The title of this post hardly makes any sense to me. I'm pretty sure that's how it would show in the box score, though. Not that it gets written in the box score very often. I'd kind of be curious, really, to know how many times a flyout has been recorded that way in Major League Baseball history.
Third baseman assists left fielder in catching a fly ball.
Now, if you didn't see it happen on May 12, 2012, just let that sink in. Try to picture the third baseman touching, but not catching a fly ball. Now, you have to get that fly ball into the left fielder's glove without it touching the ground. Can you picture that?
Showing posts with label Brett Lawrie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brett Lawrie. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Bottom of the 9th, 7-7, nobody out
That title, up there, it's almost always the game situation that provides us with a magic moment. I often have to look up the game summary or box score to figure out exactly what the title will be. Today, I did not. Brett Lawrie makes remembering the magic easy to do.
I often hold off on showing you the play, or the link to build a little tension, but I'm just going to give it to you right off the top, because that's what Brett Lawrie did. With nobody out, and the count full, Brett Lawrie swung the bat, and won the game.
MLB.com would like you to Click here so you can watch it happen in full motion video and sound.
Boom goes the dynamite, indeed. Everybody jump around! Did he just do that? Yes! Now we all go home!
For those of you not students of the game, I must tell you something important here. There are no clutch hitters. No major league baseball hitter has shown any real ability to get better at hitting when his team is behind, or he is the tying or winning run. Great hitters are great all the time. Bad hitters are bad all the time. With random variations thrown in. There are no clutch hitters, but there are clutch hits.
The walkoff homer in the bottom of the ninth, that's the kind of clutch hit that narratives are written about. Ask Joe Carter. Brett Lawrie already knows quite a lot about clutch hits. His 71st big league hit was a walkoff home run. You have to be in the right place at the right time to get a walkoff hit. It must be the 9th inning or later. Your team must be tied or behind. There must be enough runners on for your team to take the lead, given certain outcomes of your at bat.
Lastly, you must do the right thing.
Brett Lawrie did exactly the right thing on May 1st,2012. If you are Lawrie fan, you know he's tried this move out before. It was September 5th, 2011, and in the bottom of the 11th inning, in a 1-1 count, Lawrie hit a solo home run to walk off the Boston Red Sox. It looked, in part, like this.
MLB.com says this is old enough that I can show it to you right here. Isn't that convenient?
A quick trip to my calculator shows me that 2.8% of all the hits Lawrie has made in the major leagues have been walkoff home runs. That's crazy. And makes him seem magical. Right place, right time, right thing. 2.8% of the time.
If you don't agree with me, I'd like to direct your attention to another MLB player with exceptional talent. He has been around a little longer that Brett, and has had time to amass 2,406 hits against major league pitchers. He's got quite the reputation for being able to get hits whenever he needs them. He's led the league 7 times in the hits category. His name is Ichiro Suzuki. Now here's the funny part, this link is to an article about Ichiro's first walkoff hit (hit, not homer, mind you). In the text of the article, we are told that it's the 1953rd hit of Ichiro's career. So, there's one walkoff for him, 2 for Brett.
It turns out, Ichiro thought that getting a walkoff hit was really cool. The next night, he was in the right place at the right time, and for the second night in a row, he did the right thing. He homered off Mariano Rivera and won the game, bringing his career walkoff hit percentage to 0.001%. So, Brett and Ichiro Suzuki now are tied in game winning hits. However, Lawrie has a 2-1 lead in walkoff home runs.
I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I know what happened to end the game on May 2, 2012, and it was magical to me.
I often hold off on showing you the play, or the link to build a little tension, but I'm just going to give it to you right off the top, because that's what Brett Lawrie did. With nobody out, and the count full, Brett Lawrie swung the bat, and won the game.
MLB.com would like you to Click here so you can watch it happen in full motion video and sound.
Boom goes the dynamite, indeed. Everybody jump around! Did he just do that? Yes! Now we all go home!
For those of you not students of the game, I must tell you something important here. There are no clutch hitters. No major league baseball hitter has shown any real ability to get better at hitting when his team is behind, or he is the tying or winning run. Great hitters are great all the time. Bad hitters are bad all the time. With random variations thrown in. There are no clutch hitters, but there are clutch hits.
The walkoff homer in the bottom of the ninth, that's the kind of clutch hit that narratives are written about. Ask Joe Carter. Brett Lawrie already knows quite a lot about clutch hits. His 71st big league hit was a walkoff home run. You have to be in the right place at the right time to get a walkoff hit. It must be the 9th inning or later. Your team must be tied or behind. There must be enough runners on for your team to take the lead, given certain outcomes of your at bat.
Lastly, you must do the right thing.
