AWESOME FRIGGIN WIN!!! But is it just me? Or did anyone else see Big cryin after the game!? Well atleast thats what it looked like to me. I cant believe that this team is doing this without names like Beltran, Kent, and Bagwell in the lineup. Biggio and Ensberg are both having great seasons, but what about Lance? For a guy that missed nearly 2 months, he has 18 hrs and is 2nd on the club rbis. (that could be really good or really bad though haha). If he played a full season he's easily be around the 30-100 mark right now. and to think...we almost took Harville over Berkman!!! But anyways, back to the game. Unbelievable! I'm so ready for the Fish! Any other UH Students gonna be there!? Its discounted tickets!!!
Say what you want about Wagner - I think he slows down as the season progresses and doesn't deal well with pressure - but his ERA this year is better than any single season for Rivera except for this year. His WHIP is better than 9 of Rivera's 11 seasons. Whatever's he throwing, he was doing it to virtual perfection up until yesterday. (As a sidenote, Rivera's less hittable than ever with the lowest WHIP and ERA of his career this year)
Wags has always been super stubborn, he used to say something like "if they beat me with my best pitch, then they just were lucky"...it used to frustrate me how he would throw another fastball at 0-2...and the other guys would hit it... His slider is really good, but he doesn't use it enough....too stubborn. DD
I'm saying the same thing as you... except with a slight negative stance towards Billy's "greatness". Wagner is a tremendous pitcher when he's "all there"... but unfortunately that includes dealing with pressure, and beating the game's best hitters (which I don't think Wagner does very well). Jose Mesa, Danny Kolb, and Jason Isringhausen can all put up great WHIP and ERA... better than Brad Lidge has this year, better than Rivera has in past years.... but that doesn't mean you take any of those guys over the latter ones. Also, fwiw, none of the runs given up by Wagner were earned... so his ERA actually went down with tonight's performance.
Oh yeah, we definitely agree - there's something about Wagner that I just don't trust, and I would want Lidge or something like that over him. But looking at his numbers, I think he has to be put in that class with the best closers in the game. His numbers the last 4 or 5 years are far better than Rivera has ever put up. What makes Rivera so unique is his postseason success, but Wagner has never really had that opportunity. That said, I think Wagner would choke in the postseason as he did for the Astros.
ahh, I gotcha yeah I never even knew he had a mid 90's fastball, just heard alot of analysts announces talk about the cutter he throws (course I don't watch the yankees)
Bell committed an error that allowed Viz to reach base... that would have been the 3rd out. All runs that score thereafter are declared "unearned". He techinically could have allowe 50 runs to score, and because of the rules, none of them would count.
Oh I know man... no worries. I'm more pissed right now that the Blake vs. Agassi match was taken off the air due to "contractual obligations", and the CBS feed in Houston isn't picking it up (like the USA network said they would). Its a freaking 5 set match between the best two americans left, in a jam packed rockin center court at the US freaking Open... and not one channel can manage to get that match on the air. Freaking ridiculous.
Wagner's "stuff" requires a tremendous amount of speed... he's a power pitcher, which is good for a closer, but not a closer who works a lot of innings or is on a team that plays a lot of close games. On Tuesday Wagner threw 28 pitches and it really showed on Wednesday... his speed was off a bit and Ausmus, Viz and Biggio all hit the ball damn hard. Meanwhile, Lidge is so wicked because his slider breaks so damned much. Singe Lidge's slider has such a nasty break and looks so much like his fastball until the last second he has a real advantage when his arm is a bit tired, Wagner's only works really well when he has a fresh arm... If I had to choose between the two of them, I'd take Lidge all day long, because power only gets you so far... and power also is very prone to giving up the long ball, which is the closer's worst enemy.
I was a big fan of Wags when he was here, but, he never had a "really good" slider. He started developing/using that pitch mostly when Unit got to town. It had the big Unit's nasty speed, but most often than not hardly had any decent break and overall just couldn't control it well. Infact, the times he would go to it, he'd 90% of the time throw em way outta the strike zone, into the dirt.
Wagner threw his "Eliminator" to Biggio, or maybe it was his "Terminator" or his "Out-of-Stator". Props to MR. Astro.
We got to the house after the second out. I killed the car and carried the kids inside and put them to bed. An hour later I saw that dinger on the news and jumped off the couch while simultaneously pumping my fist. I'm glad my wife was in bed; she would have thought me insane.
