Rick Ankiel’s season began in about the best possible fashion. With the Astros holding on to a 4-2 lead on Opening Day, Ankiel was sent up to hit for Brandon Barnes in the bottom of the sixth inning. Derek Lowe threw him a meatball, and he responded by hitting said meatball 373 feet, good enough for a three run homer that would essentially put the game away. It’s hard to do much better than that on your first at-bat of the season.

Since that at-bat, though, things haven’t gone so well. Here’s Ankiel’s play log for the 2013 season. Read the rest of this entry »

Jhoulys Chacin hasn’t thrown a curve ball yet this season. Don’t think he hasn’t noticed. “That was my strikeout pitch,” he said, while agreeing he hasn’t thrown it. But he used it more before the four-man rotation, before the team decided to emphasize ground balls, before he injured his pectoral muscle, and before he learned the benefits of contact. This year, he hasn’t thrown a curve ball.

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It is an irrefutable fact that nothing that happens at the beginning of April can cost a team an entire baseball season. That is, short of a disaster or otherwise some act of God. You know what there’s a lot left of? Regular-season baseball. There is so much regular-season baseball left to be played. Things are going to happen, and seasons are going to change course. At this point we’re practically still in extended spring training.

But it is likewise an irrefutable fact that every single game of a regular season matters. Which is why we turn our attention to a game between the Rays and Rangers in Texas on Monday night. A year ago, the Rays finished within a few games of a playoff spot. The Rangers lost the division on the season’s last day, and then they were eliminated in the one-game wild-card playoff. The Rays and Rangers both project to contend in 2013. Things are going to be tight, most likely, making everything matter more, and on Monday, the Rangers closed out the Rays thanks to what we might charitably label a controversial call.

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Monday afternoon, the Brewers were leading the Cubs 7-2 going into the bottom of the ninth. Brandon Kintzler took the mound, but after three straight batters reached base, he was replaced by Jim Henderson. Henderson allowed a little bit of damage, but he successfully slammed the door, picking up a save. Henderson pitched in part because John Axford threw 18 pitches on Sunday. Henderson pitched more because Axford allowed two more runs Sunday, bringing him to a season total of six in 2.2 innings. Fueling those six runs allowed have been four dingers, as Axford’s problems from 2012 appear to have carried over into the new campaign.

The talk now is that Henderson will replace Axford as the Brewers’ closer. Axford has been getting booed at home, on account of the sucking, and if the Brewers want to contend and make the playoffs, they can’t afford to have an unreliable closer who’s demonstrated his unreliability. Many feel that Axford has earned a demotion. Many reached that point ages ago. It’s no longer a question of whether Axford should be demoted. It’s a question of: what’s the matter with John Axford?

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As spring training gave way to the regular season, the Marlins turned some heads when they announced that Jose Fernandez had made the team. No, not just made the team, but that he wasn’t even an injury replacement for Henderson Alvarez or Nathan Eovaldi — he was here to stay. Yesterday, he made his debut, and he made quite an impact. The debut was arguably one of the best for a pitcher of his age in baseball history.

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What follows is coverage of a pitch thrown by a Tampa Bay Ray, a pitch that was taken and therefore not swung at. It was taken for a strike, and it was sufficiently unusual to end up sparking this post, but this isn’t really about pitch framing. Jose Molina didn’t even play, and while we’re here, just for the record, relative to Jonathan Lucroy, Molina gets too much framing love. It’s not that Molina isn’t outstanding. It’s that Lucroy is, quietly, similarly outstanding, but people forget about him. But this isn’t about Jose Molina or pitch framing.

The Rays hosted the Indians on Sunday afternoon, and however many people were watching at the start, far fewer people were watching in the top of the ninth, when the Indians held an 11-run lead. And of those watching, fewer still were paying close attention, so few noticed Fernando Rodney’s first pitch to Mark Reynolds leading off the ninth inning. The pitch was a fastball for a called strike, and you can see the pitch embedded below:

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Whatever else was made of the Royals’ off-season makeover, most agreed that the bullpen was a strength. Tim Collins and Aaron Crow had shown to be good relievers who might even be worthy of closing for some teams, but were only the the third and fourth options in the Royals bullpen. Kelvin Herrera came up and dominated in 2012 with a fastball that touched triple digits, and projected closer Greg Holland had been one of the best relievers in the American League over the two previous seasons. There were serious questions about the reconstructed rotation aside from James Shields and an offense that would no longer have Wil Myers projected to come up and save them from The Right Field Horror. However, the bullpen seemed safe.

