8/4 Post Game

[EricOwens!]

Pablito looking good

[canada-marlin24]

Just now, EricOwens! said:

Pablito looking good

Has to stay healthy. 

[Zdog1004]

Bleier looked sharp. Hoyt looked serviceable but was surprised to see his capping out around 87-88 for how tall he is.

Swings looked fluid. Team didn’t look like they were off for 8 days which is quite amazing.

Brinson still looks lost out there. Seems extra skinny too. Hopefully that was him trying to slim down and not COVID related. Wouldn’t mind seeing Sierra or Alverez in the lineup tomorrow over him.

Monte hacking away. Hopefully tomorrow the nerves are gone and he can focus and be a little more patient and the plate.

[Arptastic]

28 minutes ago, Zdog1004 said:

Bleier looked sharp. Hoyt looked serviceable but was surprised to see his capping out around 87-88 for how tall he is.

Swings looked fluid. Team didn’t look like they were off for 8 days which is quite amazing.

Brinson still looks lost out there. Seems extra skinny too. Hopefully that was him trying to slim down and not COVID related. Wouldn’t mind seeing Sierra or Alverez in the lineup tomorrow over him.

Monte hacking away. Hopefully tomorrow the nerves are gone and he can focus and be a little more patient and the plate.

I don’t think Brinson looked lost at all.  He worked a couple of counts and made decent contact on the grounder to third.  He didn’t get a hit.  That happens occasionally in baseball.  Don’t read into it until you have to.  It was his first Major League game in some time.

[Admin]

Great return to action, lets at least split today's twin bill.

[Hotcorner]

so far we've seen Sandy and Pablo look great, Caleb and Duggar not so much.  But Caleb you figure will be fine. 

And really nice from the rebuilt pen.

 

 

Man I know it's super early but Aguilar wow.

[Admin]

Just now, Hotcorner said:

Man I know it's super early but Aguilar wow.

Heck of a waiver claim so far

[Hotcorner]

and I'm sure there's some games I'm forgetting but that was about as good as I've ever seen Pablo look.  Just really great command.

[Zdog1004]

7 hours ago, Arptastic said:

I don’t think Brinson looked lost at all.  He worked a couple of counts and made decent contact on the grounder to third.  He didn’t get a hit.  That happens occasionally in baseball.  Don’t read into it until you have to.  It was his first Major League game in some time.

I’ll give him that. He did take a few ABs deep into the count. When I watch him swing though, it never seems to be as confident as the others in the lineup. Even Monte’s hacks at sliders down and away were confident swings.

I hope he takes the next step, don’t get me wrong. I’d hate to give up on him and have him awaken on another team in the future

[Jokersgoon]

(Bullpen might’ve actually improved) 👀👀

[Arptastic]

1 hour ago, Zdog1004 said:

I’ll give him that. He did take a few ABs deep into the count. When I watch him swing though, it never seems to be as confident as the others in the lineup. Even Monte’s hacks at sliders down and away were confident swings.

I hope he takes the next step, don’t get me wrong. I’d hate to give up on him and have him awaken on another team in the future

There was one swing in particular that looked really hesitant and ugly, and it was on that hands-high four-seam.  I forget the count.  I do think most of Brinson’s issues have been psychological because he’s clearly capable.  I’ve admittedly been a huge cheerleader of his.

[Arptastic]

8 minutes ago, Jokersgoon said:

(Bullpen might’ve actually improved) 👀👀

That Tim Spooneyboxberger/Ian Kinsler combo appears to be pretty deadly.  We may have reached a simple equation of “No Conley = Win”, which is something I’m certain Mattingly will still manage to screw up.

[fish53]

Out of the new arms in the pen last night, Bleier looked good to me, but he also has success at this level.  Could be a very nice get.  Hoyt is a concern.  I think he is going to struggle.  Got away with a few hangers and certainly got a very generous strike 3 call.  

[SilverBullet]

If Bleier has success he more than likely takes Conley's role. At the very least he knocks Conley out of pitching in key situations. 

[Michael]

26 minutes ago, SilverBullet said:

If Bleier has success he more than likely takes Conley's role. At the very least he knocks Conley out of pitching in key situations. 

Absolutely.

I still have complete faith in Alex Vesia once he returns as well. I am somewhat biased, though, if I am being honest.

[TaiwanMarlins]

It's really a different season and a different team. 

[Michael]

So, Zdog - I want to mention first I'm not picking on ya, just thought you brought up a few interesting points and I'd like to go through em all in a bit more depth.

