Turn Off Ads?
Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: 1st Inning Woes

  1. #1
    Waitin til next year bucksfan2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Cincinnati
    Posts
    12,349

    1st Inning Woes

    I just wonder what the heck is going on with the Reds pitchers in the 1st inning. FSN has shown a stat that Harang, Arroyo, and Cueto all have the highest ERA's in the first inning in the league. The last night I was watching Homer and he was getting ahead in the count but letting players get on base. BTW ball 3 would have been strike 3 on any player not named Pujols.

    But last nights game got me to thinking if it is an organizational issue. If they go with a faulty game plan into the 1st inning. Even throw Bailey into the conversation and they all struggle to get out of the 1st inning but they have good stuff. The more and more I watch it I am starting to think that it is more of a game plan error than an actual pitching error.

    Thoughts?


  2. Turn Off Ads?
  3. #2
    Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Shelburne Falls, MA
    Posts
    12,215

    Re: 1st Inning Woes

    I just wonder what the heck is going on with the Reds pitchers in the 1st inning. FSN has shown a stat that Harang, Arroyo, and Cueto all have the highest ERA's in the first inning in the league.
    I wonder if they're too predictable out of the chute. Seems to me, and I have no hard evidence, most of our starters come out working almost exclusively with the fastball, and predominantly the fastball away. I also feel like the coaching staff, starting with Baker, may follow entrenched philosophies about how to do things that resist re-evaluation.

    It certainly is an interesting stat, and the team should be trying to understand why it's happening.

  4. #3
    Haunted by walks
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Syracuse
    Posts
    9,928

    Re: 1st Inning Woes

    Yes, I think the scouting and coaching need to be held accountable for this. There's a glaring problem here.

    Maybe they should start Daniel Ray for the first inning.

  5. #4
    Member RedsManRick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Guelph, ON
    Posts
    19,434

    Re: 1st Inning Woes

    It's absolutely possible that something is going on which causes Reds pitchers to be poor out of the shoot. And there's certainly no harm in digging around a bit to see if we can't uncover something. It certainly wouldn't be the first time somebody has suggested the Reds' have poor advanced scouting...

    But given 16 teams, one of them has to be the worst and it's likely some team will have numbers that seem out of line with the quality of their pitching staff. We should also consider the selection bias involved in the observation -- what if Reds starters struggled in the 3rd inning relative to the league? Would we still be concerned? Would anybody have noticed at all?
    Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.

  6. #5
    Waitin til next year bucksfan2's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Cincinnati
    Posts
    12,349

    Re: 1st Inning Woes

    Quote Originally Posted by RedsManRick View Post
    It's absolutely possible that something is going on which causes Reds pitchers to be poor out of the shoot. And there's certainly no harm in digging around a bit to see if we can't uncover something. It certainly wouldn't be the first time somebody has suggested the Reds' have poor advanced scouting...

    But given 16 teams, one of them has to be the worst and it's likely some team will have numbers that seem out of line with the quality of their pitching staff. We should also consider the selection bias involved in the observation -- what if Reds starters struggled in the 3rd inning relative to the league? Would we still be concerned? Would anybody have noticed at all?
    3rd inning and 1st inning are different if you ask me. 1st inning you start fresh and have a game plan for the game. 1st inning is a starting point, 3rd inning normally falls in with the flow of the game.

    What I would be interested in is the 2nd time through the order, which would start right around the 3rd inning, so yes that could be important and a telling stat. 1st innings runs tend to put you behind the 8 ball, which stats have shown the Reds do quite often. IMO important innings to look at run wise in baseball are the 1st, 8th and 9th innings.

  7. #6
    Et tu, Brutus? Brutus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Atlanta, Ga.
    Posts
    10,904

    Re: 1st Inning Woes

    Quote Originally Posted by bucksfan2 View Post
    I just wonder what the heck is going on with the Reds pitchers in the 1st inning. FSN has shown a stat that Harang, Arroyo, and Cueto all have the highest ERA's in the first inning in the league. The last night I was watching Homer and he was getting ahead in the count but letting players get on base. BTW ball 3 would have been strike 3 on any player not named Pujols.

    But last nights game got me to thinking if it is an organizational issue. If they go with a faulty game plan into the 1st inning. Even throw Bailey into the conversation and they all struggle to get out of the 1st inning but they have good stuff. The more and more I watch it I am starting to think that it is more of a game plan error than an actual pitching error.

    Thoughts?
    It does not help that Willy Taveras has a .252 OBP when he leads off the first inning. Actually, collectively, though I did not see out the entire project, when I stopped calculating, Reds' 1-2 hitters had somewhere in the neighborhood of a .290 OBP in the first inning. Eek.

    On the plus side, when Taveras actually gets on base in the first inning as a leadoff hitter, the Reds have a 16-6 record. Go figure.
    "No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda


Turn Off Ads?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please.

Thank you, and most importantly, enjoy yourselves!


RedsZone.com is a privately owned website and is not affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds or Major League Baseball


Contact us: Boss | Gallen5862 | Plus Plus | Powel Crosley | RedlegJake | The Operator