The Puerto Rican Prince Goes Platinum
“They’ll call him on his cell, that’s how much they had his number,” said Gaston.
There’s a story here beyond spectacular failure from a key player right as it looked like he had turned the corner sighhhhh…In his first strikeout of five, Alex Rios saw four fastballs and was eventually punched out on a rather terrible call (the strikeouts are numbered on the graph above).
His second time up, Rios swung through a really excellent slider on the first pitch, right at the bottom of the zone. Maybe Lackey could see that his brain was broken, or the frustration in his eyes because he poured on the junk for the rest of the game (just one more fastball), and Rios swung at almost quite literally everything.
The Prince saw only 2 fastballs and 15 breaking balls over his last 4 strikeouts. It took just 17 pitches, five over the minimum to strike him out! And three (maybe four) of those pitches were in the strike zone, which lead to two foul balls and one called strike. It sure looks like he just got frustrated and went on a hacking bender – reminds me of A.J. Burnett in reverse…(who incidentally has been suspended for throwing at a batter – ha!)
It certainly seems like Rios is next in line to get a day off. It looked like Hill could use one too, and maybe Scutaro as well after popping up pretty much the hangingest slider EVAR.
Torgen
June 4, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Wow – I couldn’t tell from where I was sitting. It certainly was, a touch (3.5 inches) inside and right at the top of the strike zone, in fact the pitch that I named <a href="http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/what-makes-a-home-run-pitch/"the most likely of all to be hit out. And Scoot couldn’t even get it out of the infield, arrrrrghghghghghghghghghghg…
halejon
June 4, 2009 at 8:55 pm
What is Rios doing striking out 5 times with only 5 pitches even in the strike zone (plus the one bad call)? Lay off the bad ones dude! The Jays started off so hot they forget to make the pitchers throw strikes some games and let them off the hook. I found that the most aspect of the losing streak.
brent in Korea
June 5, 2009 at 8:47 am
[...] • Blue Jays fans are nonetoohappy with Alex Rios these days and for good reason. He’s yet to meet a pitch this season that he hasn’t liked. [The Mockingbird] [...]
News & Notes: Tommy Hanson finally makes an Atlanta arrival
June 5, 2009 at 10:54 am
Ugh. He gets on base even once, and the Jays probably win that game.
eyebleaf
June 5, 2009 at 11:58 am
That’s the fallacy of the predetermined outcome. If Rios gets on ahead of him, Lind probably gets different pitches and maybe he makes an out.
Torgen
June 5, 2009 at 12:06 pm
[...] I don't think strikeouts are that much worse than in play outs, but in Rios's case he was getting nothing but sliders and he couldn't lay off them or make contact with him. It shur luks like ur conseeding to Greinke [...]
Zeno's Paradox Of Runners In Scoring Position: And when he whiffs, he really shows you all he can
June 5, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Looks Like Alex was heckled later in the day by fans:
Josh
June 5, 2009 at 1:46 pm
The YouTube link doesn’t work…
Whit
Whit27
June 5, 2009 at 2:27 pm
[...] The Mockingbird breaks down the horrendous performance here. [...]
Rios cares « Infield fly
June 5, 2009 at 2:42 pm
[...] • Blue Jays fans are nonetoohappy with Alex Rios these days and for good reason. He’s yet to meet a pitch this season that he hasn’t liked. [The Mockingbird] [...]
News & Notes: Tommy Hanson finally makes an Atlanta arrival | Lancilo USA
June 5, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I don’t think I have them turned off…must be WordPress. Try this one. That is pretty damn funny.
halejon
June 5, 2009 at 3:32 pm
[...] is obviously frustrated with his freeswinging performance as of late, so it’s not too hard to imagine why he’d blow up at a bum on a sidewalk [...]
Swearing in front of kids probably won’t help Alex Rios much
June 5, 2009 at 3:58 pm
What’s the deal on trackbacks now? My first few worked fine, but this one didn’t.
Torgen
June 5, 2009 at 5:10 pm
No clue…I thought the first one got caught in the first comment catcher that I have to approve, but there’s nothing there now. Maybe it just takes a while.
halejon
June 5, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Is it possible it got marked as spam? I mean, there’s a link to your post in my post, so I don’t know why it would have been, but it’s possible. I don’t think it’s just a time thing, because two of the trackbacks on this post were created after mine.
Torgen
June 6, 2009 at 3:10 am
Yikes, that’s it. There are actually a bunch of mostly semi-legitimate trackbacks that WordPress’ spam filter is eating. I just released a bunch of them of them and we’ll see if it gets the hint.
halejon
June 6, 2009 at 9:20 am
[...] is obviously frustrated with his freeswinging performance as of late, so it’s not too hard to imagine why he’d blow up at a bum on a sidewalk [...]
Swearing in front of kids probably won’t help Alex Rios much | Lancilo USA
June 5, 2009 at 8:46 pm