous about starting over in a new place, so I was hoping that Dave would spoon-feed me an easy topic suggestion. Of all the things currently going on in baseball, perhaps the most fascinating scenario is unfolding in Anaheim, and that’s what I’m here to tackle now, as Dave came through in the clutch. Perhaps you’ve noticed that the Angels have fallen on their faces of late. Perhaps you haven’t! Considering what the Angels were supposed to be, this is worthy of some discussion, and then some more.

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