those were great years... Dotel: 94-96mph heater with movement Lidge: 97-98mph with movement Wags: 98-100mph heater with movement and now.. Valverde: 88-93mph flat fastball.. supposedly he gets it at 94 now.. but I must be catching him on TV at the wrong times..
I've seen Valverde throw consistently 96+ in recent games, at the beginning it was 92-94. He's really picked up his velocity. The highest I've seen on the gun is 99 mph. Dunno what you're watching.
Pujols still a dirtbag: "Young's nose was broken when Albert Pujols lined a shot off his face in the third inning that sent blood streaming down the front of his jersey. Bard sprained his left ankle on a play at the plate when Pujols slid into his leg." http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/gamecenter/recap/MLB_20080521_STL@SD You can't blame him for the line drive but the slide was dirty. I don't even need to see it to know it. This is a dead topic but when he slid into Towles early in the season, Towles was about 2 feet off the plate and Pujols took aim. Why? Because Pujols is scum.
i swear .. i just haven't seen it... like i said perhaps.. im just catching him on screen at the wrong time.. either there's the gun reading at most 93mph.. or there's no gun.. and left to my judgement alone.. still looks unimpressive.. doesn't seem to have the speed.. the pop in the glove... or the rising movement of the heaters I've been spoiled with from those previous Astros closers.. I do know last time I saw him was last week.. just once.. no pitch speed display.. and that's the way it looked.. as I described.. and he got outs via the infield.. I sincerely don't remember a strikeout... but all right. I'll try to pay him more consistent attention... to see if you are indeed right.. i certaintly hope so.. as I was growing increasingly tired of his unimpressive pitching and speed...
What's unimpressive about 17 and 2/3 straight scoreless innings and 17 straight scoreless outings? For the month of May, the guy has pitch 12 innings allowing 0 runs, 5 hits, 2 walks, and 13 strikeouts. 9 saves and 1 win. If you take the last month, it makes 16.2 innings, 0 runs, 7 hits, 4 walks, and 22 strikeouts, 12 saves, and 2 wins. Any guy who has twice as many strikeouts as baserunners is alright by me.
Please, find someone pitching better than Jose over the last 3 weeks and let us know who it is. If pitch speed is what does it for you, maybe you should just go find Kyle Farnsworth and watch him pitch, he'll keep you happy, he may not be effective, but he throws hard.....
Also, I don't remember Wagner's fastball ever having "movement" per se. He just threw the ball so ****ing hard, and usually had pretty good placement. But that pitch didn't have TIME to move.
How bout' them Stros!!! Great to win a series against a quality team... Don't look now, but V has 14 saves...nice...
As much as I would love to poop on pooholes, this video shows him praying with Gonzales of the Padres after the line drive. (praying that Young was alright) http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200805222746276
Like I said, the line drive was one thing. The slide was another. If you can find a clip of Pooholes slide into Towles early in the season, watch it again. It was undoubtedly a filthy play and I don't blame Backe one bit for the way he reacted the next day. I understand the concept of taking out a catcher blocking the plate, but going off line at a catcher's ankles with your spikes is something different. I'm not literally saying Pujols is the devil. I'm sure he has some good in him. The bottom line is that after he finished praying, he went and took out the catcher's ankles a few minutes later. Pooholes remains scum.
I am literally saying that. His prayers, while indecipherable to many, were actually directed to Mephistopheles.
as I understood it.. a four seam fastball with movement just means a fastball that creates the illusion of lift.. when all it's really doing is just going straight from pitcher to catcher.. while Valverdes fastball seems to drop slightly downward as it goes through the strikezone.. in otherworse "flat"..
well I did say that I was comparing him to what i've been so accustomed to seeing from an Astros closer for the past several years.. not exactly Farnsworth-esque..
You're probably watching his splitter that no one seems to be able to hit. He's been throwing it in the mid 80s. This is getting silly. I'll leave you with Shawn Chacon's thoughts: If you can't tell that Valverde has been straight up filthy over the past month, I don't know what to tell you.
this all seems.. not at all relevant to any of my posts on Valverde's "pitches" and "speed"... and in that very post you quoted.. I did mentionn I haven't seen him on a consistent basis recently.. just that when I have.. his pitches have looked just as unimpressive as they were in april.. the strikeouts i did see didn't show me a cause to expect them as the norm... as you would for say.. a Lidge, wags and Dotel.. and the saves I did see him get... even in May.. when I did see him.. were via flyball outs and/or the infield.. from the 1st to the last out.. and so I really don't have that much confidence that when he comes in in the 9th with a 1-2 run lead.. that it'll be saved.. not just yet.. despite his numbers in May.. Lidge also had some good months with the Astros in the worst end of his career here..
i doubt it.. it would have to be the worst splitter in baseball.. the drop is not significant.. it's the drop of a flat fastball.. which can in no way be confused with any other pitch in baseball..
K/9: Valverde: 11.16 Lidge: 10.35 Wagner: 10.00 K/BB: (Brocail actually leads the league in this category at 7.67, go figure) Wagner: 5.00 Valverde: 3.88 (in May, 6.50) Lidge: 2.30 GB/FB: Lidge: 1.38 Valverde: 1.12 (in May, 1.67) Wagner: 0.91 More K/9 than both Lidge and Wagner, more K/BB than Lidge, and a better groundball ratio than Wagner on the season, and he's been even better in May. What exactly do you want out of the guy?
Lidge like dominance before 2005..? Wags like reliability for most of his Astros career..? Post seasons aside.. when Wags came in with a 1-2 run lead in the 9th.. you expected a save aautomatically.. the win was already wrapped up in your mind.. all he left you wondering about.. is whether he'd get 2 or 3 k's.. I did suspect 'being spoiled' as the reason for my instant dissatisfaction with Valverde in April.. as our new and praised closer.. which apparently.. is going to take more than a good month of May to undo..