Brett Lawrie did exactly the right thing on May 1st,2012. If you are Lawrie fan, you know he's tried this move out before. It was September 5th, 2011, and in the bottom of the 11th inning, in a 1-1 count, Lawrie hit a solo home run to walk off the Boston Red Sox. It looked, in part, like this.
MLB.com says this is old enough that I can show it to you right here. Isn't that convenient?
A quick trip to my calculator shows me that 2.8% of all the hits Lawrie has made in the major leagues have been walkoff home runs. That's crazy. And makes him seem magical. Right place, right time, right thing. 2.8% of the time.
If you don't agree with me, I'd like to direct your attention to another MLB player with exceptional talent. He has been around a little longer that Brett, and has had time to amass 2,406 hits against major league pitchers. He's got quite the reputation for being able to get hits whenever he needs them. He's led the league 7 times in the hits category. His name is Ichiro Suzuki. Now here's the funny part, this link is to an article about Ichiro's first walkoff hit (hit, not homer, mind you). In the text of the article, we are told that it's the 1953rd hit of Ichiro's career. So, there's one walkoff for him, 2 for Brett.
It turns out, Ichiro thought that getting a walkoff hit was really cool. The next night, he was in the right place at the right time, and for the second night in a row, he did the right thing. He homered off Mariano Rivera and won the game, bringing his career walkoff hit percentage to 0.001%. So, Brett and Ichiro Suzuki now are tied in game winning hits. However, Lawrie has a 2-1 lead in walkoff home runs.
I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I know what happened to end the game on May 2, 2012, and it was magical to me.
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Brett Lawire, Safety Tips
Brett Lawrie.
He's kind of been a full sentence, a complete statement, since he arrived in the big leagues. He is an in-your-face, give 100% all the time player. He makes other players more quotable. He appears to not care much what anyone else on the field thinks about him. Twitter users who follow the Blue Jays have a hashtag- #jerkball, which refers to skills with an attitude to match. It fits Lawrie's style of play perfectly. I think people identify with him, because he doesn't seem to be at work when he's on the field, he's still a big, powerful, hyper, kid out playing in the yard. It's easy to trade places with Brett Lawrie. Imagine hitting a grand slam home run, in front of twenty thousand people, a homer that brought your team from behind to up by three runs. Wouldn't you love to run back to the rest of your team and do this?
Now you and I, we can watch Brett from a safe distance, and marvel. We don't have to be the guy to talks to him after he tries to steal home, off a right handed pitcher, no less, and fails. The long term happiness of Lawrie and his less intense teammates depends on them finding ways to get along in close quarters.
This team is led, we are told, by Jose Bautista, a man whose bat is larger than life. So how does 'the man' deal with 'the kid'. He plays it safe, that's how. After becoming familiar with the aftermath of a Lawrie home run, Jose took precautions as below:
As with airplane seats, in the event of a Lawrie Home Run landing, dugout pads can be used as an emergency safety device.
There is a genuine magic moment here, one which makes me feel closer to my favourite team.When the long grind of the season has the players looking grim, drop back in and remember this little moment of fun.
Shout out to http://bluejaysgifs.tumblr.com/archive for the latter images.
He's kind of been a full sentence, a complete statement, since he arrived in the big leagues. He is an in-your-face, give 100% all the time player. He makes other players more quotable. He appears to not care much what anyone else on the field thinks about him. Twitter users who follow the Blue Jays have a hashtag- #jerkball, which refers to skills with an attitude to match. It fits Lawrie's style of play perfectly. I think people identify with him, because he doesn't seem to be at work when he's on the field, he's still a big, powerful, hyper, kid out playing in the yard. It's easy to trade places with Brett Lawrie. Imagine hitting a grand slam home run, in front of twenty thousand people, a homer that brought your team from behind to up by three runs. Wouldn't you love to run back to the rest of your team and do this?
Now you and I, we can watch Brett from a safe distance, and marvel. We don't have to be the guy to talks to him after he tries to steal home, off a right handed pitcher, no less, and fails. The long term happiness of Lawrie and his less intense teammates depends on them finding ways to get along in close quarters.
This team is led, we are told, by Jose Bautista, a man whose bat is larger than life. So how does 'the man' deal with 'the kid'. He plays it safe, that's how. After becoming familiar with the aftermath of a Lawrie home run, Jose took precautions as below:
As with airplane seats, in the event of a Lawrie Home Run landing, dugout pads can be used as an emergency safety device.
There is a genuine magic moment here, one which makes me feel closer to my favourite team.When the long grind of the season has the players looking grim, drop back in and remember this little moment of fun.
Shout out to http://bluejaysgifs.tumblr.com/archive for the latter images.
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