First, because the game was played in a persistent rain, each inning ended when the pitcher reached twenty pitches. So, the "official" pitching lines aren't quite equivalent to normal pitching lines. Based on the number of outs recorded, rather than innings, the lines are:
Suk-Min Yoon
|
3 2/3
|
4
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
2
|
0
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
|
3
|
7
|
4
|
4
|
2
|
5
|
|
2
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
Yoon's third inning ended with two outs and a runner on second, so he probably could have gotten out of the inning without giving up another run. Davies' second inning ended with one out and runners on first and third; he might have escaped without giving up more runs, but he might not. His fourth inning ended with two outs and runners on first and second; again, he could have gotten out of the inning without giving up another run. Finally, Mike Wright's inning ended with no outs and the bases loaded; he almost certainly would have surrendered more runs had the inning not been ended. So while Yoon's and Wilson's lines can be taken at face value, Davies and Wright pitched worse than their lines indicate.
(It's interesting how one out affects our impression of a pitching line. Yoon's box-score line - 4 4 2 2 0 2 - is only one out better than the line above, yet the line above looks much worse to me. It's not unlike basketball scores - 81-69 looks a lot more one-sided than 85-73 or 77-65, because of the two-digit jump in the tens column.)
The pitch counts for the pitchers are:
Balls
|
Fouls
|
Called Strikes
|
Swinging Strikes
|
In-Play
|
|
Suk-Min Yoon
|
18
|
13
|
10
|
5
|
12
|
Mike Wright
|
8
|
6
|
3
|
0
|
3
|
Zach Davies
|
31
|
9
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
Tyler Wilson
|
11
|
4
|
3
|
3
|
7
|
I wouldn't read too much into these counts. but I mention them because I haven't seen them reported anywhere else.
Next, in Nelson Cruz' second plate appearance, he drew a walk to lead off an inning. Matt Wieters flew out to Quintin Berry at the left-field wall. Cruz tagged from first and advanced to second after Berry stumbled after hitting the wall. I had never thought of Nelson Cruz as a smart or alert player, but this was an alert advancement. Cruz scored on Ryan Flaherty's single.
Also, in the future I'm going to pay attention to the throwing of recent acquisition David Adams. Adams played third base for Norfolk yesterday. In addition to the rain, the wind was generally blowing from right to left (the official box score says "varies", but I blew it - I should have said the wind was blowing from right to left) with frequent gusts stronger than the game-time official 13 MPH measurement. I noticed two of Adams' throws into the wind, and the wind seemed to hold them up. At the same time, his throws were perfect - right on-line, chest-high to the first baseman, in time to get the out. So, I don't know whether Adams has a weakish arm that couldn't cut through the wind, or Adams has a strong-enough, accurate arm and yesterday's wind was so strong that it would hold up even Nolan Ryan's throws.
Finally, and I hesitate to bring this up because it's one exhibition game, in bad conditions, but J.J. Hardy didn't play well defensively. He made no plays at shortstop, which isn't necessarily his fault. However, there were two medium-speed ground-balls hit just to the left of second base that found their way into center field for singles. Again, I may be completely wrong, but it seemed to me that the shortstop could have gotten to those balls; Hardy didn't. It's likely that Hardy simply didn't want to risk injury, especially with Manny Machado out, and that on a dry field in a meaningful game Hardy would have made the effort to make those plays. But yesterday he didn't, and if I watched the Orioles - I can't watch them as often as I'd like because I'm attending Norfolk games - I might pay attention to Hardy to see if he's making all the plays.
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