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***Official NLDS Thread Washington Nationals v SF Giants*** (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Eephus
- Start date
I agree with that. Hate that stare but he's basically the only Nats hitter who came to play
5Rings
Lurker
Agreed. He's the kinda player you love on your team but hate when he's against you. He'd be a great fit in LF for us.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
Harper is actually a good dude. A little immature at times but we all were at 21.
Congrats giants go kick stl's ###. I'm still bitter at them for 2012
Congrats giants go kick stl's ###. I'm still bitter at them for 2012
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
The epic nats choke job against the cardinalsBitter for what in 2012?
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Hitting is a weird thing. You can't hit better by trying harder, and there's a lot of factors at work. You might run into a guy who's pitching way above his normal level, as the Nats did with Peavy in Game 1 and Vogelsong yesterday. You might get victimized by some bad calls or an inconsistent strike zone, as happened all series. You might have bad luck on balls hit hard in play, as both teams did all series.
Despite the total lack of offense I only remember a small handful of at-bats where the hitter had a bad approach. A couple Desmond ABs in the first 2 games, one from Cabrera yesterday, and that's about it. The guys worked counts, made decent contact, etc. They just got cold at the worst possible time. If they'd gone 1-3 over four games in mid-July scoring 2,1,4 and 2 runs in the process we wouldn't have even noticed it, or we'd just dismiss it as bad luck in two pitchers' parks over a small sample size.
valhallan
Footballguy
Let's actually look at the box score. This is our cleanup hitter:
Game 1:
A LaRoche struck out swinging.
A LaRoche lined out to center.
A LaRoche walked, N Schierholtz to third, J Werth to second.
A LaRoche singled to shallow left, A Rendon to second.
Game 2:
A LaRoche lined out to left.
A LaRoche fouled out to third.
A LaRoche grounded out to second, A Rendon to third.
A LaRoche struck out swinging
A LaRoche grounded out to shortstop.
A LaRoche struck out swinging.
A LaRoche flied out to right.
Game 3
A LaRoche flied out to center.
A LaRoche struck out swinging.
A LaRoche flied out to center.
A LaRoche grounded out to first.
Game 4
A LaRoche flied out to left.
A LaRoche flied out to left.
A LaRoche flied out to center.
A LaRoche flied out to center.
That's a big enough sample size for me to believe he's not good enough to be the cleanup hitter on a playoff team.
Game 1:
A LaRoche struck out swinging.
A LaRoche lined out to center.
A LaRoche walked, N Schierholtz to third, J Werth to second.
A LaRoche singled to shallow left, A Rendon to second.
Game 2:
A LaRoche lined out to left.
A LaRoche fouled out to third.
A LaRoche grounded out to second, A Rendon to third.
A LaRoche struck out swinging
A LaRoche grounded out to shortstop.
A LaRoche struck out swinging.
A LaRoche flied out to right.
Game 3
A LaRoche flied out to center.
A LaRoche struck out swinging.
A LaRoche flied out to center.
A LaRoche grounded out to first.
Game 4
A LaRoche flied out to left.
A LaRoche flied out to left.
A LaRoche flied out to center.
A LaRoche flied out to center.
That's a big enough sample size for me to believe he's not good enough to be the cleanup hitter on a playoff team.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
That's crazy. It's 19 plate appearances. Most baseball people say you need a couple hundred plate appearances at a minimum to have a meaningful sample size.
He definitely shouldn't have been hitting cleanup against lefties, and I probably would have put together a different lineup if I was the manager (I liked Span-Rendon-Harper-Werth-LaRoche-Desmond for the top 6). But that doesn't mean 19 plate appearances gives us a window into the kind of hitter he is. I could find a 19 plate appearance string worse than that one for every hitter in baseball if I had the time.
Ghost Rider
Footballguy
Didn't realize you were a Washington fan. That makes sense, but hey at least STL lost in more of an epic choke the following round that year.Ramblin Wreck said:The epic nats choke job against the cardinalstjnc09 said:Bitter for what in 2012?Ramblin Wreck said:
The Cardinals didn't choke that series away; the Giants took it, thanks to their pitching which was lights out from that point forward (they allowed 7 runs total in the last three NLCS games and all four World Series games combined).
valhallan
Footballguy
OK. So you're saying this is bad luck and if we played it again with the same players, we should expect different results?IMO, there's a reason he bounced around to 5 teams before settling here - he wasn't good enough to keep. Hopefully we make the same decision shortly.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
Yes you could replay the series and expect different results. Why would you think otherwise?