11 hours ago, Zdog1004 said:

Bleier looked sharp. Hoyt looked serviceable but was surprised to see his capping out around 87-88 for how tall he is.

Hoyt's main thing through his career thus far has been being heavily reliant on his slider (more than half of his pitches thrown have been the slider), which explains why his career O-Swing% thus far is 36.8% - he gets a fair amount of swings on that slider, I'd say. He's getting a swinging strike percentage of 16.8% in his career to this point which is fairly decent, I would say. Josh Hader, for example, has had a 22.8% SwStr% (just shortening swinging strike percentage) since the start of last year, and Ryan Pressly gets an O-Swing% of 40.2% (fourth on the list since 2019 began and he was really really good last year). Hoyt might be a very sneaky pick-up for us based on those numbers. My whole point, though, was his fastball won't matter too much, it's just a "show me" pitch. According to Fangraphs, he also has a splitter, which he didn't use last night - seems to be more of a wrinkle kind of pitch than anything, not even 10% of his pitches thrown.

Fun thing, though, since you brought up the velo - Baseball Savant was listing those fastballs as change-ups! 😂 

11 hours ago, Zdog1004 said:

Swings looked fluid. Team didn’t look like they were off for 8 days which is quite amazing.

I'll agree on this - there were some pitches earlier in the game that I thought, without the eight day layoff, would have been absolutely destroyed. No layoff and we win this game by a lot more than four runs, I would say. Aguilar for example had one pitch that started off an at bat that he fouled off, center-center from John Means, and I guarantee with the timing down he'd have hit it further than the ball he hit out in the 8th inning.

11 hours ago, Zdog1004 said:

Brinson still looks lost out there. --- Wouldn’t mind seeing Sierra or Alverez in the lineup tomorrow over him.

Here's the one I'll disagree on but only partially - Brinson's approach was much much better. He laid off of some really tough pitches during his at bats that I guarantee last year he would have gone after, ran the count full twice (including a nine pitch at bat in the 3rd against Means), and hit one of the balls pretty hard. One thing I'll agree on that others mentioned was that he seemed to not be in full confidence of his swings just yet, but the lack of striking out does excite me. Give him a couple more games and let's see what occurs.

11 hours ago, Zdog1004 said:

Monte hacking away. Hopefully tomorrow the nerves are gone and he can focus and be a little more patient and the plate.

Yes - Monte openly admitted via Twitter last night that he was incredibly nervous at the plate. First game jitters and all that. Once he gets his first hit out of the way and gets the confidence going off of that, I think we'll be good to go. I'm with you entirely on this point.

[Michael]

1 minute ago, taiwanmarlin said:

It's really a different season and a different team. 

Honestly, it's the same season and a different team!

[Michael]

 

RIP to Mr. Means. sad news.

[Photo-Realistic Billy]

6 hours ago, Hotcorner said:

Caleb and Duggar not so much

We now know they both pitched with COVID. So take that for what you will. shrug.png

[FishFan95]

5 hours ago, Zdog1004 said:

I’ll give him that. He did take a few ABs deep into the count. When I watch him swing though, it never seems to be as confident as the others in the lineup. Even Monte’s hacks at sliders down and away were confident swings.

I hope he takes the next step, don’t get me wrong. I’d hate to give up on him and have him awaken on another team in the future

The biggest problem with Lewis was that he kept chasing breaking pitches out of the zone. He did a good job of laying off those pitches last night so it is a step in the right direction. He has all the talent so if he continues good discipline I have no doubt his bat will come around and he will put up at least halfway decent numbers.

That is of course as long as he does not get frustrated first.

[Zdog1004]

3 hours ago, Michael said:

So, Zdog - I want to mention first I'm not picking on ya, just thought you brought up a few interesting points and I'd like to go through em all in a bit more depth.

I'm always down for a discussion, no problem.

The Hoyt metrics are pretty interesting. Thanks for explaining that.  Hopefully he continues to perform up to his career numbers and we hit big with him and Bleier.

I admitted later on Brinson's approach of locating pitches did seem to improve, but I agree that confidence in his swing definitely doesnt seem to be all there just yet. Hopefully its more nerves of facing real action after a long layoff and he starts to get into the groove soon. Really want him to pan out for us.

[Michael]

1 hour ago, Zdog1004 said:

Hopefully its more nerves of facing real action after a long layoff and he starts to get into the groove soon.

This is probably exactly what it was, or is - there's only so much you can do facing your future teammates in non-game situations.