Jim French Stepstool
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Everything posted by Jim French Stepstool
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What can you say when a guy isn't throwing his normal---if you can call 102-103 "normal"---fastball after the first couple innings, but still puts up zeroes thru 7 innings. In that ballpark. No walks. And it sounds weird to say given they were shut out on 3 hits, but I really thought the Astros' approach vs Misiorowski was quite impressive. I don't think the term "The sky's the limit" has ever applied to any pitcher more than this young man. Just so impressive. My first thought re the offense was that they swung the bats better than 2 runs on 4 hits would suggest. Turang could've had a three-hit day himself with a modicum of luck, and there were a few others as well. As for Yelich.........no one can deny the times he's come through in the clutch, even in his limited chances this season. But it continues to amaze me how someone who's performed at his level can seemingly out of nowhere put up such incredibly ugly ABs. Twice more today, when you needed contact. And not even the chasing this time, just swinging through stuff that had plenty of the zone. Frustrating. Favorite numbers for the month of May: .731 winning %---best May in franchise history. 0.23---Misiorowski's ERA for the month.
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I guess the justification (if you can call it that) is you're talking about a very limited role, so you'd rather have the vet who isn't a part of your long-range plans sitting around gathering dust. Gasser's future (they hope) is as a starter so a little different category. If Woodford WAS part of their plans he'd probably be on a shuttle himself, although I doubt that's much consolation to Gasser. I agree in this particular case you probably won't even need a long man for the immediate future.
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It's important not to give extra outs at Ten Run Field, or whatever they're calling that place these days. The defense has had a leaky weekend; let's get that cleaned up. I originally expected Sanchez to catch yesterday instead of today. In hindsight it would've been nice to have Contreras playing today since Chourio is also sitting.
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Right now Woodford is immediately available & Rodriguez isn't, which I'm sure you understand as the reason. I think the time will come when Woodford is let go & replaced either by Rodriguez or McGee. Rodriguez has developed a nice little changeup, but boy he leans on it an awful lot.
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IMO one of the two fills a role. Jake Woodford types have filled the back end of BPs for a long time. But both seem redundant. Rodriguez has shown a nice changeup in limited work, but can he stay sharp as the 13th man? It would've been easy to cut ties with Woodford after he struggled last Sunday vs LA & wasn't available for days after that. The fact they didn't tells me they're OK with him in the back-end role. Perhaps Rodriguez hangs around until one of Koenig/Woodruff is deemed ready.
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Anderson could go, he's always been a rubber-arm type. I think Drohan is available, just not for 3 or 4 innings. Megill & perhaps even Uribe again. From the pitching side of things I think the key today is can Sproat finally climb the mountain of getting through five, and if he can't then how does the 'bridge' perform. Just a few words on the run prevention mantra & how a weakness can cut you deep: Last night the Brewers had two runners tag & advance to 3B on medium-ish fly balls to CF. We more than likely lose if we weren't able to expose that vulnerability. Great job of preparedness & advance scouting, allowing us to overcome our own mistake (the bad throw from Rengifo).
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That didn't sound like enough games to me. BREF has him at 199 games at SS in his career; more than any other position. It shows him with 10 errors last year, but in 54 games & at the AA level. In AAA last season he played SS in 16 games with one boot. This season, it has him with 5 games at SS & errorless. I do agree the two they have on the roster right now are better there, as well as Pratt obviously.
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Williams has played a lot of SS in the minors. If he's promoted I suspect they'd move him there before Turang if needed.
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He'll need to show some semblance of what he provided for the Angels, which he obviously hasn't come close to doing. He might have a couple weeks to change that. If they had to make a move tomorrow, I agree he's at the top (bottom) of the list. I'm sure they have more confidence in moving Hamilton & Ortiz around the diamond, too.
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Yeah. If/when a roster move is made on the LS of the INF I was figuring Hamilton. Lately it looks like Rengifo. I think Ortiz is the most likely to stay. Put 'em in a dice cup, shake 'em out-----four days from now the pecking order could be completely different.
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Not to mention a ground ball vs a drawn-in INF, a topped grounder, a pop fly that now isn't caught due to the INF being in, and the seven ways (or whatever) where you can score from 3B without a base hit. Also perhaps the hitter getting more fastballs because the battery is gunshy about breaking stuff with a runner on 3rd. Managers do this crap for a reason.
