Frequent Balls, Sticks, & Stuff commenter "Pawnking" recently made a joke about the archives of this website getting periodically erased in order to preserve my credibility. It got me to thinking about what kinds of things I've written in the past that turned out to be just plain wrong after the passage of time.
So, I went a-searchin', but before I could come across something significant, I came across something I wrote nearly a month ago. At the time I published the piece, the Phillies were mired in a deep offensive slump, I tried to find solace in some statistics on batted ball types presented by The Hardball Times:
Many of the Phillies' batters that have been struggling just happen to be hitting a high percentage of line drives. Besides career history, this is another reason to think that the team's hitting woes just have to improve sooner or later.
We all know what's happened since then [which isn't to say I haven't been wrong about some things, I just came across this first].
Re-discovering that post was rather timely, because, it just so happens that yesterday The Hardball Times updated that report and, given batted ball types this season, Jim Thome is one of the most unlucky players in baseball. While his batting average on balls in play is .284, his expected average is .349.
Could this be the sign of a turnaround for Big Jim? Let's hope so. With his home-run in last night's ten to four eight win over the Rangers, it may have already started.
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I've always admired the style with which Buck Showalter and Orel Hershiser have done their jobs in Texas with the Rangers and managing the pitching staff, as The Ballpark at Arlington is not friendly to hurlers.
Having said that, their decision to have relief pitcher Michael Tejera hit Bobby Abreu in the seventh-inning was completely bush. The plunking came as retaliation for Vicente Padilla's accidental beaning of Mark Teixeira in the top of the inning.
Abreu took his base and Pat Burrell stepped to the plate, looking determined (seriously). Several minutes later, The Bat blasted a ball nearly 400 feet to left field for a two-run home-run. As he began his trot around the bases, Burrell slammed his bat to the ground and growled, "Take that, f---er!"
As if we didn't have enough reasons to love the way the Phillies are playing.
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The score of 10-8 belied how close the game was. Entering the top of the ninth, the score was 10-4 and Ugueth Urbina took the mound. In what seemed like second the lead had shrunk and Urbina had given up a home run. Was a Citizen's Blog onto something? Let's hope not.
