ninth inning of game 1

This is exciting. I still have a spot in my heart for him.

Brad Lidge gets massive camera time
One strikey-outey
Two strikey -outey
Carl Crawford batting
Full count
Three strikey-outey
pop out in foul territory
Phillies win 3-2
Save for Lidge

master of the universe?

in 06/07 allowed hitters to immediately identify the slider vs. the fastball. Like the talk about tipping his pitches in 06…. or perhaps a slight delivery issue which permitted the batter to see the ball better as it came out of his hand (like Ausmus said happened with Oswalt earlier this season). I also think that Lidge was so wild with the fastball in those years that it was easier for hitters to guess when the slider was coming.

Matsui is 1 for 3 against Hamel in his career. That sample doesn’t mean much, but your explanation for Iwamura makes sense. Matsui, and probably other Japanese hitters, differ from American batters because they don’t try to hit a HR ever at bat, and look to go the other way with short swings, kind of like a 2 strike hitting approach on every count. My impression is that baseball used to have more batters who hit like that, but the popularity of the HR changed the interest in that approach.

Intelligent, winning baseball is much less less fun than seeing some bozo blast one into the stands when trailing by a bunch of runs. I suspect there is some correlation between beer sales and home runs.