Tuesday Morning Thread

Lets hope there aren’t any lingering issues with a head injury or something. That was a scary sight.

With K-bot back today, do they send Tyler back down and call up an outfielder? Who is on the 40? Stavinoha and Mather? Or do they keep Tyler and Thurston becomes the 4th outfielder?

My wife thinks he sort of looks like Screech from Saved By The Bell. And she’s right.

And then Dan’n’Al: “We don’t want to speculate, so, here, watch Ankiel’s hat bill accordion due to the force with which his head struck the wall.” HD also made clear the most amazing part of the violent collision was that he held onto the ball, removed it from his glove with his throwing hand, and only dropped it after he hit the wall when his hand struck the warning track. How on earth he did that after such a brutal crash is beyond me.

you want to burn up our bullpen. We must have as many RP as possible on the roster.

Seriously though, your idea makes perfect sense.

put him on the damn 15 day DL and don’t even think about rushing him back.

I was going to mention something about this the other day.

Where are all the Reyes fans now? Kind of hard to bash TLR/Duncan (in regards to Reyes) when he is getting lit the F up in Cleveland. Maybe they DO know more than you guys? And where is that chick that always liked to defend Reyes, haven’t seen her around in awhile, but I’d love to hear her opinion.

is that if he goes 7 innings of 1 run ball today, he shaves 2 runs off his ERA.

He has a Silver Honda delSol with a licence plate that says “JTODD”

We had a moment because I was driving my Red delSol. It was pretty cool, we just nodded to each other, I then was like “He looks familiar”, then I saw his license plate.

is Tyler Greene’s play. He might not know a good pitch to hit if it sat on a tee, but that’s a pretty extraordinary throw. (The Ankiel video autoplays right afterward, so don’t get too comfortable with the browser window.)

If doctors have cleared him, why put him on the DL? Do we really want Stav to be getting at bats?

I understand the concern with him having to sit the bench for a week or so, but if it is just a matter of one to two days off, I’d rather not burn 15 days with Ank sitting out and the 4th outfielder ABs being filled by Stav or even Mather at this point.

primarily because I didn’t see it happen, and thus couldn’t get frustrated by it, but also because after years of watching Jeff Suppan inexplicably handcuff offenses it makes sense that his young doppelganger would do the same.

In the fourth inning, we have Thurston on second and Pujols on first with two outs and Duncan hits a slow roller to second, causing Utley to range to his left. Pujols hesitates, blocking/distracting Utley from the grounder causing Utley to boot the ball and everyone’s safe, sacks packed for Ryan Ludwick…But, no! Super Joe Thurston runs through Oquendo at third and into a not even close play at home for the third out. (That cemented my percolating opinion that Thurston is a horrible baserunner.) In the fifth, Pujols up with 2 outs and 2 on. He scorched one right to the LFer. T-Greene up with the bases juiced later in the 6th, Ks. PHer Barden then weakly grounded out to second to end the inning. We were one or two hits away from a slug fest with the Phils, but, to his credit, Blanton wriggled out of trouble. We left 10 runners on base.

Days off cool down the hot streak. I’ll get worried if we don’t bounce back vs. Meyers.

how did we not score against the blanton! one measly run! we can’t hit crappy pitching

he hit his spots when he needed to, didn’t leave a lot of fat pitches up over the plate, and painted the corners pretty well (as he needs to with his non-stuff).

The killer was that we left 9 on base. We just didn’t execute when we needed to. Part of the problem is that, with injuries, a short bench and the way we constructed the roster, we’re having to run out too many unthreatening hitters.

Holliday had a slow start, but he certainly has been looking up lately. Hadn’t had a home run all season, and then he hit two in as many games a few days ago. His average is also climbing up. Probably just took a little while to settile in.

they need to weigh the long term consequences of such plays, rather than encouraging it. I will be dumbfounded if Rick isn’t at least on the 15 day after watching that… that was disturbing at the least.

managers and coaches in sports are so risk-averse and conservative with their game strategies, etc., now we’re going to start forcing players to back off? A player can get badly hurt just diving for a ball behind 2nd base … do we ban that too?

You’re assuming that players go out there and throw their bodies around recklessly; I don’t think that’s the case at all, especially in baseball. Most players have developed a good sense for what’s wise and what’s foolhardy.

