Banny Log 041808

Posted: April 19th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 13 Comments »

Start No. 4: Vs. Oakland A’s
Innings: 5
Earned runs allowed: 5.
Strikeouts: 1
Walks: 1
Decision: Loss (3-1)
Number of pitches: 85
Number of strikes: 54
BABIP: .391 (9 for 23)
Season BABIP: .238 (19 for 80)

Well, it was inevitable, I suppose, that despite projections, Brian Bannister would not really go 32-0 with an 0.86 ERA. It can be tough to maintain that sort of performance. I wonder if Bob Gibson cracked open the champagne bottle last night, sort of the way the 1972 Miami Dolphins do when the last undefeated NFL team loses. Of course, he still has to worry about Zack Greinke, pitching today and on pace for 32-0 and a 0.75 ERA.

Banny wasn’t sharp on Friday. You could see it in the first inning. He has told me more than once that he loves pitching in Oakland; it’s his favorite mound. Other pitchers talk about it too; obviously they like the absurd amount of foul ground there in Oakland Coliseum*, and while the outfield dimensions are not especially interesting, fly balls do seem to die in the Oakland air, especially at night. Lots of stuff dies in Oakland, I guess. Most of all, the pitchers seem to like the feel of the mound in Oakland … Banny says it feels high. You get the feeling that some pitchers would go back to 1968 salaries if they could have those 1968 mounds.**

*I guess they’re calling it “McAfee Coliseum now. I’m not.

**This is an exaggeration.

In any case, with Banny on his favorite mound and facing an Oakland lineup with Mark Ellis hitting third — this looked like another potential red-letter day for the Bannisters. But he just wasn’t sharp from the start. He gave up a leadoff single to Kurt Suzuki, two batters later gave up a preposterous rocket shot to Ellis (glove save by third baseman Alex Gordon). He walked Jack Cust on five pitches — wanted no part of him. He gave up an opposite field RBI single to the Unsinkable Emil Brown*. He fell behind 3-0 to Ryan Sweeney. He did come back and get Sweeney, but it was clear that he did not have it.

*Oh, we haven’t forgotten:

Emil Brown: .291/.310/.436, 1 homer, 13 RBIs.
Jose Guillen: .162/.186/.250, 0 homers, 6 RBIs.

Banny did settle in with some good defense and a little sharper control the next four innings. I didn’t think he was especially great in those four innings either — he did give up his first extra-base hit of the year to Bobby Crosby, a double (more on this in a minute) and he needed some good defensive work to get out of a couple of mini-jams. But he was battling, Bannister-style. Then in the sixth, it all fell apart — a single to Cust, a single to the Unsinkable One, a single to Ryan Sweeney, a double to Crosby.* And that was that. Ron Mahay came in and cleaned things up by helpfully giving up Banny’s two final runs. And so that’s five runs in five innings. Tough outing. Happens to everybody. After that, the Royals fell apart … which did allow us to see Japanese pioneer Hideo Nomo (1/3 inning, 3 runs, 3 earned, 1 K) in what will be his last major league outing. You would hope.

*Banny has now allowed two extra base hits all year — both doubles, both to Bobby Crosby.

I had a couple of vague thoughts during the game which I will now share even though I haven’t really put much thought into either one. The beauty of the blog. One is a question I’ve actually thought about before: How good would a solid pitcher be if he had sublime defense behind him all the time? I mean SUBLIME defense — not only a defense that never makes an error but also one that gets to every single ball that is physically reachable, turns every double play that can be turned, positions well, makes the right decision every time. Could that kind of defense turn, say, Ted Lilly in to Steve Carlton? Jeff Suppan into Juan Marichal? Gil Meche into, I don’t know, some other really great pitcher?

I was thinking about this because the Royals really played terrific defense behind Bannister on Friday. I mean terrific. Gordon made that one incredible line drive snag, and he also made a Brooks Robinson type diving play on a grounder down the line. Joey Gathright made one of the better catches I’ve seen, a diving catch on a low-fly ball that landed about 50 yards away from where he was positioned. it was pretty special.

And yet … that first double that Crosby hit? It wasn’t really a double. Let me rephrase that: It was a very legit double — Crosby absolutely mashed the ball and deserved the double — but the truth is that Royals left fielder Mark Teahen did not get a good look at the ball off the bat, he froze, and by the time he realized where the ball was heading, it was too late. The ball went about 10 inches over his glove. A decent jump and even though Crosby killed the ball, it would have been an out.

