Random Post...

...because I'm watching game 7 of the ALCS and am a little anxious, I thought it would be great to distract myself a little by posting up a little somethin somethin. So here we go: I haven't talked baseball in some time so I figure throwing up a little love for my sport would be a nice thing. I know the sport is probably up there with one of the most boring things around, but when you take the time to understand all the little intricacies of the sport, it arguably becomes the greatest sport around. Let me throw a situation at you and you will see how challenging this game truly is:


You are a pitcher who relies mostly on a power fastball. You personally have faced this batter 52 times already in the past four months and he has gotten a hit only 14 times in those at bats. Out of those 14, 10 have been on the fastball on the inside part of the plate (he struggles low and away). Today you are facing him for the second time (the first time he struck out, on the fastball) and your team is losing by one run in the 7th inning. There is a man on first and second with only 1 out and the next batter has already hit a home run off you. The count is 1 ball and 2 strikes (all pitches were away in the zone) and you are playing at your home field which has a very short left field wall, but a long right field one and this batter is a lefty who naturally pulls the ball towards the right side. So...what pitch do you pitch here?

Well, to get an idea as to what goes through a baseball players head, this is more or less what happens every pitch. And each player has something similar to think about. The batter has all this but the opposite, the fielders have to go through this to figure out where to play. The coaches have to factor all this in to judge how the rest of the game will be played out. Each and every player, going through all options each pitch. And to think that on average, there are around 200 pitches pitched by each team every game.

It's a pretty amazing game.

(oh yeah, and if it were me...I'd pitch a high and in fastball hoping he chases it and changing his eye level. If he swings, great, if not, it'll set up a great change up away that will be hard to lay off.)