Nationals Pitcher Steven Strasburg had a particularly short outing last night, only going 1 1/3 innings. His removal from the game was a result of his inability to hit spots. If a pitcher doesn’t hit spots, he won’t be successful. Let’s see how bad Stras really was.
His first real miscue of the game came after the leadoff home run.
In which Ramon Troncoso realizes he plays for the Chicago White Sox as the fans behind him cheer with glee. I’ll be honest, I had no idea who Ramon Troncoso was before I looked up number 40 on the White Sox, but he certainly sounds like a reliever and this just looks like a reliever who is quite relieved to not be relieving any longer. What a relief. (boooooooooooooooooooo)
Here we see 93 year old Jason Giambi throwing up his helmet and catching it. Clearly he decided that scoring was not the priority here and he just wanted to show everyone on his team that he still has really good hands. (Sidenote: he doesn’t). It’s unclear why the Indians were given the victory seeing as Giambi never scored but I suppose the umpires were so impressed with Jason’s coordination that they decided the deserved the W anyway.
There must be something about Dioner Navarro that makes pitchers want to try something new. We’ve already seen Travis Wood and Ryan Cook pull out the backwards pitching method with Navarro involved. This time it was Francisco Liriano who decided that a through-the-legs glove flip was the best way to attack the chubby Pudge.
This is probably the most torque and power we’ve seen so far as Liriano really loads up his core to get as much velocity behind his glove flip as possible. He displays great posture at the moment of release. Watch how his back stays perfectly level as he flicks his glove. It’s amazing how he doesn’t even glance at home plate before releasing the ball. This is definitely an efficient way to hold runners on. Ain’t nobody stealing on this delivery.
A couple months ago we looked at Angels pitcher Garrett Richards and his new unorthodox approach to pitching. It’s been a quiet time for this new strategy, but last night it struck again thanks to Marlins rookie phenom Jose Fernandez. No, it wasn’t the eight innings of scoreless pitching that got our attention. It wasn’t the 10 strikeouts either. It wasn’t even this absurdly nasty slider that caused Carlos Quentin to quit baseball.
What made Jose Fernandez’s outing Monday night so special was this one pitch to Chase Headley in the seventh inning…
DAMN PADRES FAN YOU CRAZAY.
It’s late…
Athletics vs. Brewers
Two weird teams played each other last night in Milwaukee, which is a city I always need spell-check for. The A’s won 5-1, but that wasn’t the most important moment of the game, not even close. Bartolo Colon is old and silly and slightly chubby, but none of those attributes explain what he is glaring at in the .gif above. What is it? CFB is going to try to unravel this mystery once and for all. We’ve narrowed it down to three possibilities:
Tigers vs. Orioles
This happened on Memorial Day, but we couldn’t pass up the chance to praise our hero.
Indians vs. Reds
In the ninth inning of yesterday’s Indians-Reds game, Aroldis and Swisher got into a little scuffle. A curfuffle or a ballyhoo of sorts.
CESPEDES FAMILY BARBECUE 