To put it simply, he couldn’t throw strikes. Yes, he did get squeezed a little bit, but that doesn’t change the fact that he had no command whatsoever. In his 1 1/3 innings of work, he threw 60 pitches – 27 of them for strikes. Of those 60 pitches, 47 of them were fastballs. 78% of his pitches were fastballs, and only 45 percent of those were strikes.
So despite the fact that he was throwing strikes with his fastball less than half of the time, he kept throwing it. He only had slightly more command of his off speed pitches, but it’s still a little bit baffling. With a situation like that, most of the blame belongs to Snell, because he couldn’t throw strikes, but you also have to wonder why Rob Johnson kept calling the fastball. Did he call other pitches, and Snell just shook him off? I doubt it. The fact is, Rob Johnson gets way too much credit for being able to call a good game. I’ve seen no evidence that he’s any better at it than Johjima, and tonight just reinforces my opinion. He also really needs to learn how to block the plate.
Alright, so part of the blame belongs to Snell, part of it belongs to Johnson, but I need to give the ump some credit here. At least a little bit of the blame should belong to him! He absolutely would not give Snell anything in the bottom of the zone, shown by this Pat Burrell walk in the first.
So, yeah. Robot umpires please. Pardon my French, but fuck tradition, this is getting out of hand.
You can follow me on Twitter here
Call to the Pen
FanSided
Halo Hangout
Nolan Writin'
Swingin' A's
Yeah, that was really unpleasant to watch, and while it was sad to hear him getting booed, he’s going to have to expect that from people if he can’t find his location and control. That ump was driving me nuts though – I don’t think I’ve ever seen one dust the plate so frequently – most ADD ump EVER.
Yeah it wasn’t a lot of fun for us, can’t imagine how much less fun it was for him. I’m going to give him a free pass on this one, and chalk it up to jitters and getting squeezed. I’m sure he’ll do a better job in his next start.
Heh – funny, New York Vinnie used the phrase ‘free pass’ tonight on the post-game, too. I totally thought it was nerves, with as many times as Johnson went out there to check on him. Fortunately, Jack Wilson didn’t seem to suffer from the same condition in his Safeco debut.
Yeah that’s where I heard it haha. I won’t generally quote New York Vinnie but this time it seemed appropriate.
Yeah. I believe in Snell, and it’s obvious that our FO does, too. Slack is being cut as we speak. If he does as poorly next time, I may wonder, but he had a good outing the first time, he obviously CAN pitch at the major league level…