#22---KC @ CLE, 5/16/2006

Somehow, I managed to miss #22, so here it is, batting out of turn. I also apologize for the horrific formatting on this page, which is a product of 1) Blogger's mangling of what I copy and paste from Word and 2) my lack of motivation to go back and correct it all (and my lack of HTML skills that make it a real chore).

This game is a good opportunity to show the new pitch coding system I began using in 2006. Rather than treating all strikes the same, when I scored a game from TV or the internet, I distinguished swinging, called, and foul strikes. Called strikes received a plain letter (ex. B), while fouls got a bracket on the left (ex. [B), and swinging strikes a brace (ex. {B).

Tracking swinging strikes can be eye-opening, because you will find that major league hitters just don’t swing and miss that often. I was aware of this before, of course, but tracking it brought it more to my attention. There were 16 swinging strikes in this game on zero or one strike counts.

This game also has a “d163” notation (Sizemore’s first inning AB) for a ball deflected by the pitcher to the shortstop, who threw to first for the out. I would now mark this (1-63).

The sixth inning flyball hit by Emil Brown is marked 9 with a subscript 8. This means that the right fielder made the catch in center field. This notation is useful for shifts; for example, 5(subscript 6)3 indicates a play in which the third baseman throws out a runner at first while positioned around where the shortstop should be.

The ninth inning walk drawn by Tony Graffanino is marked “aW” for automatic; in this case, Jason Davis was called for an automatic ball for illegally going to his mouth. The ball symbols can also be marked this way, but in this case only the fourth ball was automatic.

The game pitted former Royal Paul Byrd against former (just a season ago) Indian Scott Elarton. KC touched Byrd up for three runs in the first, but the Indians matched that in the third. Matt Stairs homer to leadoff the sixth gave the Royals a 4-3 lead, and the score held as Ambiroix Burgos was summoned to close the game out. Grady Sizemore shattered that chance with a leadoff homer. After fanning Jason Michaels, Burgos lost Jhonny Peralta, and Andy Sisco was summoned to get the platoon advantage on Travis Hafner. Pronk took a ball, then slugged a homer to center to win it for the Tribe, 6-4.