Entries associated with the tag "Kerry Wood":

I thought I'd caught the Tribune's Paul Sullivan committing illogic in his account Tuesday of Kerry Wood's 20K performance against Houston ten years ago to the day. Instead, I uncovered a paradox.

No pitcher has ever struck out more batters in a game than Wood struck out that rainy afternoon in Wrigley Field. Sullivan wrote: "If not for Kevin Orie's failure to glove a Ricky Gutierrez grounder leading off the third, which was ruled a hit, Wood might have had a no-hitter to boot." Yes, I thought when I read that, but he probably wouldn't have had 20 strikeouts. Houston had just 27 outs coming to it, and if Gutierrez had grounded out Wood would have had one less opportunity to fan a batter.

Fortunately, the Tribune spread on Wood's immortal game included a play-by-play. Studying it showed me how wrong I was. Wood entered the third inning with five strikeouts under his belt. Here's what happened in the third: "Gutierrez singled off Orie's glove. Ausmus struck out. Reynolds sacrificed Gutierrez to second. Gutierrez to third on Wood balk. Biggio grounded out."

If Gutierrez had been retired before Brad Ausmus struck out, Shane Reynolds, the Astros pitcher, would have come to bat with the bases empty. He almost certainly wouldn't have been bunting. In 1998 Reynolds was a .159 hitter who had 82 at-bats and struck out 39 times. He'd bat against Wood one other time in this game, in the sixth inning, and Wood would fan him. Chances seem pretty good to me that if he'd been swinging away in the third Wood would have fanned him that time too. If the rest of the game had played out the same way, with Wood picking up 14 more strikeouts, he'd have finished the game with 21.

And a no-hitter.  

For years, baseball statistical experts from Bill James on down have been debating the role of the closer. Is it best to save your best relief pitcher for the ninth inning and the last three outs? Or should he be deployed in the middle innings, when it might be the actual critical moment of the game, say, with runners on in the sixth or seventh inning and the opponents' heart of the order coming up? Most of the statistical analysis has concluded there's nothing special about those last three outs and that your best reliever should be brought in at the critical moment, the way Napoleon used his reserves. At the same time, the conventional baseball book insists there is something to the "closer mentality," closing out a victory.

The Boston Red Sox tried it without a closer early after Bill James joined their front office, but they sure had set closers in Keith Foulke and Jonathan Paplebon when they won it all in 2004 and last season. 

Look at Lou Piniella's bullpen usage -- especially this spring -- and he might be having it both ways. Last season, Carlos Marmol was clearly the Cubs' best reliever by any statistical analysis. Yet Piniella used him at critical junctures in the middle innings, leaving the ninth, usually, to Ryan Dempster. This spring, he appears to be leaning to keeping Marmol in the same role, with the veteran Kerry Wood as closer, provided his arm and now his back hold up. Coincidence, or has Lou intuited -- or even read -- what the statheads have been espousing?

"I think that's just coincidence," Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus said last week after the BP book signing at the DePaul Barnes & Noble downtown. "I think the fact was he wasn't comfortable putting a rookie in the closer's job. He was the best reliever, obviously, but he didn't want to let him close."

Fine, but it sure seems as if Lou's going to go with Wood as closer this season and Marmol again in the cavalry role. There is, indeed, something to Wood fitting the traditional closer's mentality as a tough Texas fireballer. Yet Marmol has been, statistically, the Cubs' best reliever in spring training. Coincidence? I think Lou really has intuited something new about the game -- that the biggest outs might come in the middle innings -- while at the same time staying true to the baseball book. And who can argue with that? Not me; I've got Wood at a $1 salary in my keeper fantasy league. 

The New York Times's unfortunately named but generally excellent sports magazine, Play, comes out infrequently, so I tend to miss it when it comes out. As a result, I didn't find this wonderful profile of Kerry Wood from June until this week. It's by H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger, author of the classic Friday Night Lights, who's hopefully making a return to good writing after the overwritten, crushingly disappointing Three Nights in August. Anyway, this paragraph really got me:

"PITCHING A BASEBALL is, to put it mildly, a torturous and self-destructive act. Pitching is the fastest known motion in human biomechanics, the shoulder rotating at the rate of 7,200 degrees per second at its maximum, or the equivalent of 20 full revolutions per second. At the time of the ball’s release, the forces acting on the shoulder are basically equivalent to the pitcher’s body weight; they are akin to someone of similar size trying to yank his arm out of his shoulder socket. Right before release, the pitcher’s elbow straightens at a rate of 2,000 degrees per second, or the equivalent of 5.5 full revolutions per second. As Glenn Fleisig, the research director of the American Sports Medicine Institute, told me, the elbow was never designed for that type of stress."