Crosby’s second double to left field — which was also crushed — was a tougher play, but again Teahen did not appear to get a great jump on the ball, and he barely missed making backhanded catch. It would have been a terrific play, but it was not an impossible play, I don’t think. I have not yet talked to Mark about it, but knowing him I would bet that he regrets not catching both of those balls. So it’s possible that extraordinary defense could have prevented both of the extra base hits that Banny gave up Friday, and maybe one or more of the singles. It’s just something to think about.

But the Royals are more than thinking about this. The Royals under manager Trey Hillman are trying to push the boundaries of defense. You can’t judge defense by errors, of course, but you can say the Royals have made only three errors in 17 games, which is amazing. Hillman very much believes that something close to perfect defense can help turn a smart pitcher like Brian Bannister (who gives up a lot of balls in play but does not walk many and, at least so far, does not give up many home runs) into an outstanding pitcher. And right now he’s playing a defensive team. Tony Pena Jr. is an out, but he’s a terrific defensive shortstop. Ross Gload is good for about 6 home runs all year, but he can pick it at first base. Mark Teahen does not figure to offer the kind of corner outfield juice everyone would like, but (Friday notwithstanding) he’s good defensively, athletic, accurate with his arm, aware.

This is more than just talk … the Royals are trying something here. You have to figure that Kansas City’s offense will get better over the year — right now the Royals are on pace to score 543 runs, fewest in the American League in 30 years. You’ve got to believe it won’t be that bad. But it will be bad. This team as constructed now has no power (four homers last 14 games — that’s the whole team), and only a handful of guys who can get on base consistently. They will rely on good pitching and great defense night after night after night. It will be interesting to see (A) If they can keep that going and (B) How many games they can win that way once the weather warms up.

The second thing I was thinking about is related somewhat — it’s about the effectiveness of coaching and managing. Most people I know believe that pure coaching as most people would define it — the Xs and Os, the inspirational speeches, the well-timed timeout, the shrewd and unexpected strategic ploy — is much more important in football and basketball than in baseball. There’s probably a lot of truth in that. But during the game I started thinking (not that this is an original though) that this has little do with the different styles of the games and a whole lot more to do with the length of the seasons.

What made me think about it was that Banny’s start Friday was the 17th game of the year for the Royals — so the NFL season would already be over. After 16 games, the Royals were 9-7, and a playoff contender. They were 9-7, I would say, because of good pitching, good defense, and a confidence built up after Trey Hillman gave them with a pretty intensive spring training. I’m saying that I believe a lot of it was coaching.

The Detroit Tigers, on the other hand, were 5-11, in large part because their big name offense was not producing, their starting pitchers were an abomination, their bullpen had Yorman Bazardo in it and so on. The Tigers came out of camp flat and injured and (in my view, anyway) a little too happy with their own talents. In other words, I think Trey Hillman through 16 games wildly outcoached Jim Leyland.

Now, this doesn’t mean anything in baseball. The season has barely started. And over a long season, things correct themselves. The Tigers will get Curtis Granderson back, Placido Polanco will stop hitting .150, Justin Verlander will lower his 7.00 ERA — over the long season, managing and coaching (at least the outward stuff) will mean less and less. The Tigers, I suspect, will win a lot of games.

And the Royals? They’re better. They really are. They have some good young players — Alex Gordon has really impressed me so far — and I’m excited about this team’s future. But for all the reasons mentioned earlier it will be tough to win consistently with an offense that has to claw and scrape for every run. Trey Hillman’s ”coaching“ — it’s apparent to me already that Hillman has a talent for getting players to buy in and focus — will become less and less significant, and the players talents and flaws will become more and more apparent. That’s the long season.

In other words, if baseball was a 16-game season like football, coaching would be HUGELY important, and managers who won would be called geniuses and masterminds just like in the NFL.

You can say here that managing should then be hugely important in the postseason … and it is. But I think that’s different. By the postseason, you already have played 162 games (plus spring training) and there are no surprises left, few mysteries, and managers are pretty limited in what they can do. It’s not like after 162 games managers can suddenly decide to go with a two-man rotation or invent a whole new lineup to shake things up or draw up certain pickoff plays or unique suicide squeezes. But if baseball had only a 16 game season, I think managers WOULD invent those things, I think, they would come up with all sorts of strategies, do all sorts of chalkboard work.

My point (if I have one) is that baseball’s long season takes the game away from managers and gives it to players. And football’s short season does the opposite. At least that’s what I was thinking while watching Banny get lit up for the first time this year.