Game 77 Recap

Foggy Morning Links

Mornin' Fackers. Are you a little hazy from having burnt the "midnight oil" like Thor last night? Hopefully this small batch of heady links will rouse you from your herbally-induced malaise.

Curtis Granderson wrote about adapting to New York City living - off the field - over at Big League Stew. That's him at Target on the right. Any man who has ever shopped for bedding at a big box retailer has sported the same look on their face.

The Wezen-Ball Tater Trot Tracker has gone mainstream. It got linked by the excellent non-sports blog The Awl, has its own website and is now selling t-shirts whereby you can espouse your personal home run trot philosophy. I'm more of a "swing hard, run hard" kind of a guy.

Mike Fast at the Hardball Times looked at the difference in velocity between pitchers throwing from the windup and the stretch and found that there almost isn't one. Tango thinks that although the velocity might be comparable, pitching from the stretch could be an more inherently stressful motion. Over the winter, we wondered if Javy Vazquez might lose a little something from the stretch since he pitches poorly with runners on base. When I get some time, I will try to look at the data and see if I can find anything of interest.

Jonah Keri made his second appearance on the BS Report with Bill Simmons. I haven't listened to it yet, but it's going to be hard to top the first one wherein he singlehandedly converted Simmons to sabermetrics (only a slight exaggeration).

More podcasting: a new version of FanGraphs audio is up.

"Pardon my language, but f**k the Yankees."

Unlike every member of the Boston media, Patrick Sullivan took a look at the state of the Red Sox from a rational perspective. It's not all doom and gloom, but it ain't exactly cupcakes and ponies, either. Whether or not their first 14 games are indicative of how good they are or not, they've dug themselves a significant hole.

Further proof that Johnny Damon is a 6 year old boy in a 36 year old man's body: he's growing a mohawk.

Craig Calcaterra, who was at the forefront of the "NL Pitcher tests positive for PEDs" fracus yesterday notes that 10 of the last 16 PED suspensions have been handed down to pitchers and wonders while it's still the sluggers who are the primary targets of public shame.

You probably saw this yesterday somewhere else, but it's still worth noting that CC Sabathia stopped by his hometown and attended a Little League game at a field he helped renovate.

The first batch of UZR ratings are in. Proceed with small sample size freak outs... ZOMG Johnny Damon is now the greatest left fielder EVAR!

It might be a little slow around here today, but check back this later afternoon. If nothing else, we'll have the game preview for you this evening.