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ETBR Road Trip: San Francisco Frigging Treat

Inning One: Opening Statement
Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy Frig Holy

These were the present author’s sentiments upon entering the press box at San Francisco’s AT&T Park.

Inning Two: The Life
I’m partly joking when I say that one thing I bet the Reader most desperately wants to hear about is how awesome it is to be an Official Baseballing Journalist on an Ecstatic Truth Baseball Road Trip — especially when said Road Trip includes getting a sweet press credential for San Francisco’s officially recognized Jewel of a Stadium.

“Partly joking” I say, because I bet one thing most readers of most texts would like to know is that that author is having something like a good time. Sometimes I’ll read a book or an article or anything at all written by a doctoral candidate and all I can think is, “This must have required so much effort.” For you and me and everyone we know, effort is not a thing to embrace. I believe Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best when he said, “Effort is stupid and makes me tired”*.

Well, let me tell you about the good time that is AT&T Park. Remember that episode of The Twilight Zone where there’s that hot lady in a land of pig-looking people and how, when the pig doctor takes of the hot lady’s bandages everyone’s like, “Eww, she’s ugly!” and how it’s supposed to make us think about how beauty is subjective? Well, even those pig people would be like, “Aw snap, that’s a sweet ass-looking ballpark.”

The pictures below do little justice to it, on account of they were taken on the present author’s cell phone (which cell phone was manufactured, if I’m remembering correctly, in 1947), but the stadium abuts San Francisco Bay and provides views that’ll make you wanna take your pants off. And mind you: I WENT THERE FOR FREE.

*Not exactly in those words.

Inning Three: Barry Zito’s Curveball
Initially, I had it in mind to reserve this inning so’s to eulogize San Francisco starter Barry Zito’s curveball. It’s a famous pitch and wonderful to behold, carving out an impossible and seductive parabola that, along with Beyonce’s Best Feature, achieves some sort of Golden Ratio-esque resonance deep in the soul of its beholder.

Unfortunately for me, in doing the littlest bit of research about Zito’s curvepiece on the interweb — and, specifically, Fan Graphs — I had the displeasure of coming across Something Interesting. Something Interesting is a horrible thing for an Ecstatic Truth Baseball Reporter to come across, on account of it merits something else called Further Research.

Mitch Hedberg had a joke that touches on a similar dilemma. Maybe you remember it better than me. He says something like, “I’m a comedian, right. So when I think of something funny, I’ve got to write it down. But sometimes the pen and paper are across the room. So I’ve either got to go across the room and get it or convince myself that the joke is not funny.”

It’s funnier when he says it, obviously, but the sentiment remains: sometimes discovery, curiosity, whatever is a little annoying.

Inning Four: Barry Zito’s Curveball, Vol II
So the thing about Barry Zito that you can find out about by clicking here is that — and, mind you, this is un petit dorky — is that his curvepiece and slidepiece are worth about 2 runs above league average per 100 times thrown, placing him around the top-10 in both categories, while his changeup is worth about minus-2 runs below average per 100 times thrown (Pitch Type Linear Weights Methodology).

When I first came across those numbers on this Pitch Type Leaderboard thingy, I proceeded to write — in this very electronic space — a diatribe about how dumb it was of Giants’ coaches to allow Zito to throw his lame-duck changeup over 15% of the time when he had two excellent, league-leading-type pitches that he was throwing only 33% of the time, combined. Mind you, I was only looking at the 2009 leaderboard.

When I decided to pry deeper (a huge mistake) I found Another Interesting Thing (egads!) — namely that, until this year, it was actually his changeup that was Zito’s most effective pitch, worth over 1.5 runs above average per 100 thrown from 2002 to 2007. 2008 was a less stellar year, granted, but that’s easy enough to write off as a fluke given the 6 years of excellence before it.

That curveball that I’d been so eager to celebrate? Only once ever since 2002 had it gotten so high as even 1 run above average per 100, actually coming in below league average during 4 of those years.

Conclusion: sometimes form and function are not entirely allied.

Other conclusion: Beyone’s Best Feature still leads the league every year.

Inning Five: OPC: Other People’s Curveballs
An interesting article about the best curveballs in the majors. The names at the top — Halladay, Wainwright, Vazquez — aren’t entirely surprising.

Off the top of my head, I’ll sat that Vazquez’s is the most fun to watch, as he’ll throw a pretty loopy, sub-70 mph jobber on occasion.

He’s no R.J. Swindle, though.

Inning Six: Splash Hits
A “splash hit”, in the parlance of the San Francisco Giants, is any home run hit by a Giants player that lands in McCovey Cove on the fly without hitting the Arcade or Portwalk. There have been 48 of them, ever, in the history of AT&T Park (since 2000).

Two bullets:

• 35 Splash Hits are by Barry Bonds alone. Subtract those and the Giants have hit fewer than their opponents’ 18.
• Who in the H is Felipe Crespo?

