5/2/14 - Reds vs Bitter Beer Facers

[RedTeamGo!]

So you think players should choose certain games to try harder?

[gilpdawg]

Peralta was regularly hitting 98-99 tonight. I know they doesn't fit the narrative of "Reds make guy look like Cy" but dude was good. That changeup was dropping off a table too. Dude can pitch. I know it's hard to tell on TV, but I was there, and pretty close behind the plate. (Section 121) Dude had sick stuff tonight.

Everyone in the park was mad at the Votto review. I happened to check the thread here about an inning later and that was weird. It was like I knew something no one else knew.

[Larry Schuler]

FUN FACT: The best baseball players in history could only be bothered to step up and will success 35-40% of all their at bats. Baseball, the sport, needs to step up.

[texasdave]

Coincidence or trend?

1st half - 2013 BB% 6.8% SLG .507
2nd half - 2013 BB% 12.3% SLG .433
2014 so far - BB% 18.3% SLG .371

Maybe he is just one Jay Bruce en fuego streak away from evening those numbers up.

[villain612]

My belief is that if fans only got to see Votto 20-30 games a year and had to fill in the lines between the newspaper box scores for the rest of the games, Votto would be much more appreciated. I also think that if fans could watch 162 games of the Big Red Machine, along with 12 hours worth of tweets and blog articles in between games, they'd have a different perspective on the greats. Our opportunity to build rosey narratives is being diminished by the amount of access we have to every single frame of every play and all the advanced statistics that prove and disprove our anecdotal data.

This is incredibly true. The amount of access to the players and the 24/7 nonstop statistical breakdown of the game kills the "hero" factor and makes mortals out of players like Joey Votto, who is one of the best hitters in baseball.

[powersackers]

No. But I think players will and do realize that if I don't come through tonight the team will likely lose.