The team seems to have more potential to win now than we did before all of the recent trades. Too bad we’ve had some losing streaks and all the other playoff teams have had winning streaks.

But I wouldn’t call it 100% out of it, some players need to pick it up again like they did in parts of the first half.

They should put asterics next to all the Rangers’ batting stats.

Also those farking Yankees and Red Sox.

Ok, this isn’t as thoroughly researched as I’d like, but your description of Vizquel’s play rang a bell for me. Back in the 90’s I was at a game at the Kingdome. I remember leaving early, and that while in the parking lot on the way to my car hearing that a triple play had been turned. I vaguely remembered that Jeff Nelson had been involved.

Some googling turned up this game:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA199507130.shtml

Now, what struck my memory about the game was that I seem to remember the fielder intentionally dropping a fly ball in order to turn it. According to the play-by-play, here’s what happened:

Triple Play: Bunt Groundout: P-SS-2B

Jeff Nelson came in, threw one pitch, and got three outs. Now, I don’t know how that play works if he intentionally dropped a fly ball, so I’m probably remembering another play from another game and getting it confused with this one.

This seems like one of those cases where people don’t do it solely because they’d get crucified if they screw it up somehow. You forfeit a guaranteed (not really, but whatever) out in exchange for a high probability chance that you’ll have a slower runner on 1st with 1 out. The risk is really tough to quantify (what if it hits a rock, or has more spin than the fielder expected, etc.), and it actually may NOT be the smart play. I mean, what really IS the difference in run expectancy with Ichiro on 1st, one out versus Loafie on 1st, one out?

Still, it seems to me that on a major league field, the risk is acceptably low and the reward is, while small, real. But every SS knows that if it does kick away and they get runners on 1st and 2nd, he’ll be lambasted as a lazy player (he had a sure out and he didn’t take it!), a show-off and a guy who hurts his team by overthinking routine plays. Vizquel (like Alomar before) has reached a point where nobody could possibly say anything bad about him as a fielder, so he’s free to do whatever he wants.

What I want to see is a situation with runners on 1st/2nd (or bases loaded) and the batter hits a line drive right at a fielder. The fielder drops it and then turns two. Yes, technically, the ump may call the play dead or retroactively call infield fly (though I don’t know that this would actually happen). In that case, you’re not harmed. If the ump isn’t paying attention or believes that he CAN’T call IFF in that situation, you’ve got two easy outs.

I’m no longer so certain about those fastball and changeup counts, because something happened to Snell’s velocity after the third inning. But the overall message remains the same.