Thursday, July 19, 2007

When being wrong still feels right

Punto came up with the bases loaded in the eighth inning of a one-run game. I screamed at Gardenhire through the radio "You've got Kubel on the bench and you're letting Punto bat? Aaakkk!" Punto grounded into a double play to end the inning. Sheesh.

At the breakfast table the next morning, I mentioned this to my oldest son. He said "Kubel is terrible." I said something about him being at least better than Punto in a high-leverage situation. Son said "nope," and referred me to Aaron Gleeman's analysis of the Twins lineup using a stat called "adjWPA." Sure enough, Kubel is dead last. (See the link to Gleeman's blog in the sidebar. If I knew how to embed a link directly in this post, I would. Be patient.)

The following night, Kubel had to go into the game to replace a gimpy Torii Hunter. Kubel managed to be up with the bases loaded and two out in a one-run game and STRUCK OUT LOOKING!

Punto....expect the worst at the plate and be vindicated. Kubel...expect big things and be disappointed.

Tough being a Twins fan these days.

5 comments:

  1. It's very hard for me to listen to or watch the Twins or most sports teams I actually like. I get too emotionally wrapped up in it, and brood for a long time if the game doesn't go our way.

    Unless the Twins are beating Chicago with 32 runs in the same day. Note: those games weren't an official double-header, in which case they probably would have been at least a Twins' record of some sort.

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  2. Hey, Jim, thanks for the link to my blog, but it's the wrong address.

    My blog is bleeet.blogspot.com

    There are three e's in 'bleeet' - it's a play on my full name.

    Your link sends me to some Danish site. What are you doing? Supporting Danish terrorists or something? Criminy!

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  3. Oh yeah, sorry to be over blogmenting, but my name is spelled "Brendon" not "Brendan" I guess my momma wanted it to be Irish, but not that Irish. Probably good, considering I'm not actually Irish to any significant degree.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I called you "SpecialHaas" on my blog. I liked the rhyme with Special Sauce...

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  5. Dearest Brendan:

    I think i fixed the link to bleeet. Also appreciate your comments. You have blogmented here even before family members because:

    1. I haven't told my family
    2. I also screwed up the link to my son's blog (since fixed, I hope).

    I gotta go...

    ReplyDelete

I treid comment moderation but it was clumsy. I still reserve the right to delete offensive comments, so be nice.