Kinsler 2B Ichiro CF Laird C Beltre 3B Murphy CF Ibanez "LF" Sosa DH Guillen RF Botts LF Clement DH Wilkerson 1B Johjima C Cruz RF Morse 1B Metcalf 3B Lopez 2B Vazquez SS Ballgame SS ---------- ----------
Millwood (10-13, 5.16) Batista (15-11, 4.43)
You know what drives me crazy? If you have (say) a guy on first, and he gets thrown out stealing, and then the batter hits a homer, there's always at least one guy who pipes up to say "should've scored two runs." Always. It's the same thing every single time a runner makes an out on the basepaths. Guess what? It isn't true. Context dictates strategy. If there's no one on base, the pitcher, hitter, and fielders will take a different approach than they would were there a man on first. A guy will see different pitches and different defensive positioning, and he might take a different swing. So therefore the result will almost always be different as well. Saying "that homer should've scored two runs" doesn't have any more or less validity than saying "I'm glad that guy was caught stealing because if he were still on base we would've hit into a double play." Every event in baseball has an effect on the next one, and having a runner thrown out completely changes the situation.
Now that that's off my chest, here's to Miguel Batista's final start of the season. I'm sure this won't be laborious.