Angel is/was a terrible ump. Inconsistent as hell. Every fan wondered how he kept his job.
The tweets are being kind. Angel embarrassed himself so often.
We’re about a quarter of the way through the season, and I think we’re starting to see some effects from the pitch clock. The most earned runs allowed by a pitcher this season is 39. The most home runs allowed by a pitcher this season is 14. The most walks by a pitcher this season is 40.
I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to discover what these pitchers have in common…
Batting helmets are mandatory. There’s good reason to have a similar rule for pitchers.
It’ll probably take a catastrophic injury or death to make that happen, unfortunately. Grotesque mouth/dental injuries in ice hockey haven’t yet resulted in mandatory full face masks for players.
There are worse umpires in terms of getting calls wrong, like Laz Diaz and Jeff Nelson. In 2022, in terms of ball/strike accuracy, he not only wasn’t worst, he wasn’t even on the first PAGE of bad umps on Umpire Scorecards.
Hernandez, however, adds on a confrontational arrogance that his competence doesn’t merit. He famously, when the field umpires were the ones who reviewed home run calls, refused to reverse a home run call that had OBVIOUSLY been blown, so much so the league admitted it.
Sadly, you are right. Someone is going to get killed. Then they’ll do something.
Another great baseball quote, this time from Jarren Duran, whose two hits last night helped the Red Sox beat the Mariners, 9-4.
“I really want to take a step back and just keep moving forward.”
Um, OK.
I think that actually qualifies as a Yogi-ism.
He was doing the moon walk.
Re: Tropicana - that part of the Strip (as is most of the Strip) is in the unincorporated municipality of Paradise - not in Las Vegas.
Well, yeah, I know all that stuff is in Paradise; no one calls it that in conversation, though.
Like it turns out that batting gloves still work just fine without being re-adjusted every 5 seconds. I don’t know what Nomar Garciaparra would do these days. He’d have to retire.
I absolutely love this effect on the game. But there has been a massive spike in pitcher arm injuries so far, and I worry that it’s because of the clock.
Has there been a statistical increase in pitcher injuries in 2023? And how would that correlate to having less time to fidget, shake off signs and stomp around the mound, when the same number of pitches are being thrown?
Comparisons with prior eras are difficult, but were injuries to pitchers and other players far more commonplace back in the Pleistocene epoch when games often went 2 hours or less?
There aren’t a ton of numbers yet, but April saw 180 IL stints for pitchers, up from 143 last April.
Recovery time is the key. Go do any repeated activity with 20 seconds between each rep. Then do that same activity with 60 seconds between. Which is more painful? Which is harder to recover from?
Could be.
But I’d want to see evidence that recovery time is of physiologic significance in that particular setting as opposed to, say, time between starts.
Fatigue often leads to injury because fatigue often leads to poor mechanics.
April 2022 also had the late start due to the labor dispute, that could factor in as well.
That’s an excellent point. The 2022 season didn’t start until April 7.
Still, however, it appears that the number of injured pitchers is up from last season.