I still think Uggla can turn into a league average defender. Learning from Hill can only help.

 

And his bat is promising too, just learning MLB on the fly. Ruling him out as not being "one of the promising guys" is a little quick to the trigger.

Another baserunning blunder by Cabrera took us out of a potential big inning, and may have cost us the game. This is the 3rd or 4th game out of 6 with baserunning blunders. Girardi and crew need to spend a few instructional hours focused just on baserunning.

This bothered me, but what bothered me was that anyone would be angry at him. What is he supposed to do? That ball was lined sharply and Khalil caught it after making a huge leap. The only way Cabs makes it back to second safely is if he never gets off the bag, because the ball was hit so hard.

 

 

the ball was hit right in front of him so he should have stayed near the bag until he was sure the ball got past the shortstop. He wouldn't have been able to score anyway if a ball hit that hard had gone out to left field. I agree it was a blunder.

It was a bad day for the Fish today, tons of mental mistakes.

 

Borowoski

Herges

Moehler

 

All should be gone. It is becoming pretty appartent this team will not win more then 50-60 games. Players like Olsen, Resop, Johnson, Nolesco shoud be getting the Lions share of the work.

the ball was hit right in front of him so he should have stayed near the bag until he was sure the ball got past the shortstop. He wouldn't have been able to score anyway if a ball hit that hard had gone out to left field. I agree it was a blunder.

He would have had a reasonable shot at scoring because the ball was hit between the LF and the CF (well, if it had gotten through).

 

On a line drive like that you shouldn't be assuming that the SS is going to turn into an Olympic pole vaulter and snag it. If he runs back to the bag or takes a lesser lead, that's a bad baserunning move because 99 times out of 100 that ball gets into the OF and Cabs has a good shot even not being fleet of foot to score, especialy with the all left handed OF.

 

The fact is that the only way he is not doubled up on that play is if he's already running back to the bag or if his lead is a foot or two. He's toast either way if that play is miraculously caught (like it was), so might as well try to make sure he could score if the 99 times happen instead of the 1.

He would have had a reasonable shot at scoring because the ball was hit between the LF and the CF (well, if it had gotten through).

 

On a line drive like that you shouldn't be assuming that the SS is going to turn into an Olympic pole vaulter and snag it. If he runs back to the bag or takes a lesser lead, that's a bad baserunning move because 99 times out of 100 that ball gets into the OF and Cabs has a good shot even not being fleet of foot to score, especialy with the all left handed OF.

 

The fact is that the only way he is not doubled up on that play is if he's already running back to the bag or if his lead is a foot or two. He's toast either way if that play is miraculously caught (like it was), so might as well try to make sure he could score if the 99 times happen instead of the 1.

 

 

 

I agree he would have probably been doubled up anyways, but he was WAY of the bag and his reaction was weak at best. He looked like deer caught in the headlights. I get a bad vibe from his body language...

Well, he had a big lead because they weren't bothering to check him. Might as well get as big a lead as possible to score on a single.

 

The only thing wrong with that play is that he froze - at least make a motion back just in case he does go Superman but bobbles it and subsequently recovers it. But even with that, getting doubled up was not Miguel's fault at all. It was just the luck of the draw.

I absolutely love the first half of the lineup. Jury's still out for a while on Uggla, we'll have to wait & see. But the back of the order has been dreadful. Also they've got to take advantage of scoring opportunities and create a "big inning". Don't be satisfied with 1 run.

 

All the pitchers had problems with walks. Can't afford that.

 

Mitre... he just wasn't keeping his pitches down. Especially to Greene, whom he should've been extra careful with after mashing his pitches all over the place the first 2 at-bats.

 

It was almost comical how he & Olivo had a conference on the mound & then with the very next pitch Mitre proceeded to serve up a fat grapefruit up in the zone for Khalil to deposit in the seats. That pretty much was the game for me. Mitre gets out of that inning & he's 6 IP, 2 runs... which would've been just fine.

 

The mental errors & mistakes, those are going to happen with rookies.

the ball was hit right in front of him so he should have stayed near the bag until he was sure the ball got past the shortstop. He wouldn't have been able to score anyway if a ball hit that hard had gone out to left field. I agree it was a blunder.

He would have had a reasonable shot at scoring because the ball was hit between the LF and the CF (well, if it had gotten through).

 

On a line drive like that you shouldn't be assuming that the SS is going to turn into an Olympic pole vaulter and snag it. If he runs back to the bag or takes a lesser lead, that's a bad baserunning move because 99 times out of 100 that ball gets into the OF and Cabs has a good shot even not being fleet of foot to score, especialy with the all left handed OF.

 

The fact is that the only way he is not doubled up on that play is if he's already running back to the bag or if his lead is a foot or two. He's toast either way if that play is miraculously caught (like it was), so might as well try to make sure he could score if the 99 times happen instead of the 1.

 

 

good points

 

but also remember there were no outs, so the 3rd base coach most likely would have held him at third if the play would be close at the plate. Of course, Cabrera usually runs through the stop sign at third anyway :blink:

My observations from casually watching the game (wasn't really paying:

 

-Khalijwhatever Green should be slapped

-Shadez owns all

-Willingham is capable of hitting cleanup, but he really isn't fit to play leftfield. That, or he didn't know you're not supposed to kick the ball

-Olivo is garbage at the plate, no matter how he battled that last at bat. Make Willingham the starting catcher.

-Jacobs look crappy. Missed two pop ups and hit into a double play in probably the worst possible situation for that to happen. Sure that was just bad luck, but he didn't look too good overall today, but he'll be better with time.

-German should be the closer.

-There has to be someone who can play centerfield somewhere.

-Mitre looked good for the most part, except for whatever he did when I was getting Lemon Ice.

- The bottom of the lineup doesn't work counts much, they need to work on that. Working counts leads to better pitches to hit which in turn leads to better hitting.

 

Man that's an understatement. The top of the order was working Williams hard. I believe he had a 28 pitch first inning. The bottom of the order, Olivo, Abercrombie, Mitre gave him a 3-pitch 5th to extend his game. I couldn't believe it. Presley seriously needs to teach these guys a bit about working the count at the appropriate time.

One through five, we're as good as we've been for the last several seasons.

 

I'm slowly beginning to get somewhat concerned for Hermida as he's still really tentative at the plate...almost like someone needs to pull him aside and tell him not to be afraid to just slam the ball to right and try to not focus on using the whole field.

 

Hanley is exponentially better than I was ever expecting.

 

The back of the bullpen might have to be reshuffled, but so what?

German was flat out nasty today. He had both his splitter and fastball working. The radar gun reading for some reason was turned off at the ball park before the game was over(so I missed what he topped out at to the first to batters) but the third man he faced I saw a 87 mph splitter and 94-95 mph FB when they started putting the radar gun reading again.

 

German made them look like high school hitters.

 

Hanley Ramirez was impressive as well today.