Saturday bantering: The joys of rebuilding

Oh the fun of watching a rebuilding team.

I don’t understand why batting cold streaks in batting seem to effect the whole team. I guess it is the same with pitching, a good start seems to breed another good start, while 5 starters can suddenly all forget how to pitch at the same time.

It sometimes seems that one bad at bat will carry over to the next batter. One guy chases a bad pitch and the next guy chases a bad pitch.

It does seems like we are getting some bad luck too. Socrates Brito, leading off yesterday, hit a hard ground ball right at the second basement. A few feet either direction it would have been a single. Next time up a line drive to center, this time not exactly at the center fielder, but close enough for him to make a catch.

We have a team .221 BABIP, which should improve. Some of it is due too too many popups and soft ground balls, but some is bad luck.

Amazingly enough, there are teams doing worse than us. Our 2.89 runs per game is 5th from the bottom in the AL. Cleveland, Angels, Astros and Tigers are scoring less per game than we are. Our team batting average is a terrible .180, but Cleveland (.170) and Detroit (.166) are doing worse. Yeah, it doesn’t really help.

You know, the funny part is: If the pitching was lousy, but the hitters were raking, it would be much more fun to watch

The only guy hitting better than we’d expect is Freddy Galvis and he’s leading off today:

Galvis is hitting .320. The next best batting average in the starting lineup is Brandon Drury at .212.

John Lott, in the Athletic (who I see billed me for another year, last month, not that I wasn’t going to re-up, I just think they should send an email saying ‘we are going to bill you’) writes about Randal Grichuk’s contract extension. I like this quote from Randal:

“You never really know where you fit into the puzzle with the future, with the rebuilding that everybody’s saying,” he said. “It’s definitely good to know that, hey, moving forward, they want me out there for the next five years and they want me to be a piece of the puzzle in the next few years — so it’s exciting.”

Anthony Alford hit a home run in today’s Bisons game (another place that renewed me without sending me a note, but I’m watching the Bisons play so I can’t complain too much). Honestly, in a rebuilding season, I’d love the team to have Alford up and give him the season to figure things out. It should be a season of patience. But I guess I am going to have to be patient myself.

Here is Alford’s homer:

Sean Reid-Foley is starting. He just had a very nice second inning. And now he gave up a two-run homer in the third inning.

In Gregor Chisholm’s game recap of last night’s game, he noted that the Jays are seeing a lot of breaking balls:

One night after Trevor Bauer threw just 42 fastballs, Toronto faced a similar approach from his teammate Shane Bieber. This time, the Indians’ starter threw 41 fastballs compared to 31 sliders and 19 curveballs. The offspeed pitches resulted in 16 swinging strikes, five called strikes and just five balls put in play, with only one of them resulting in a hit.

I wonder how long it will take for them to start to layoff the breaking stuff off the plate?

I think I’m going to watch today’s game with a beer or two. I’ve been on a bit of a health kick of late and I’m down to the weight goal I had for myself back a couple of months ago, so I think I deserve a beer. Maybe it will change our luck, or maybe I just won’t care so much if it doesn’t.