When days grow dark and ground balls go through legs, we still have Kruk and Kuip.
***
P.M. UPDATE
A few random thoughts:
* If the White Sox sign Mark Buerhle to a contract extension instead of trade him, it will boost the value of starting veteran pitchers before the deadline. Hellooo, Matt Morris. Sure enough, here’s ESPN’s Jayson Stark: “As the Giants spin in circles, they've put a very interesting name on the market -- Matt Morris. ‘He's pitched real well. He's got a lot of experience. He's a great guy. And he's a tremendous competitor,’ said an executive of one team. ‘I bet they get a lot of hits on him.’”
* Watching the video replay of yesterday’s game, I think the bad pitch to Cruz might have been a change-up, not a fastball. If so, it’s better pitch selection, as the count was 2–1 to a dead fastball hitter, but it was still bad location. This brings up something I’ve heard Krukow say often — that you can miss location with a straight change as long as the arm action is good. I disagree. A hanging change-up is just as liable to get hit as a hanging slider or curveball. Jason Schmidt’s change-up was great in his heyday not only because of the speed differential, but because it had great movement like a split-finger.
* For those of you who defend Joe Morgan, read this and tell me if you still think he’s competent, let alone deserving to be the #1 baseball analyst on the #1 baseball broadcast in the #1 baseball country in the world.
