Balk?! **** this *********ump and then he misses a ducking obvious strike,

I'm surprised Claudio doesn't get more balks called. His setup is a fidgety mess.

We've made our share of mistakes tonight, but good freaking lord. This umpire is absolutely shafting us. Claudio does that on every pitch

That was an awful balk call.

No idea how this umpire crew has a job

Completely bending us over and ****ing us in the ass.

Yikes. 13 hits in Boston and gonna lose.

3 runs started as walks, 2 on "wild pitches", 1 on a balk. Can't win like that

https://theringer.com/jonathan-lucroy-texas-rangers-pitch-framing-3bfa2f11ae4a

I think the difference is the pitching, IMO.


Most (if not all) pitches being compared from Mil are the 12-6 dropping\sinking pitches which he pulls up for a strike call. Where as, most of the pitches from the Rangers are tailing or breaking in. The momentum of the Dyson pitch takes his glove outside, as he pulls it in. That is much easier to spot than a slight lift of the glove.

This graphic of glove height, appears to confirm that most pitches he receives has been raised in the zone.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/0*XXPA7EfZguYmkr1J.

Comparing to last year's rotation:
2017: Darvish (10 GS), Perez (9), Cashner (8), AJG (7), Martinez (6), Hamels (5), Claudio (1)
2016 (Post ASB): Darvish (14), Perez (15), Hamels (14), AJG (13), Holland (6), Lewis (4), Harrell (4)

Three of the SPs are the same. Darvish and Perez were still coming back from TJ. From a "feel" perspective, the staff would seem comparable. Cashner would be similar (IMO) to Holland.

Interesting, for sure.

Huell Babineaux said:

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https://theringer.com/jonathan-lucroy-texas-rangers-pitch-framing-3bfa2f11ae4a

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Interesting read. It's amazing the stuff that they are tracking these days and using to rank players. That article and others like it may cost Lucroy bigtime this coming off-season as a free agent.


"The bad news for Lucroy and, for the rest of this season, the Rangers is that large changes in framing performance tend to be sticky; it's rare for a catcher to suffer a significant decline as a receiver and then bounce all the way back. In other words, the elite Lucroy, and even the average Lucroy, may be gone for good. "

I think there's no real denying that Brinson and Ortiz would be quite nice to still have at this point in the season. With Gomez's injury, Brinson would have seemed like the obvious call-up candidate, and Ortiz may have gotten the nod over Martinez when Hamels went down. Lucroy has been better at the plate recently, but he has definitely not been the player we thought we were getting in that trade.

But, whatever. At the time we made the trade there was a legitimate market for Lucroy including other teams as well. I don't think anyone viewed this as a bad trade at the time. Not sure what else we could have done really. He made all the sense in the world to acquire, it just hasn't worked out like we wanted it to.

I'll give DallasAg a pass because he hasn't been watching a lot of the games -- it's not the pitching that is causing it -- Lucroy's pitch framing is absolutely horrible... and that's not even touching on his actual defense at catcher which has been below average.

I get that slumps will happen with the bat, but something just seems completely off with Lucroy this year. On plays at the plate I almost expect him to fumble the ball now.

free_mhayden said:

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I'll give DallasAg a pass because he hasn't been watching a lot of the games -- it's not the pitching that is causing it -- Lucroy's pitch framing is absolutely horrible... and that's not even touching on his actual defense at catcher which has been below average.

I get that slumps will happen with the bat, but something just seems completely off with Lucroy this year. On plays at the plate I almost expect him to fumble the ball now.

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Yeah he caused a couple wild pitches last night that one would expect a catcher of his defensive caliber to smother and come up with. Really burned us. Add in the power hitting, and Chirinos has been the better catcher this season. Don't feel like looking up whatever statistics, but I would wager that Chirinos has been better framing pitches.

Seems like he's done a lot of stabbing at bad balls and not really getting in front of them. I've taken some exception to some of the pitches being scored as wild. They weren't good pitches but the fact that they got by was more on him than them in those cases.

free_mhayden said:

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I'll give DallasAg a pass because he hasn't been watching a lot of the games -- it's not the pitching that is causing it -- Lucroy's pitch framing is absolutely horrible... and that's not even touching on his actual defense at catcher which has been below average.

I get that slumps will happen with the bat, but something just seems completely off with Lucroy this year. On plays at the plate I almost expect him to fumble the ball now.

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Guilty.

I wonder if the contract is an issue?!