	Player	Date	Opponent	Pitcher
48	Andres Torres	06/15/09	LAA	John Lackey
47	John Bowker	07/02/08	CHC	Ryan Dempster
46	Fred Lewis	4/26/08	CIN	Matt Belisle
45	Barry Bonds	8/8/07	WAS	Tim Redding
44	Ryan Klesko	6/29/07	ARI	Livan Hernandez
43	Ryan Klesko	5/21/07	HOU	Trever Miller
42	Barry Bonds	4/18/07	STL	Ryan Franklin
41	Barry Bonds	8/21/06	ARI	Livan Hernandez
40	Barry Bonds	9/18/05	LA	Hong-Chih Kuo
39	Randy Winn	9/14/05	SD	Woody Williams
38	Michael Tucker	4/9/05	COL	Scott Dohmann
37	Barry Bonds	8/3/04	CIN	Cory Lidle
36	Barry Bonds	7/30/04	STL	Chris Carpenter
35	A.J. Pierzynski	7/6/04	COL	Denny Stark
34	Michael Tucker	5/30/04	COL	Joe Kennedy
33	Barry Bonds	4/13/04	MIL	Ben Ford
32	Barry Bonds	4/12/04	MIL	Matt Kinney
31	Barry Bonds	9/13/03	MIL	Doug Davis
30	Barry Bonds	8/19/03	ATL	Ray King
29	Barry Bonds	8/8/03	PHI	Jose Mesa
28	Jose Cruz Jr.	7/8/03	STL	Dan Haren
27	Barry Bonds	6/27/03	OAK	Ted Lilly
26	J.T. Snow	6/5/03	MIN	Kyle Lohse
25	Barry Bonds	4/30/03	CHC	Matt Clement
24	Barry Bonds	4/14/03	HOU	Wade Miller
23	Barry Bonds	10/12/02	STL	Chuck Finley
22	Barry Bonds	9/28/02	HOU	Jeriome Robertson
21	Barry Bonds	9/8/02	AZ	Brian Anderson
20	Barry Bonds	5/18/02	FLA	Vic Darensbourg
19	Barry Bonds	5/18/02	FLA	Brad Penny
18	Barry Bonds	5/13/02	ATL	Kevin Millwood
17	Barry Bonds	9/29/01	SD	Chuck McElroy
16	Barry Bonds	8/31/01	COL	John Thomson
15	Barry Bonds	8/14/01	FLA	Ricky Bones
14	Barry Bonds	8/4/01	PHI	Nelson Figueroa
13	Felipe Crespo	7/8/01	MIL	Curtis Leskanic
12	Barry Bonds	6/12/01	ANA	Pat Rapp
11	Barry Bonds	5/30/01	AZ	Robert Ellis
10	Felipe Crespo	5/28/01	AZ	Bret Prinz
9	Barry Bonds	5/24/01	COL	John Thomson
8	Barry Bonds	4/18/01	LA	Chan Ho Park
7	Barry Bonds	4/17/01	LA	Terry Adams
6	Barry Bonds	9/20/00	CIN	Steve Parris
5	Barry Bonds	7/19/00	SD	Brian Meadows
4	Barry Bonds	5/24/00	MON	Mike Thurman
3	Barry Bonds	5/10/00	STL	Heathcliff Slocumb
2	Barry Bonds	5/10/00	STL	Andy Benes
1	Barry Bonds	5/1/00	NY	Rich Rodriguez

Inning Seven: Challenge
Say “Splash hit” five times fast.

Oh snap, you just swore!

Inning Eight: Babies Got Back
An observation: the Giants have a triumvirate of players in today’s lineup who, for lack of a better term, are funny-figured. Pablo Sandoval (5′11″/242), Bengia Molina (5′11″/225), and Juan Uribe (6′0″/225) played third base, catcher, and second base, respectively, and each, in his own way, bears much in the way of physical resemblance to an apple.

Baseball fans are not unaware of this. Pablo Sandoval, who’s actually in the midst of an outstanding season (batting 331/382/572), has garnered the nickname Kung-Fu Panda, and Pandoval jerseys are ubiquitous around AT&T. Molina has long been recognized (along with his brothers-from-the-same-exact-mother Yadier and ) as one of the slowest men in baseball. And Uribe … well, no one really talks about him much, on account of he’s not that good. And even if he’s slightly more atheltic-looking than his two compadres, he’s also a middle infielder and ought to be at least a little more lithe than them.

Another observation: said portly triumvirate also possesses what can most politely be called shocking plate discipline. Taking a gander at this here table, anyone can see that Molina and Sandoval are, in fact, numbers one and two among qualified batters in O-Swing% — that is, the percentage of pitches outside of the strike zone at which a batter swings. Uribe, were he to have enough plate appearances to qualify, would come in at a considerably more discerning ninth*.

More numbers: the three amigos have a combined BB:K ratio of 25:117, or 0.21. That would be fifth worst in the league for a single player, let alone for three players all on the same team.

Incredibly scientific conclusion: all chubby baseball players have poor plate disciple.

Don’t believe me? Ask Kirby Puckett.

*Caution: sarcasticy.

Inning Nine: Kyle Blanks Watch!
Kyle Blanks is how the camel got his hump.

His MLB line entering today’s game was: 150/244/225 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 0 HR, 3 BB, and 14 K in 45 PA.

In 5 PA this afternoon, he went 1 for 4 with a BB and K.

I actually got up the courage to speak with Monsieur Blanks in the Padres’ clubhouse after today’s game. Most of what he said was unrepeatable.

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