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Today: Good Feeling? What Good Feeling?
Oddly, the graph appears to credit Brad Hawpe with the two-run error in the first, which must come as a pleasant surprise to Chad Tracy. That twentieth error leaves Chad with most in the NL among third-basemen; in fact, only some guy called Rodriguez, who plays third for the Yankees (and is apparently not very well-liked there) has more errors in the Majors. Most of the errors have come on throws, but Tracy's Range Factor of 2.59 puts him 18th of 22 qualifying players at the position - still above A-Rod though! Zone Rating is a little kinder, ranking him 9th.
However, Baseball Prospectus rate him at 16 runs below average at the position, which neatly negates the +16 runs he gets for his batting in 2006. Here's how they order all our regular players for their fielding performances this year:
- Counsell +13
- Hudson +13
- Estrada +2
- Snyder +2
- Byrnes -3
- L.Gonzalez -3
- DaVanon -4
- Green -6
- Jackson -6
- Tracy -16
On the fringes, Easley is -3, Drew +3, Clark -1 and Quentin +6, a remarkable achievement given how short a time he's been playing - and another reason why he should be the everyday right fielder, not Shawn Green. Otherwise, perhaps surprising to see Counsell as high as he is, and Hudson is not apparently too bad either [He has been more impressive lately, to my eyes, though still has the tendency to make silly mistakes, more reminiscent of Kate Hudson] Gonzo is poor in left field, as you might expect, but Tracy is easily the worst.
Heroes and Zeroes
Series 38: vs Rockies, on road
Vizcaino: 3 IP, 1 H, 4 K, 0 ER
Byrnes: 7-for-21, 6 RBI
Medders: 4 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 ER, Win
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Hernandez: 6.2 IP, 11 H, 2 BB, 5 ER
Quentin: 1-for-14
Webb: 6 IP, 8 H, 5 BB, 5 ER
The bullpen deserves a collective Hero for their amazing work, especially in the 18-inning marathon. That more than pays back for the flaky work of Medders and Pena in the series opener - the collective line for our relief corps over the series was as follows:
Bullpen: 18.2 IP, 12 H, 6 BB, 3 ER, 22 K
Of our starters, Vargas and Batista performed adequately, but Hernandez and - very worryingly - Webb were not so hot, though Livan still managed to get a win.
Byrnes represented much of our offense for the first 2 1/2 games, but Tracy deserves an honourable mention, going 6-for-19. Not a great series for the rookies: Drew went 2-for-16 with 5 K's, while Quentin came into Colorado with a .300 average, and left Denver with it fifty points lower. He's batting .186 in August, and appears to have caught whatever it was ailing Shawn Green in right field. Green was benched for the first two games, but roared back to go 4-for-7 with a homer and two RBIs in the second half of the series, bringing his average for August up to .214 - poor, but better than the .147 it was on Wednesday morning.