Why yes, we DID go away for the weekend, however did all yall guess? Went to see relatives and unfortunately, they live in Rangers territory, so watching games wasn’t an option for me. I DID sneak out and quick listen to snippets of the games on XM – and one important thing I heard was the Arizona announcers, who knew Chris Wallace QUITE well from his days at Arizona State University, saying that Wallace is being fed a steady diet of inside pitches because he apparently can’t handle major league stuff inside.

Interesting – lessee if that is correct. I went back, just to August 27 (Mets series) to see what he was hitting and what he was being fed and, first, this is what he hit for his 5 hits:

single to L – midplate, outside the zone FB
double to L – FB right down the middle
single to R – FB low outside corner just outside the zone
single to L – FB midplate just outside
single bloop popup shallow right – inside hi FB

I should note that he swung at 9 pitches outside the zone, got hits on 3, fouled off the other 6 – and none were close enough to be called strikes.

So, by the 9 zones, here are the strikes he was thrown and took/swung at/fouled off or got out on:

hi inside: 2
hi midplate: 5
hi outside: 4
middle in: 10
midplate: 5
middle out: 12
low in: 4
low midplate: 0
low outside: 1

Well, looks to me as if he’s missing all OVAH the place and they certainly aren’t concentrating on throwing inside, seeing as how he can’t seem to hit anything but a FB and he is just getting around on stuff on the outside. Not exactly sure what is off or if it is that his swing is too long/too short or what. The opposition is not just throwing him breaking stuff neither – he isn’t hitting fastballs very well. Maybe is it just making the adjustment from minor league to major league pitching. I sure nuff hope so because Clank is getting enough starts at 1B to make me think that Wallace isn’t going to be our 1B next year and Clank is just as dreadful with the glove at first as he is in left.

I checked out a few plays from Wandy’s game and saw how Clank’s incredibly lousy stop n throw of what should have been a simple 3-1 cost Wandy the game. Wandy tried to desperately stop the ball with his bare hand – must have stung, because he immediately threw a hanger which left the yard and that was the ballgame. You wouldn’t think that it is that hard to play first, but apparently it actually DOES take some skill.

And Bud Norris lost again. This time, he didn’t even make it 5 innings. I wondered if his previous lousy game happened because he threw to Castro and not Quintero, but this time he had Q back and it was the same old Bud not being able to locate – 3 walks, 1 homer, 8 hits, 5 ER with 1 fewer inning pitched. 

Bud wait!!!

Let’s check out what he threw and what got hit – 102 pitches, 58 FB, 25 sliders and 19 changeups. He actually, really threw only 1 bad pitch. The 2 doubles and the triple he gave up were all on changeups at the knees and inside and they all went down juuuuust inside the RF line. Sorry, but those were good pitches – had bad results, but the location wasn’t off. The 5 singles were ALL at the knees, 3 inside, 2 midplate. But the 3 run homer, which done him in, was a changeup smack dab down the middle and those pretty much get hit out.

So actually, he threw pretty well – 1 of every 3 pitches was fouled off and it looks as if the Dbax hitters are low ball hitters, and they really should have done the climb the ladder type game plan. That and Bud shouldn’t throw changes down the middle, but hey, it was his last pitch and he was tired.

The Astros came back to win 2 of 4 games, Wilton Lopez has now lost 2 straight games – might could he be tired? And Lyon appears to be staying in the closer role – and not sure if he is gonna stay there or not.

Today, it’s Figgy vs Carlos Silva.

Silva has faced the Astros 3 times this year and is 2-1: 7 IP, 0 ER/2R; 5 IP, 1 ER; 1 IP, 5 ER.

I got scolded for saying that Nelson Figueroa is a lucky pitcher. OK, let’s hope he ends up pitching with the same results he got the last few times, luck or no luck (meaning very few runs given up…)

Tags: Arizona Diamondbacks, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Houston Astros, MLB

This entry was posted on Monday, September 6th, 2010 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Brett Wallace, Bud Norris, Wilton Lopez. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.