I, Claudia’s: CC Sabnasty

Burt Bacharach was wrong: what the world needs now isn’t “love, sweet love,” but a highly subjective recap of some games from like five days ago.

Friday, April 16
I watched this evening’s (rain-shortened) contest between Texas and New York primarily to “scout” Official Starting Pitcher C.J. Wilson. While Wilson actually performed just fine (6.0 IP, 5 K, 3 BB, 10 GB, 5 FB, 4 LD), my lasting impression of the game will be how CC Sabathia is kinda really good at pitching.

Because I demand it of my writing students, I think it’s probably best to do some showing here — as opposed to just telling, I mean. In the interest of doing just that, allow me to whisk you away to the top of the third inning of tonight’s rainswept game.

Here’s the situation: one gone, Elvis Andrus has just struck out, the lefty-batting Julio Borbon is striding to the plate. CC Sabathia looks in, takes the sign from Francisco Cervelli, and then he does this (taken from catcher’s perspective):

No, he didn’t throw all three pitches at once (although it might’ve seemed like that to the unwitting Borbon). Still, I mean, will you please look at this sequence: two-seamer away, slider in, slider low. If Picasso and Matisse had a baby, and then that baby learned how to make a Pitchf/x graph, this is the sort of graph that baby would produce.

Having watched it on live television, I can tell you that Borbon had barely any idea that the at-bat had even started until Sabathia was winding up to deliver the third and final pitch. Unfortunately, said pitch was a mostly unhittable slider dipping below the zone.

But let’s not pick on Julio Borbon, how about. How about we also pick on Taylor Teagarden. To do so, we must fast-forward to the fifth inning. In this case, there are two outs, and both Chris Davis and Joaquin Arias have struck out to begin the inning. At which point, Sabathia was all:

Blam!

Where Borbon didn’t swing until the last pitch, that was the only one Teagarden didn’t swing at. Considering that Teagarden’s a righty (as opposed to the lefty Borbon), we see that really only the second pitch is one we might consider “hittable,” as it got a little more of the plate with a little less movement. After he fouled of that pitch, Teagarden was basically helpless, down 0-2 to an incredibly effective Sabathia. It’s at this point — after delivering consecutive pitches with considerable arm-side run — that Sabathia threw the slider, a pitch with considerable glove-side run. Teagarden merely let it go. Oops.

Another thing that happened tonight is that I used my Twitter Machine. Below are three choice comments from the evening.

From LloydtheBarber (on the occasion of Fernando Rodney entering a game between the Angels and Blue Jays): Black Lidge! There is still hope for the Jays.

From daynperry (on the occasion of Dick Enberg employing a 19th century vernacular): Dick Enberg just said “base-ballers.” Awesome.

From jazayerli (on the occasion of having been born a Kansas City fan): Two franchises in a nutshell tonight: the Twins threw 27 balls the entire game. The Royals threw 21 balls in the 8th inning alone.

Saturday, April 17
Voice of the Brewers, Mister Bob Uecker, was on the scene for Milwaukee’s afternoon game at the Washington Nationals. While generally in good spirits, Uecker was a little cheesed off with home plate umpire Tim McClelland and his (i.e. McClelland’s) strike-calling.

It seems that, due to the fact that McClelland makes his strike-calling gesture very much in front of his body — that, and the fact that the press box at National Park is directly behind home plate — it seems that it’s hard for a broadcaster like Uecker to see the call until seconds after it’s been made.

Such were the circumstances that led a duly miffed Uecker to announce publicly:

He gives a call… to the catcher. And everybody else has to wait a sec or more for his “pull-back shot.”

And I’ll tell you, from our vantage point, we might as well be at the hotel as far as looking at the sign from Tim McClelland. Terrible.

Sunday, April 18
Second verse, same as the first: another quote from Uecker.

In this case, Uecker was discussing — at some length, it must be said — the dinner he’d had the previous night at Washington-area restaurant Phillips Seafood.

Relating the story to broadcast partner Cory Provus, Uecker mentioned that, as he was eating, he got curious as to whether the restaurant ever served anything besides fish. Which brings us to the following, courtesy of Uecker:

I asked the waitress, “Do you carry Usinger’s Sausage?”

“Wait a second,” she said. “Let me check my purse.”

Sweet graphs courtesy of our own Dave Allen.





Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

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tdotsports1
13 years ago

Carson, solid read, though I have but one question: where have the haters gone??