Laroche was crushing balls for the Nats down the stretch this year too.
gianmarco
Footballguy
Yep. And they were scoring like 6+ runs each game.Didn't realize you were a Washington fan. That makes sense, but hey at least STL lost in more of an epic choke the following round that year.Ramblin Wreck said:The epic nats choke job against the cardinalstjnc09 said:Bitter for what in 2012?Ramblin Wreck said:
valhallan
Footballguy
Because I got the results I expected. Over and over. Our hitters were beyond terrible. Not even putting balls into play. Whatever.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
The only time I didn't like the approach of the Nats' hitters was in the extras of Game 2, where I thought everyone was trying a bit too hard to hit the walk-off dinger versus just getting on base.
A lot of it just seemed bad luck, with some good defense by the Giants added in. The Giants were in the right place all series, and they made few mistakes and some spectacular plays (such as Pence robbing Werth last night).
A lot of it just seemed bad luck, with some good defense by the Giants added in. The Giants were in the right place all series, and they made few mistakes and some spectacular plays (such as Pence robbing Werth last night).
Eephus
Footballguy
The two teams scored the same number of runs over 45 innings of baseball. Even the winning margin in game three wasn't indicative of how tight the game was.
I'm a baseball fan before I'm a Giants fan and I recognize the Nationals were the better team all season long. But that doesn't matter much in a very short series. The outcome turned on a handful of plays, some of which turned on a matter of millimeters. I wouldn't blow up the team based on the end result.
I'm a baseball fan before I'm a Giants fan and I recognize the Nationals were the better team all season long. But that doesn't matter much in a very short series. The outcome turned on a handful of plays, some of which turned on a matter of millimeters. I wouldn't blow up the team based on the end result.
SIDA!
Footballguy
I will say that if the series were played again you could reasonably expect different results. The Nats lost all three games by 1 run.
My problem was the horrible managing by Matt Williams on several different fronts. While Laroche stunk it up, I am pretty confident that a different manager making the decisions and the Nats are still playing.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Correct. I've got thousands of plate appearances backing up my opinion, including several hundred this year. You've got 19 plate appearances backing up yours. Did you watch this team all year? LaRoche hit a perfectly acceptable .259/.362/.455. They won 96 games. They were favored to win this series. And if they wiped the slate clean and restarted the series the Nats would be favored again. Hell the Giants didn't even outscore them- despite winning 3 of 4 the teams scored the same amount of runs.
It's baseball. Crazy things happen over small sample sizes- certainly much crazier things than losing 3 of 4 to a decent San Francisco team. The Nats lost 5 of 6 games to the Phillies in late August and early September in the middle of a second half in which they went 45-24 overall. Does that mean the Phillies were the better team? Of course not, the Phillies sucked this year. It just means they caught some breaks over a tiny sample size and took advantage of some mismanagement of the bullpen (one of those Phils series is when Soriano finally got yanked from the closer spot).
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dgreen
Footballguy
Yeah, to me, the real crazy part was how many bats were cold. We could have survived losing LaRoche's bat for a few games. But, Span, Werth, LaRoche, Desmond, and Ramos were all down for a week. It's hard to overcome that, but the pitching staff almost did because they were crazy good.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Yeah, just a combination of terrible luck, bad timing for slumps and outstanding pitching and defense from the Giants. There's nothing you can do to prevent it from happening again. If you want a sport where 5 to 7 games is almost always enough for the better team to prevail, start watching basketball.
Ramblin Wreck
Footballguy
For that to apply to baseball you would really need a 7 game series in 7 days so all five starters are used or three guys are pitching on short rest.
I think one reason for the cold bats is also the layoff from Sunday to Friday. Especially when they were so hot at the end of the season. Some of it might be what Tim Hudson said too in that the Giants just had bigger balls than the Nats did. It's all excuses in the end though we got beat.
valhallan
Footballguy
About 80% of the games. We performed like this over several stretches, so it was not shocking at all to see it again.
I just think 'sample size' is a convenient excuse being tossed around for guys that wilted under pressure for 4 straight games. No one would say a regular season series against the Phillies is comparable to the stress of playoff baseball. Guys like Vogelsong and Hudson tossed their sluggish regular seasons out the window and stepped up.
Werth had 206 plate appearances in 49 postseason games prior to this and only twice had back to back games without a hit. It took him until the 13th inning of game 2 to get a hit, then he was shut out the rest of the way.
I really worry we'll end up going down the Caps road with this team where we think we have the right guys and "it'll be different next year". 5 division titles in 7 seasons later, the same guys have wilted under the pressure of the playoffs year in and year out. That's more torturous than enjoyable, at least for this fan.
