Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 09, 2003
Off Balance

I don't like to criticize baseball announcers on this site. It's a job that's tougher than it looks, and I top of it I've worked with a number of announcers. But one thing that has bothered my for a while is Joe Buck's use of the term popup. To me, a popup is a ball that is hit very high and caught on the infield or just behind. Often, I hear Buck say someone popped up the ball, only to see it caught on the warning track. To me that's a deep fly ball.

But watching the game last night, I think I now understand why Buck call hits that way. He's calling it on the swing, not on the flight of the ball. Of course, hitters are so strong today that a poor swing can send the ball a long way.

Buck's calls pointed out something very important about last night's game; the Yankees were totally off balance. They were swinging under the knuckle balls, not getting good wood on anything. Against Wakefield, they put 18 balls in play. Half of them were flies or popups. Only one ball was rated as hard hit, and that went as a single.

Wakefield pitched a great game last night. The knuckle ball was moving enough to keep the Yankees off balance, and prevent them from adjusting.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:23 AM | League Championship Series | TrackBack (0)