Come on, Baltimore, lose already! I can totally live with the Yankees being up six on both Baltimore and Tampa Bay after tonight. Up five would annoy me.

But Baltimore is playing a AAAA squad tonight.

Man, I hate the Red Sox.

What’s up with Joba?

Isn’t Buchholz supposed to be their good pitcher?

[4] He sucks. He knows it. He accepts it.

Manatee.

[4] He’s also about 14 months out of TJ and 4 months out of a potentially career ending injury. Joba gets a pass until next year IMO.

(7) Yeah, he sucked, but anyone who booed him today is an asshole.

[7 and 8] Yes.

[7, 8] I’m down with that, actually. I expected nothing else this year, although they teased us with stories of him throwing 99-100 in rehab starts.

[10]
That’s really what ruined the whole thing for me.
It appeared to be confirmed by Cash, although I don’t think he specifically mentioned an mph.
If I hadn’t expected anything, I wouldn’t be disappointed now, but we were led to expect something approaching the ridiculous few months that established him as a household name.
I still want an explanation of that. If he WAS throwing 100mph, what the hell happened? And if not, then - what the hell happened?

[11] Could be he was overthrowing in the MiL and getting results because even over throwing his stuff is over powering at the MiL. Could be he’s overthrowing in the ML and it’s messing with his mechanics and thus velocity. Could have been juiced guns. Or most likely, faulty info. (It’s also been a while since he’s pitched, could be a dead-arm period).

(It’s also been a while since he’s pitched, could be a dead-arm period).

I like this - as yet another way to preserve, for the umpteenth time, hope that he really was hitting 100mph and that 2007 Joba really will return one day soon.

[12] Yeah, that and I read somewhere that MiL batters are there to make contact and get hits. They don’t get promoted for taking walks. So they hack away.

Have him face batters with more experience and a different approach, lop off half a dozen mph, and BOOM.

But it’s still that HALF A DOZEN MPH that gets me.

yeah, you would think it’s possible to get that accurately. It might be a discrepancy between what a radar gun reads and what pitch-fx calculates. I have no clue how those radar guns work. Do they tell you the speed of the first thing they see moving above X mph?

[13] I highly doubt that a dead-arm is responsible for 6 mph.

[17]
I think some here might argue that it’s really, really, really dead. As in - actually dead.

[18] Something, something, Miracle Max.

Despite batting practice’s sacred place in baseball, many players think it is a strategically empty, mind-numbing, flaw-producing exercise. But Derek Jeter calls it “vital.”

NYT.

“Nothing good comes from boredom and baseball players”

Well, I’m glad I missed this game.

So this is the most meaningless series vs. Boston in how many years?

After the 2006 massacre,,,they still had some games left with Boston, Those were pretty meaningless.

There have been a few series in the past few years that were after the divisional race was wrapped up.

[20] makes sense, it’s all about approach in stuff like that. The point behind batting practice is reinforcing exisiting neural pathways for muscle memeory, or if a player is working on a mechanical change, creating new ones. If a player goes in focused on a specific element of their swing it’s probably beneficial. On the other hand, if they go in thinking it’s pointless and just mess around, it’s a complete waste of time.

[16] I’m not an expert but I think I have a basic understanding.  Radar guns record the velocity of the ball as it travels through the it’s viewing area.  I’d imagine the area is fairly small, like a foot or something.  But that ALSO means you have to pick a spot on the 55ft or so (since pitchers obviously don’t release the ball at 60’6” from the plate) to record the speed.  Baseballs actually lose quite a bit of velocity from the time they’re released until they cross the plate, too.  So if a gun in Trenton is pointed to a spot 50’ from home plate, but the gun in DNYS is pointed at a spot 20’ from home, a pitch thrown with the same initial velocity will be reported at different speeds.  While it might be nice for every park to have their scoreboard gun configured the same, that isn’t practical, especially for minor league parks.  So I imagine, if Joba was throwing 97 in Trenton (for example), he could be throwing just as hard in DNYS but it’s being reported as 94.

Pitch f/x uses a similar system, but has many (17?) high speed cameras taking many snapshots.  So they actually track the velocity of the ball several times between when it leaves the hand, and enters the catcher’s glove.  I’m not sure at what point in the flight-path they pull to say, “this is the velocity of the pitch”.  But obviously they could report differently than other sources.

[27] So, what you’re saying is that hand held radar guns are worthless?

[29] Need to be taken with a grain of salt at least.  I have no doubt that most of the scouts using them are skilled enough to get fairly consistent readings.  But I would just use them as a reference point, not as “evidence” of something.  Perhaps that’s too harsh, but…