Wednesday, June 30, 2004
And here come the pretzels
INFIELD DEFENSE ... or as they're calling it in Boston tonight, Infield "Fucking" Defense.
For anyone who saw the game, I'd like to enter it into the record as Exhibit A for why sabermetrics does not tell the whole story about what goes into winning baseball games.
The difference in this game was not starting pitching, not relief pitching, not OPS or vORP, but infield defense. The Yankees turned two key double plays in the early innings to kill rallies, while the Red Sox continued their long tradition of water-tight glove work and made two errors in the late innings that contributed to three runs. There's the game.
Flash Gordon and Mariano were lights-out. Timlin, the hard luck loser, gave up three groundballs that could just as easily have been three outs: Tony Clark's sharp grounder exposed Ortiz's granite feet at first, Kenny Lofton's speed made Nomar rush a throw from the hole, putting Lofton on second, and Sheffield shot one through a infield that was drawn in thanks to Jeter's sacrifice bunt.
Small ball? Defense?
Moneyball it was not.
|
For anyone who saw the game, I'd like to enter it into the record as Exhibit A for why sabermetrics does not tell the whole story about what goes into winning baseball games.
The difference in this game was not starting pitching, not relief pitching, not OPS or vORP, but infield defense. The Yankees turned two key double plays in the early innings to kill rallies, while the Red Sox continued their long tradition of water-tight glove work and made two errors in the late innings that contributed to three runs. There's the game.
Flash Gordon and Mariano were lights-out. Timlin, the hard luck loser, gave up three groundballs that could just as easily have been three outs: Tony Clark's sharp grounder exposed Ortiz's granite feet at first, Kenny Lofton's speed made Nomar rush a throw from the hole, putting Lofton on second, and Sheffield shot one through a infield that was drawn in thanks to Jeter's sacrifice bunt.
Small ball? Defense?
Moneyball it was not.
|