Despite being defiantly anti-Cub, I can't help but root for Wood, one of the more tragic tales in baseball. And now that Rick Ankiel is back in the majors after reinventing himself as a power-hitting outfielder, I'm a little more hopeful about everything these days. 

The Cubs stood pat at the trading deadline and seemed content with what they have. With Kerry Wood and Daryle Ward due back from the disabled list in the coming days, general manager Jim Hendry figured they were better additions than anyone available  -- and at considerably less cost in prospects and salary.

If the presence of Tadahito Iguchi on the visiting Philadelphia Phillies at Wrigley Field this week reminded Chicago fans that not everyone was so content, still the White Sox surprised with how little they actually did to break up and rebuild the 2005 World Championship team. Only weeks ago Mark Buehrle seemingly had his ticket stamped out of town, with Jermaine Dye and Jose Contreras soon to follow. Yet once Buehrle signed an extension, Sox GM "Trader" Kenny Williams suddenly seemed reluctant -- or unable --  to move anyone else. The Sox got little for Gooch in the form of minor-league pitcher Michael Dubee, and even less for Rob Mackowiak at the deadline. Meanwhile, Dye, Contreras, and Jon Garland, also mentioned as possible trade bait, stayed in place.

The Cubs could afford to rest content: with tonight's win over the Phillies they remain just one game back of the Brewers for first, and they'd be tied if Milwaukee hadn't rallied to beat the Mets in 13 innings. The White Sox couldn't. There was probably no market for Contreras after the way he's pitched lately--now at 5-14, he was the loser in tonight's 16-3 drubbing at the hands of the Yankees, just the worst of a string of games in which he's looked washed-up. On the other end of the spectrum, Garland, at 8-7, would have to be considered the team's de facto ace at this point and a potential piece of the long-term puzzle.

Not so Dye, I'm afraid. Game Four World Series hero or not, he's a player whose skills and fielding range are diminishing rapidly at a position relatively easy to fill on the free-agent market. Williams should have moved him, if not for another young outfielder, then to clear the way for the Sox to test out Ryan Sweeney once and for all. Unless he can pull off a waiver-wire miracle, Williams is looking to be disappointed this off-season with how he failed to address the team's problems when he still had the chance. You know it's bad when even Paul Konerko gets himself tossed out of a game.

Kerry Wood just went on the DL, which means it's time for baseball. Even as a Cardinals fan, I can't find the Wood story anything other than tragic. Wood got oversold for one great game--"Mr. Jordan, meet Mr. Wood"--that's dogged him ever since. If the generous strike zone Wood had for his famed 20 Ks against the Astros had been a bit smaller, I think we'd all have a more realistic view of his career.

Speaking of Cubs tragedies, the New York Times has a long profile of Adam Greenberg, the prospect whose major league career may have been ended by a beanball on the first pitch he saw in the majors.

Jayson Stark reports some good news in his ESPN Insider blog: scouts are geeked about Jeff Samardzija (subscription necessary), whom you may remember as a long-haired wideout for Notre Dame. "Best arm I've seen.... they had to get him back to the minor leagues to keep Lou (Piniella) from taking him north." Then again, I have as much faith in Cubs pitching prospects at this point as I have in the Bush administration. We'll see how Rich Hill does this year and then I'll start listening again.

White Sox news... um, Jimbo's might reopen. John Danks is looking good, but all that means to me is no knuckleballs from Charlie Haeger. It's a dying art, and someone has to make sacrifices to support it.

After watching Lou Piniella's stint as a sedate, soft-spoken color commentator, I'm glad to see he's back in the dugout. Here's a nice clip from his time managing the beleaguered Devil Rays; it's about 20 f-bombs short on the Lee Elia index, but I reckon he's got a couple years in Chicago to set new standards for profanity.