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Bauers is actually very good at the one-hop & short-hop throws; iIve seen him make scoops much tougher than the one he missed tonite. It WAS strange. I almost wonder if he lost the ball in the background or something. Vaughn PH for Mitchell because basically that was the situation in front of them. Two outs, lead run in scoring position, guy is hitting around .500 vs LHP. That was the chance to use that bullet. All things being equal, I like Mitchell vs a lefty over Frelick too, but if Vaughn doesn't hit there & Houston scores a couple in the bottom half you probably see Vaughn hit for Frelick, but you might not have ANY runners on.
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The pitching lab, Henderson, Hook......all golden. So much concern about some of the teams on the sked the last few weeks, and rightfully so. But other than two or three bad innings vs LA, flying colors for this staff. Megill seems to be back, and perhaps Uribe swallowed a grow-up pill this evening. And if he ever gets a touch better with the command Hall is a real weapon. Felt a little bad for Crow in the 3-run inning. A few hard-hit balls, but it was fueled by Alvarez MAYBE getting a star-treatment zone leading off---the 2-1 & 3-1 were both extremely close---then the bad throw. Without much imagination that could've been a 1 or at most a 2 run inning. Six hits allowed in ten innings vs the home team in that ballpark, I suspect that hasn't happened much.
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Lara has been a revelation. But right now I think the FO is caught between wanting to give Frelick a chance to get going, not wanting Lara to come up here & sit more than he plays, and wanting to see Garrett Mitchell get all he can eat, especially with the couple big swings he had in the STL series. Throw in the Super Two considerations & here we are. Unless the bottom drops out of Lara's offensive game (which I don't expect) we'll see him up here at some point, and it'll be interesting to see how things are managed at that time.
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It's nice to miss Arrighetti. Yordan Alvarez is as hot as just about anyone in MLB right now.
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Yep. IMO Uribe getting one game is fine. But don't let Crow-Armstrong go untouched.
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At his age, the way that guy just owns his ABs is something else.
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..........On only 80 pitches. Looked very solid. And Yoho is on a roll---ERA of zero in the month of May. So much fun to watch Lara. You see him at the plate & it looks like the catcher can pick him up & put him in his back pocket. But he's got some pop, his OPS is .877-----from his WEAKER side-----and the speed & defense are simply game-changing, I likened it to 2022 when Frelick was hitting .370 or whatever it was for Nashville, but all things considered this is much more impressive.
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Watching Hardin tonite, I was thinking how it looked like he was one of those guys where the ball gets on top of the hitter quickly & causes his FB to 'play up' a bit. Not 30 seconds later the play-by-play guy mentioned the same thing. How much longer before he's considered a member of the short list when Milwaukee needs a guy to come up for a start?
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The talent in the first 5-6 spots in the batting order is pretty ridiculous for a high-A team, especially with Ragsdale now heating up.
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I brought up Elroy Face a couple weeks ago. Eighteen wins out of the Pittsburgh BP in '59. Ashby could go the next 28 games w/o a win & be on the same pace.
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I seem to remember one. Maybe another in there too. The final pitch was magnificent. FB up, and I'm pretty sure Pozo was looking breaking ball.
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I guess this is why you run-prevent. So you can be no-hit thru seven & still be in the game. So one or two mistakes by the opposition are one or two too many. The boot by Wynn was huge, as was the botched defense on the Rengifo bunt. Given what we were trying to accomplish it was an excellent bunt, but the Cards really played it into a base hit. They get the out at 1st & it looks quite likely we don't score. But that takes nothing away from huge knocks by Mitchell & Yelich. You can see the confidence starting to ooze from #5. Damn, was May good. Late-breaking sweep & cutter, put-it-right-where-I-want-to command, and just enough chasing & early swings from the Brewers to augment it. No-hit stuff.
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Like I said, the signaling from 2B. It was pretty blatant. And yeah, everyone does it when given the opportunity. Never said otherwise. That's my point; it's not uncommon & I would suggest it's in the same general category of what the Brewers did this week, if in fact they were doing it, and one was made into an issue while the other wasn't.
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Here's what I find interesting: apparently we were stealing some of their signs this series, so it's some kind of horrible breach of baseball decorum. The previous series, it looked like Gasser was tipping his pitches, and it seemed obvious to me the runner(s) on 2B for LA were relaying info to the hitters with a helmet tap. Instead of making a big production out of it, Murphy mentioned in the postgame that 'Gasser was tipping his pitches' in a manner that suggests the problem was ours & that he needs to stop doing that. In the same vein, maybe the Cards need to make their signs harder to steal?