There was a time where taking a pitcher out after 100 pitches would have been ridiculed and it wasn’t that long ago. And I agree that there is a disconnect between pitch counts and all-out defensive play. I just wonder how often this actually happens. I mean, have you ever seen someone like Torri Hunter barrel head-first into the wall? Yet, he was one of the league’s best CFers for years. I wonder how much of it is knowing your surroundings, as well as how shallow the player plays.

On Ankiel’s play, it looked like he almost stumbled at the track. I thought he would slow down and lightly brace himself on the wall before he went down and plowed into it head-first. I agree with you on the way we view these types of plays in terms of running full steam into the wall. (Who wouldn’t after “The Natural?”) However, I don’t know that I’d classify this amongst those types of plays because I honestly believe that Rick stumbled and had he not lost his footing, would not have run into the wall the way he did.

i wonder how much could be done with thick padding on the outfield walls…something like having a bunch of mattresses lining the fences. you may get Manny taking power naps during pitching changes but still.

to note that Ankiel stumbled post-catch. If he had just taken a dive during or after the catch, he would’ve been fine. He stayed standing and caught his foot (or something) which led to the header into the wall. I don’t think his play was unsafe or too aggressive. I just think it was one of those freak things.

The team started taking baseline MRI’s of all the players during Spring Training. I don’t know that he has a concussion, but the team’s medical staff has everything they’ll need to know whether he has one and when the danger has passed.

So they are doing something.

Pete Rose played the game as hard as anyone in the history of the game, and he never suffered a major injury in 24 seasons. It’s a highly competitive sport and someone could take your spot if you don’t keep your competitive fire up. Asking an athlete to let up to avoid injury generally leads to them getting injured. They’re taught from day 1 to go 100% all the time and never let up — you can’t train them to do otherwise.

That said, there have been great defensive centerfielders that have never gone crashing into a wall. Devon White, Marquis Grissom, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, and Steve Finley never went crashing into walls trying to make catches, but they robbed plenty of home runs by knowing where they were on the field and approaching the wall accordingly. If anything, the padding on the walls has actually caused more of this behavior, because your chance of getting hurt is diminished when you run into the wall at full speed. You don’t see too many guys crashing into the brick walls at Wrigley or the scoreboard at the base of the Green Monster do you? They have a warning track for a reason, so that a fielder will know when he’s 3 strides from the fence line so he can prepare himself and know where he is. Some players, like Edmonds, Lenny Dykstra, and Griffey (in his prime), are just going to go full bore into the wall while others aren’t.

With respect to Ankiel last night, it looked like he tripped at the start of the track, and led to his headfirst plunge into the wall. But it’s not like he hasn’t done the before — remember how much praise he got here for his diving catch onto the warning track last season? He’s a Harvey Wallbanger that’s still learning his way around out there, and taking away his aggressiveness in the outfield would only be to his detriment. The corner outfielders should be helping him as much as they can by letting him know how far he’s got to the wall, and Rick should have an idea where he is when he goes back on a ball. It’s just a matter of learning that sense in the outfield.

is that, at the current moment in time, our bench consists of a couple of (s)crappy middle infielders and Jason La Rue.

Chris Duncan, Rick Ankiel, David Eckstein, Adam Kennedy, Jim Edmonds concussed head, Mark Mulder’s torn labrum, Izzy’s hip, etc.

Over the last 4 seasons they’ve had a track record of not DL’ing guys while they are clearly in physical pain. Brendan Ryan being put on the DL doesn’t change that.

I don’t read it regularly or anything but I have checked it out here and there.
Note to self: don’t buy celery while wearing pink underwear.

and I can see it a little bit now. So never mind me…

Wish my boy Kung Fu Pandoval was playing.

brian wilson is 13th? Really? That whole thing is so subjective and apparently based on nothing.

if they all pitched like Franklin has so far this season.

and he hits a double, 5-2 SF now.

woot. Samardzjia is all over the place. Though he’s getting a nice wrigley strike zone, he’s faced 3 guys, let both inherited runners score, and still not gotten an out.

Ah, juan uribe helps him out.

Rasmus or Greene is not in the 9-slot, especially w/ Waino on the mound today. He can actually handle the stick. He must not want the rookies there.

what the hell does barden have to do to start a game?

and it looks neater

Was looking forward to Khalil being back in the lineup tonight. Swap him for Tyler Greene and that’s a pretty dang good lineup.

Why do you keep slotting Thurston into the 2 hole? WHY DOES HE START EVERY GAME?