If the Rangers are out of it at the deadline, hope they can get something for Lucroy. No way they get anything comparable to Brinson.

I'd take that trade back in a heart-beat, but I'll wait to ***** and moan about it too much until Brinson actually does something on the big league level.

Jurickson Profar was a can't miss prospect too... and we wouldn't trade Lucroy back for him.

Lineup for tonight:

DeShields CF
Choo RF
Andrus SS
Lucroy DH
Odor 2B
Napoli 1B
Rua LF
Gallo 3B
Chirinos C

I could see a lot of Ks from this lineup. Gallo is 0-6 against Sale with 6 Ks

Hasn't he recorded ten strikeouts or more in line his last eight outings? Combine that with our ability to strike out against the sisters of the blind and I just hope he doesn't set a record.

We're gonna put up 7 on him and run him off before the 5th inning. Bold prediction

A couple of thoughts as a contrarian regarding taking back the Lucroy trade:

I agree that his defense has not been great this year, but as a whole, it has been above average in his tenure as a Ranger (dWAR 0.4 in just about half a season worth of games played).

His hitting has been well above average as his OPS with the Rangers is .817 and he's been worth just over two wins per baseball reference.

Lewis Brinson is very far from a sure thing. He's hitting well right now in a high altitude home park. He's improved significantly in his discipline, but he still strikes out too much. He may very well end up being a stud, but he's more likely to end up being a player like Cameron Maybin or Travis Snider.

The real asset that I worry about losing out on is Luis Ortiz. He struggled a little bit in his promotion to Frisco, but he's put together really good numbers as a 21 year old in AA with Milwaukee. Another guy that could end up being a TORP but I've also lived through promising guys like Blake Beavan, Michael Maine, Robbie Erlin, and Neil Ramirez getting traded.

Beltre to Arizona for EST. If all goes well, looks like he should be back for the Houston series in a couple weeks

I think a big reason why Brinson is missed is the fact that he could be the centerfielder of the future -- a position in which Texas has been lacking a long-term solution at for a long time.

I think the fact that we are hanging around while missing key pieces in Beltre, Hamels, and Gomez speaks volumes

and Deikman

and Leclerc now for 2 weeks. Completely forgot about him

While the re-additions of Hamels/Beltre should help the team in a month or two, I'm not sure that we should be patting ourselves on the back too much until we see how this week pans out.

Seattle has Cano, Iwakuma and King Felix on the shelf and are in last place... But only trail us by 4 games.

YOU START DRINKING THE RED AND BLUE KOOLAID, YA HEAR?!

AccidentProne said:

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YOU START DRINKING THE RED AND BLUE KOOLAID, YA HEAR?!

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I like to push the goalposts back... Last week I said if we took 2 of 3 in Detroit I'd believe we're for real.

Now I'm waiting to see how the rest of this roadtrip goes. I simply can't get behind a team with a #2-#5 of Cashner/Perez/Griffin/Martinez(or Ross) being a legitimate playoff team.

The blow jays are planning to bring back tulowitzki and josh Donaldson this weekend. It's unfortunate, I was hoping we wouldn't have to see Donaldsons ugly mug.

Or here that God awful Tulo chant. I really hate everything about that team.

free_mhayden said:

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AccidentProne said:

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YOU START DRINKING THE RED AND BLUE KOOLAID, YA HEAR?!

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I like to push the goalposts back... Last week I said if we took 2 of 3 in Detroit I'd believe we're for real.

Now I'm waiting to see how the rest of this roadtrip goes. I simply can't get behind a team with a #2-#5 of Cashner/Perez/Griffin/Martinez(or Ross) being a legitimate playoff team.

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The radio guys were all gushy over Tyson Ross. Last night for RR (AAA) he went 5.0 IP, 2H, 0R, 1 BB, 5 SO. 73 PC with 44 Strikes.

While he only pitched 5.1 IP in 2016, they were fawning over his 2 previous seasons:

2014: 31 GS, 195.2 IP, 2.81 ERA, 1.211 WHIP, 195K
2015: 33 GS, 196.0 IP, 3.26 ERA, 1.306 WHIP 212K

Health is the key, but if he can get us 10-15 GS at below a 3.5... Yowzers.

Yeah yeah... I know 3.05 Career at Home (Oak & SD) vs 4.19 ERA on the road. Mostly NL.

What is the ETA on the return from DL for these:

Hamels
Beltre - 1 to 2 weeks?
Leclerc
Gomez
Deikman
Ross