Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 10, 2008
Small Ball, Big Win

The Twins took home a walk off victory last night, using a bunt and two stolen bases to set up the winning single by Mike Lamb off Papelbon. It was the ninth inning, the Twins were down one run, and the bottom of the order was up so it was a perfect time to sacrifice after the leadoff single. What I don't understand was the steal of third with two out. Given that there wasn't a throw, Young made the right move. I'm assuming he read Papelbon correctly, or Varitek didn't want to risk throwing the ball into left field. When Gomez walked and stole second, everything was in place for Lamb to win the game.

That's two blown saves in a row for Papelbon.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:16 AM | Games | TrackBack (0)
Comments

He's washed up. Make Hansen the closer! In other words, Hansen is on my fantasy team reserve roster.

Seriously, unless there is something physically wrong, I assume this is just a blip which will be forgotten in a week.

Posted by: largebill at May 10, 2008 11:03 AM

Karma

Posted by: Greg at May 10, 2008 11:21 AM

Very strange pitch selection. He gets two strikes on Lamb including a swing and miss on a fastball above the belt, then instead of climbing the ladder, he tries a splitter that stays in the strike zone and gets hit for the two-run single.

Posted by: Neil S. at May 10, 2008 12:01 PM

I wouldn't say Papelbon was roughed up in these two blown saves. The first one was the result of a check swing single, an error, a sacrifice, a groundout and a bloop single. Last night's was simialr although the walk is disturbing.

I think Pap will be fine.

Posted by: Cory at May 10, 2008 01:13 PM

I think Cory has a good point. It's not like Papelbon is getting hit hard here. Both blown saves were the result of grounders through the infield, bloop singles, and similarly lucky events. I'm not saying that they're 'lucky' to minimize their importance; baseball team get lucky and unlucky every day. But, as we know, we have stats like xFIP and similar to help us understand how a pitcher is doing without contaminating the results with luck. And stuff like this just isn't that under Papelbon's control.

Posted by: NBarnes at May 10, 2008 04:09 PM
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