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April 21, 2011

Bard Relieving Buchholz With Bases Loaded

Daniel Bard got out of Clay Buchholz's bases-loaded, one-out jam in the sixth yesterday and joked afterwards that "he owes me a dinner".

Buchholz: "I think he's done it four times now in my career, coming in with the bases loaded, less than two outs."

Someone should tell Clay that Bard actually had never done that before yesterday, so he should hold off on that dinner (or tell Bard he can order only soup).

Bard has come into six bases-loaded situations in his career (all of them in 2010):
April 23 vs Orioles: 6th inning, in relief of Jon Lester, 2 outs: F8

May 8 vs Yankees: 8th inning, in relief of Scott Schoeneweis (Buchholz started), 2 outs: 2-run single, BB, 2-run single, F9

June 5 at Orioles: 7th inning, in relief of Lester, 1 out: F8, PF5

August 9 at Yankees: 7th inning, in relief of Lester, 1 out: K, K

August 12 at Blue Jays: 9th inning, in relief of Jonathan Papelbon (John Lackey started), 2 outs: F8 (game-losing sac fly)

October 3 vs Yankees: 9th inning, in relief of Rich Hill (Lackey started), 2 outs: 4-3.
Before yesterday, Bard had relieved Buchholz seven times, but only five times with runners on base:
2009
July 17 at Blue Jays: 6th inning, 1st/2nd, 2 outs: K
September 18 at Orioles: Started 7th inning

2010
May 14 at Tigers: 7th, 1st/2nd, 1 out: HBP, K, 5-3
May 19 vs Twins: 9th, Man on 1st, 0 outs: 4-3, 3U/run scored, BB, 1B, 4-3
June 20 vs Dodgers: 7th, 1st/3rd, 2 outs: FC6-4
August 6 at Yankees: 8th, Man on 2nd, 1 out: L8, P3
August 22 vs Blue Jays: Started 7th inning
In fact, before yesterday, Buchholz had never -- in 65 major league starts and two relief appearances -- left a game with the bases loaded.
Example
Terry Francona:
Remember last week ... I said the best way for us to play good baseball is to go through our rotation a couple of times and get solid starts, consistent starts, and give ourselves a chance?
In the most recent time through the rotation, the starters had a 1.15 ERA:
            IP  H  R  BB  K
Beckett    7.0  3  1   2  9
Lester     6.0  6  1   3  5
Matsuzaka  7.0  1  0   1  3
Lackey     6.0  4  1   1  3
Buchholz   5.1  6  1   4  2
And Boston won four of those five games.

12 comments:

  1. Hopefully, this pitching stat is the norm and not an anomaly.

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  2. We should follow all of baseball for a season (okay, a month), or maybe one player for the season, and check every story they tell for accuracy, and come up with an Accuracy Average. Or maybe call it the Believability Stat (BS) since they're always so consistently inaccurate. When are these jocks gonna figure out we document all this stuff??

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  3. Great idea, Jere! Always amazes me just how wrong they can be about their own recent past. Mind you, I couldn't tell you with any accuracy what I had for dinner two nights ago. Maybe I'll have Allan keep track for me.

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  4. We should follow all of baseball for a season (okay, a month), or maybe one player for the season, and check every story they tell for accuracy, and come up with an Accuracy Average.

    The players don't mean any harm, though. It's just normal human inability to remember everything from the past. (Maybe Bard did it in the minors?)

    I'd rather do it for reporters -- and I wish broadcast games had transcripts. You could follow a writer or TV person and record their cliches and stupid analysis.

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  5. Yes, they don't mean any harm, but they don't seem to realize it's not just memories from their lives they're talking about, but memories from their work. I could tell you about a random memory from my past and it could be way off and nobody could prove me wrong. But if my boss asked me for the TPS reports, and I go in there empty-handed and feed her the numbers from memory and act like that's just as good, we could have a problem.

    Not that the players are actually responsible for knowing any of their past stats, it's just funny how they either don't know or don't care that everything they've ever done in (MLB) baseball has been documented. So you can't just sit there spinning yarns about the day you hit five home runs in a game or when your American League team scored a run in every inning.

    But I agree, let's mainly rip on the dick reporters for their BS.

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  6. Speaking of broadcast transcripts, apparently Buck Martinez (who is synonymous with 'mute' to me) said something over the weekend about some Red Sox pitchers not being comfortable throwing to Salty. I've noticed the past few days on various comments on Sox sites (maybe even P. Abe picked it up? or one of the Toronto papers?) that it seems to be gaining traction. Anybody hear the the exact wording (if any)?
    Martinez is one of these guys (like O'Brien) who is so self-assured when he speaks that it is sometimes difficult to nail whether he actually "heard" somebody say something or whether he is just putting words into phantom mouths (aka making shit up). Or maybe it was one of his "observations" that somehow got translated into something that originated in the Sox clubhouse. Anyway, I figured that such a 'story' would soon grow legs of its own so I didn't make a note of where I first heard it. Regrets.

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  7. apparently Buck Martinez (who is synonymous with 'mute' to me) said something over the weekend about some Red Sox pitchers not being comfortable throwing to Salty.

    I think John Farrell said it, actually.

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  8. So Buck was quoting Farrell?

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  9. Synonymous with mute, ordering only soup, a BS factor... many laughs in this thread. :)

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  10. SoSH post from late Saturday night:

    "FWIW Buck Martinez (on the sportsnet broadcast)hinted that Farrell was aware Red Sox pitchers were unhappy with Salty as a target. Of course he was giving Tek credit for Beckett's outing at the time. But he did point out he thought Tek was cooked a a hitter. I had to agree with one thing he said. He thought Tek should catch once through the rotation, since generally the starting pitching was killing the Red Sox."

    I thought there was a repeat of this info in Cafardo's Sunday column, but there was not. SoSH may be the only place I read it. I do not have the stomach to listen to the Jays feed for the game to hear exactly what Nasal Buck said.

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  11. Yeah, thanks Allan, that's where I saw it. Good ol' Buck innuendo with Tabler no doubt nodding in agreement. Should have checked SOSH cuz I think that particular poster lives in Canada (and thus held hostage by Sportsnet for Sox games--which btw I tune into Castig/O'Brien on MLB-audio). Also for past 2 Yanks/Jays tilts I was listening to Sterling/Suzie. Gawd there is some awful shit out there.

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