Well, he is almost always a pretty solid defensive player. That was bad though, as was that dropped ball the other day when Gonzalez stretched out a triple.
Of course, the arguement the other way would be that he rarely pitches in the high pressure situations that Valverde, Hawkins, Sampson find themselves in regularly. I would still say Sampson has been the best so far
Agreed. That's exactly why I said it was arguable. He definitely hasn't faced the same pressure situations.
I just looked up BR's 2009 Average Leverage Indices for Valverde, Hawkins, Sampson, Byrdak, Fulchino, Wright and Arias. 1.0 is average pressure, below 1.0 is low pressure and above 1.0 is high pressure. Not surprisingly, these are the numbers: Valverde - 2.203 Hawkins - 1.678 Sampson - 1.311 Byrdak - .974 Fulchino - .746 Arias - .629 Wright - .604 Factoring in ERA, WHIP and BS, I'd say Hawkins or Sampson has been our best RP so far this season. I do like Arias' stuff though (when he isn't losing grip of the ball). I wonder how he would perform under more pressure if he gets the chance this season. He faced above average pressure last season and wasn't very good. Then again, he's having a career year so far and he's young so maybe he is ready to take that next step if it ever becomes necessary.
Did anybody watch that little Mier segment? I only caught the end of it. Did they happen to say anything about that "getting rid of Tejada" comment Mier made? I'm guessing not. I was just wondering if they ever cleared that up. It was a pretty strange thing to say even if fairly meaningless.
I bet that'll be the first and last time you ever see Tejada walk and Lee beat out an infield single in the same game.
We just leapfrogged the Cubs in the standings. They play the Brewers tonight so we'll gain half a game on one of them.