The first week of the season, particularly the weekend series in Philadelphia, has gone a very different direction. The rotation has not dominated, but other than Wade Davis‘ start on Friday night, the starters has gone at least six innings in every game so far. The offense was dormant in the opening series, but exploded against the Phillies for 25 runs in three games. However, the bullpen — more specifically, Holland — was shaky. Holland blew a save on Saturday in one of the most frustrating ways possible, by walking three batters in a row, striking out two more to almost get himself out of a jam, then finally losing the game on a hit by Kevin Frandsen. Holland looked bad again on Sunday. He came into the game in the ninth after J.C. Gutierrez managed to turn a 9-4 semi-laugher into a 9-7 semi-nail-biter. Holland gave up two hits before Ned Yost had seen enough and brought in Herrera, who himself just eked out of the game, 9-8, after giving up a run.

Naturally, fan insta-reaction to Holland’s problems has been, shall we say, less than measured. There has not been obvious buzz coming from the team about a closer switch, but many fans would welcome it. One way or the other, the over-reactions will likely be forgotten by mid-season. We are not to mid-season yet, though, and the situation provides a nice opportunity for a few reflections on this sort of situation more generally.

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Last night, Jered Weaver took the hill for his second start of the season. It didn’t go very well, as he gave up five runs in five innings and walked twice as many guys as he struck out. But, the game was in Texas and the wind was blowing out, so there were some environmental factors in play, and Weaver’s hardly the only ace who got lit up yesterday. It was a day when David Price, Stephen Strasburg, R.A. Dickey, Johnny Cueto, Chris Sale, Justin Verlander, Matt Cain, Cole Hamels, and Yu Darvish also pitched, and yet the league average ERA for the day was 5.11. A lot of good pitchers got torched yesterday.

But, Weaver’s story is different. Good pitchers are going to have bad starts, and it’s usually not a reason for concern. Weaver’s performance, though, should be cause for alarm in Anaheim, because… well, here’s a graph.

Last night, Jered Weaver’s fastball sat at 85 MPH, the slowest average velocity he’s had during the PITCHF/x era. In fact, since the start of 2008, Weaver has only had an average fastball velocity below 86.0 mph three times; his final start of 2012 and his first two starts of 2013.

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The voice is instantly recognizable. So is the easygoing style and depth of knowledge that makes him one of the best play-by-play announcers in baseball. No one calls a game quite like Jon Miller.

Miller is best known as having been the voice of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball from 1990 to 2010. Paired with the polarizing Joe Morgan, he developed a reputation as a great storyteller with a genuine love for the game and a deep appreciation for its history. He has also been a part of history. Miller has called numerous World Series and League Championship Series, as well as Barry Bonds’ record-breaking 756th home run. A member of the San Francisco Giants broadcast team since 1997, Miller was honored with the Ford C. Frick Award in 2010.

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Miller on Broadcasting the Numbers:“[Broadcast partner] Dave Flemming and I talk about advanced stats all the time. I recall UZR coming up for us in 2010 when we saw Andres Torres playing a great center field. I remember thinking, ‘Torres covers so much ground.’ Then I read this note saying he was number one, in all of Major League Baseball, in Ultimate Zone Rating. I figured that would be of interest to any Giants fan, so I used it on the air. I said it was a method of determining how much ground a guy covers.

“Back in the 1980s, when Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts first came out, I would pore through that stuff. It was fascinating to me. Runs Created were interesting.

“In 1984, Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken had great years on a team that didn’t hit at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everybody and welcome to the second part of the first part of a new recurring Friday series. The series began with the week’s wildest pitches, and now we move on to the wildest swings because batters need to be ridiculed for their humiliating failures too. So often, we celebrate these players for being extraordinarily talented, for regularly doing things of which we’re not even capable. Consider this your weekly reminder that ballplayers are humans and sometimes, if only for fleeting instants, humans suck. Consider this also your weekly reminder that, the overwhelming majority of the time, ballplayers are terrific.

As with the wildest pitches, identifying the wildest swings is done using PITCHf/x and basic math. I confirm everything by going to the video, and I’m not going to include checked swings, because I’m looking for full, ill-advised commitments. I’m probably also not going to include swings during hit-and-run attempts, since the hitter generally feels like he has to swing at everything so the decision is practically out of his hands. I don’t want swings attempted because the hitter feels like he has to swing. I want swings attempted because the hitter thought the swing would be productive. Each week, there will be featured a top-five list. Each week, starting RIGHT NOW.

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