Home of the A10 Bounce“Because there is always room for one more on the bench.”
and MAAC Press Break“No matter what sport you like these guys got it covered. ”
Performance Of The Week | 8/2-8/8, 2010
By Paul Casey Gotham
It is that time again. Let’s hear from you readers. We had another week of stellar performances. Pick the ONE that stands out to you, and tell us a story.
I am going with Toronto’s J.P. Arencibia.
It is one thing to get called to the “Bigs” and get a hit in one’s first at bat. It is another thing to get called to the “Bigs” and get a home run in one’s first major-league at bat on the first pitch seen.
Arencibia did just that and more.
The Miami, Florida native rapped hits in his first four at bats in the Major Leagues as Toronto defeated Tampa Bay, 17-11 . After his home run in the second, Arencibia added another round-tripper in the sixth, a double and single before finally getting out in his final at bat of the game.
In all, the Blue Jays swatted eight home runs – a feat that has not been accomplished since 2007.
Who gets your POTW?
10 Responses to “Performance Of The Week | 8/2-8/8, 2010”
Leave a Reply
Follow Pickin’ Splinters on:
I’ll give it to TIger Woods, for coming in second to last. Maybe because he wasn’t getting lucky in the parking lot before the match, who knows, but he stunk, and while everyone expected a slide, no one thought he’d tank this badly. And all the golf knuckleheads are all saying, “see, he’s human,” but all it takes is one chance encounter with a skanky Denny’s greeter, and all those fat white guys are 2nd place or worse.
Casey –
I’ll take yours a step further and nominate the whole Blue Jays team … they went 5-1 against the Yankmees and Rays during the week. Great performance against the front-runners in the AL East. Even though the Jays pretty much out of the race, they’re still COMPETING. Way to go, Toronto!
Casey and Wally stole mine, so…
I’ll go with Emmitt Smith for his Hall of Fame induction speech. I cringe when guys read their speeches and read it poorly (Jerry Rice). Emmitt’s seemed to be prepared just from the heart. He thanked M. Irvin and T. Aikman. Then he has Daryl “Moose” Johnston stand and thanked him through teary eyes. Thought that was classy on his part and you could tell it was heart-felt.
Gotta give it to one Blue Jays player in particular, and of course that’s Brandon Morrow. I’m not sure of his methodology, but Bill James ranks his 17-strikeout, 2-walk, 1-hit performance yesterday as the 4th greatest game pitched since 1920. Whether that’s a bit of an over-analysis or not, it was a pretty special performance.
Chas –
That’s interesting … and quite a bold statement from Mr. James, especially given there have been 16 perfect games thrown since 1920. I’m sure it was pretty impressive in person as Morrow must’ve been on fire to whiff 17 guys.
But James probably over-rates the strikeout like a lot of people do. Morrow threw 137 pitches in securing the complete game one-hitter. Seems like a lot of pitches. My hunch is that several of the perfect games were handled with 100 or fewer pitches. I personally think the real beauty of pitching is getting the hitter to swing as early as possible in the count and ground out or pop up. The fewer the pitches the better, assuming you get the results. Anyway, I’m not personally buying James’ claim that yesterday’s game was the 4th greatest game pitched since 1920.
Morrow gets the nod of course. Although Emmitt’s speech was very on point and he even had the required tears to go with it.
I am going to plea the 5th at this time on this Bill James argument since I personally have mixed feelings about his discipline and the way he looks at stuff.
Strike outs are fascist.
I’m sure the reason Morrow’s game is rated so highly is because, when you struck a guy out, you know there was no luck involved. Conceivably, a pitcher could throw 27 line drive outs and still get a perfect game. If you face 30 batters and strike out 17 of them, that’s pretty awesome. Anyway, I had no intention of debating whether or not James is right (hence, the over-analysis suggestion), but it’s pretty safe to say his was the best pitching performance of the week…I think. Geez, with all the no-hitters this year, I can’t keep track. Anybody pitch a no-hitter last week?
I am going with Hunter Mahan who shot a Final round 64 to take WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Where Tiger was putting up one of his worst performances, Mahan was putting on one of his best. Not only a huge win for him – it pretty much secured himself a spot on the US Ryder Cup team.. Something Tiger didn’t do.
If we are also going comment on performances, let’s talk about Phil Mickelson’s bomb on Sunday. If he shot par, he was guaranteed a chance to overtake Tiger as the #1 golfer in the world. Instead he puts up a round of +7 and allows Tiger to keep the #1 spot.
So what did Tiger get for his career-worst performance? He got the same as the other shmucks who barely made the cut and finished near 80th. They all took home around $35,500. Mahan took home $1.4 million, but still … the 77-80th place finishers received $35k. One week. Wow … we all missed the career boat on this one!