Marco seemed to be pitching fine in his start against the Twins last night until he hit the fourth inning. Then he seemed to begin throwing batting practice. The first four batters hit safely. Back to back to back to back hits aren't that rare, but not common either, especially in a pitcher as skilled as Gonzalez.
It seems like I've seen this a lot lately, innings where the Ms pitchers give up bunches of hits. Everything is going fine, then in that one inning, the opponent gets three or four hits, some consecutive, they score multiple runs and the game is over.
I'm not imaging this. By inning, here's what teams are scoring, on average, in each inning:
.50-.79-.89-.60-.51-.38-.79-.74-.40
The third is the worst, but the fourth isn't great and look at the late-inning bullpen work. Yuck!
I'm not imaging this. By inning, here's what teams are scoring, on average, in each inning:
.50-.79-.89-.60-.51-.38-.79-.74-.40
The third is the worst, but the fourth isn't great and look at the late-inning bullpen work. Yuck!
What's happening? Here are a couple of hypotheses. Familiarity? Having gone through the line-up once batters pick up something that they exploit the second time through. Predictability? The Ms pitchers become over-reliant on a pitch or pattern and give it away to the batter. Fatigue? Three innings in Ms pitchers start to lose something on their pitches. Stealing signs? Telegraphing pitches. Rhythm? The other team just catches fire.
I'm not a big believer in coincidence, not in sports at least. When I see something happen repeatedly I get curious about what's causing this. Big inning failures are caused by something. If I were Servais and pitching coach Davis I figure out what's going on and stop it.
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