Enjoy your long weekend! I’ve got a beer case packed: Dupont’s Foret Organic Saison, Boulevard’s Tank 7 Farmhouse, Port Brewing Wipeout IPA, Lucky Hand Black Lager, Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA, and Knee Deep’s Tanilla. That’s two great saisons, two classic IPAs, and a couple dark beers for the end of the night. I also got Flying Dog’s Wildeman Farmhouse IPA and Goose Island Matilda, but I’m not sure those will make it into the car tomorrow. The wife claims she doesn’t like my fancy pants beers but soiffed all the Matilda pretty fast. I don’t love the Flying Dog Farmhouse IPA — tastes pretty much like a saison, with not enough sweet to make it an IPA — but I’ve been drinking it to keep my weekend case intact.
Over the past week, I’ve had some fun with balls in play.
The Royals talked to me about the ideal ground ball rate for hitters. Each hitter had a different idea about it — Alex Gordon made a tweak to hit more ground balls because of his home stadium and some iffy early-career results, Billy Butler just takes what the pitchers give him (mostly low balls and therefore ground balls), and Eric Hosmer seems more intuitive — and for good reason. Fly balls are conducive to power, but ground balls help you get on base. That’s why there’s no ideal ground ball rate for every hitter, but there might be fore *each* hitter.
Then I talked to Marco Scutaro about putting balls in play. He’s about the best in the business at making contact, but he had a couple negative things to say about his elite tool. So I tested out what he said. He should be more proud, I think.
Pretty sure Jason Marquis is shaking his catcher off as he’s pitching here.
My mother would not be proud — all those years of language education, and I’m bad at pronouncing names. I try! I promise I try. But I’m no good. So Carson Cistulli started a series of me trying to pronounce names for the upcoming draft: Here‘s Eric Jagielo. And here’s Trey Michalczewski. I hope not to offend. My name has been mispronounced a million different ways, so I know it’s not great. But it is kind of funny how bad this dude — who learned German, French, Jamaican and Japanese and writes for a living — can struggle with the English language.
And over at Getting Blanked, I tried to predict some in-season injuries to pitchers. Tried.
enosarris.com 