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Is there anyone else you want up with the bases loaded? (Mets Game 133 Review) September 1, 2016

Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.
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Photo: slgckgc

Kelly Johnson. Photo: slgckgc

The Mets tweeted this out last night when Kelly Johnson cleared the bases with a double to Jeff Francoeur:

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Including last night, Kelly has made six plate appearances as a Met with the bases loaded. In those appearances, he’s 2 for 6 with a 1.000 SLG: the expectation is that he should get exactly one base. As a team, the Mets hit .245/.242/.436, pretty abysmal; MLB in general hits .264/.299/.414. The Mets’ lower on-base percentage and higher slugging average indicates that hits are comparatively rare but are more likely to go for extra bases than the league as a whole. Kelly is better than other Mets and better than the league.

24 Mets have appeared with the bases loaded; 14 have hits. Justin Ruggiano hit a grand slam in his only appearance; Travis d’Arnaud hit singles in both of his and Alejandro De Aza is 3-4. The next three OBP leaders are David Wright, Lucas Duda, and Neil Walker, all of whom are out for the season. James Loney comes in at a .286 OBP, followed by Wilmer Flores and Yoenis Cespedes at .250, before things get ugly.

Travis hit .333/.556/.333 last year in 9 bases-loaded appearances; Cespedes was 2-5. So is there anyone else you want up? Maybe d’Arnaud – I still believe if he stays healthy he’ll make an excellent hitter, even though it will require moving him to another position to make it happen. Of course, it would have been impossible for d’Arndaud to come up, since he was on first base. (Cespedes was on third and Curtis Granderson was on second.) Given that, Johnson was the best we could have hoped for, and he delivered.

The Mets close out their series against the Marlins tonight with Jacob deGrom starting against Jose Urena and, with any luck, a bunch of September callups in the Marlins lineup.

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Quickie: Balk-Offs June 1, 2010

Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.
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Last night, Esmerling Vasquez took the loss in relief for Arizona against the Dodgers. In the bottom of the 9th inning with the score tied, Vasquez balked with a runner on third, bringing in the winning run.

Balks are fun. The rule is designed to keep the pitcher from “deceiving the baserunner,” but also serves to encourage good fundamentals in young pitchers at the lower levels of play. For example, it’s a balk to even accidentally drop the ball.

Walk-off balks (balk-offs) are fairly rare. It’s not surprising that Vasquez, a sophomore in MLB, was fooled by Casey Blake, because balks can result from inexperience, and it’s fairly rare to have an inexperienced pitcher throwing the bottom of the 9th inning in a tied game. I ran a search on Baseball-Reference.com for losing pitchers with at least one balk who finished the game for the visiting team, which are necessary conditions (but not sufficient) to find a balk-off. After wading through the game logs, I found that the most recent balk-off was almost two years ago, when Colorado visited Atlanta in September of 2008. Taylor Buchholz balked in Kelly Johnson to take the loss.

Buchholz was in his third (and so far final) major-league season and is best known for having allegedly failed a trade physical when Houston tried to trade him to the White Sox. He’s still with Colorado and currently on the 60-day DL for Tommy John surgery.