September 16, 2005
Video Killed the Pitching Star
It looks like the Oakland Athletics are pretty good at watching video and building a game plan:
``It's just not executing,'' Schilling said. ``I gave up 11 hits and eight of them were in the first two pitches against a team that notoriously works the count. But I had a feeling coming into this game that if they watched my last start, which a lot of teams do, they'd see how many first-pitch fastballs I was throwing and how many balls I left in the middle of the plate that were taken for balls. I thought they might come out and be aggressive and they did. Seven of the 11 hits were on fastballs.
``Five or six of those were balls that I just centered down the middle of the plate.''
Schilling obviously didn't adjust to the A's adjustments. It also makes me wonder if Schilling's victory on Saturday vs. the Yankees was more a poor game plan by NY than an improvement by Curt. Oakland shows once again that they'll go the extra mile to get an edge in a game.
We'll see if Schilling makes an adjustment in his next start.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:00 AM
|
Pitchers
|
TrackBack (0)
I watched the NY-Boston game on Saturday, and I'll admit to thinking that the Yankees' gameplan was flawed. However, it was the same plan that the A's used yesterday. On Saturday, I was yelling at the Yankees to take more pitches so that they could get to the soft underbelly of the Red Sox, the bullpen. Apparently, their approach was right, but the execution was where they failed.
I don't think it takes much watching of tape or gameplanning for professional hitters to hit fastballs down the middle of the plate. If Schilling thinks he can get away with that, then he's been taking way too many of pain meds. The only questions is, would a competent offense (ie, one considerably better than the A's) have allowed Schilling to get as deep into the game as he did?
