I forgot about Hanley's sore shoulder. He had an April 2015 like no other then hurt his shoulder and was a shell of himself. Is healthy for 2016 and hits 30 homers. Re injures the shoulder and now looks like the post April 2015 self again
I forgot about Hanley's sore shoulder. He had an April 2015 like no other then hurt his shoulder and was a shell of himself. Is healthy for 2016 and hits 30 homers. Re injures the shoulder and now looks like the post April 2015 self again
A couple of you mentioned Ortiz. Not long after Manny Ramirez left, I think in 2008, Ortiz began to complain that he couldn't "get a pitch to hit." This was and is a reminder that really good hitters like Manny and Papi help other hitters, especially those in front of them.
It took Papi a while to adjust to not having Manny as his cohort in the line up. Once he got used to life without Manny, he did better aside from injuries to his hand and feet.
And before you find fault with me, I am not knocking Ortiz in any fashion. I have been a stout supporter for David in other places, with no apologies for my affection.
Mookie and Hanley bombed back to back in the first!
"Protection is overrated. There's no evidence that having a superior batter behind another batter provides the initial batter with better pitches to hit; if it does, those batters see no improvement in performance as a result. Additionally, it's very rare that a situation arises in which run expectation drops after the pitching team walks the batter at the plate. Therefore, if the pitching team does walk a batter because it would rather pitch to the following man, it is almost always making a mistake by opening the door for a big inning. The situation changes late in close games as the importance of a single run begins to trump that of many runs, but even in those situations, the difference between the two batters would have to be extreme."