WASHINGTON -- So, if the pitcher's spot in the lineup comes around in the late innings, and your team needs a run, who do you want to come off the bench and pinch-hit?I'll take Greg Dobbs.
Over the past two seasons, Dobbs has emerged as baseball's premier pinch-hitter, and as followers of the Phillies, it has happened right before our eyes. Last season, Dobbs batted .292 (14-for-48) with two home runs and led the majors with 18 RBIs as a pinch-hitter. He's been even better in 2008. After gritting his teeth through an aching lower back and delivering a game-winning RBI single in the ninth inning tonight, Dobbs is an astounding 10-for-22 (.455) with a majors-leading nine RBIs in pinch-hit situations.
If hitting a baseball is among the most difficult skills to master in sports, getting a hit after sitting in the dugout for almost an entire game is even tougher. Charlie Manuel did it for most of his major-league career, and he often says it's a thankless job. Dobbs seems to have the right mentality for it, though.
"I try to treat it as if it's my first at-bat of the game," he said. "You could get one pitch, five pitches or seven pitches. You just want to look for a good pitch to hit, be aggressive and jump on it if you get it."
Nobody does it any better.
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I always enjoy reading the thoughts of out-of-town writers about the Phillies, and Dave Sheinin, the Washington Post's excellent national baseball writer, wrote a good piece in today's paper about Ryan Howard's rising strikeout totals. Howard struck out three more times tonight, bringing his season total to 68 in 169 at-bats. At his current pace, if he gets 550 at-bats, Howard will strike out 221 times. Last season, he set the major-league record with 199 strikeouts in 526 at-bats, and he missed two weeks in May with a quad injury.
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Finally, I'm happy to report that the President's Race (and I don't mean the contest between Barack Obama and John McCain) has made the transition to Nationals Park from RFK Stadium. If you haven't seen it, it's sort of like the sausage race in Milwaukee, except the participants wear the cartoon heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt instead of greasy meats. The ongoing gag is that poor Teddy never wins, but I once saw a dude dressed like Jefferson take a header before reaching the infield. Now that was comedy.
5 comments:
scott, that was a great pitching duel last night and I had the pleasure of enjoying it from the right field bleachers! A great performance by Hamels! Too bad he didn't get the win. Its not a Phils game without Gordon, and this time Lidge too, making it interesting in the end. I also enjoyed the performance of the drunk Phillies phans in the front row heckling Elijah Dukes the entire game.
A few thoughts about the stadium. I was sitting under the scoreboard, so I may have missed some things (like the entire out-of-town board) but they really should have strikeout totals for pitchers listed. I wasn't counting and had to look up at the end how many Ks Hamels had. I do like how they post OBP and SLG% next to the batters. Those aren't stats you see often in ballparks.
I love that there's a Five Guys stand in the outfield. Outstanding burgers!
The overall ballpark is beautiful, but they really have to get going on the construction around it. Those future bars and restaurants are definitely needed for pre-game drinking.
The completely free parking at RFK with free shuttle to the Park is an awesome amenity! Sure, you had to wait for the shuttle about 4 blocks away from the stadium but it was FREE!!
The ticket prices are way way too high (aside from the $5 bleachers) and the stadium attendants are way to uptight for a team that can't sell out. We bought $27 seats and the three sections next to us ($33 seats) were 100% empty. Yet, the attendant made everyone leave who tried to sit there. Even in the 8th inning!!
Finally, tshirt tuesday... terrible terrible tshirts... can't they get a nice fake jersey shirt going on? Not a stupid Geo Washington mascot shirt. Lame.
Great game! Glad we won! Hope we can score a few more runs tonight!
Sounds like Andrew and I were around each other last night, I was in the 140's. You're dead on about their lack of signage- it's all on the big screen behind you, so it took a check of espn.com on my blackberry to find Cole's number of SO's, pitch count and the like, but I would have been interested to see what he was hitting on the radar gun. They solved this problem at the Bank by having the radar gun shown on the electronic scoreboards on the left and right sides, whereas at Nationals Park, much more of the signs are devoted to advertising.
Good call on the Five Guys, when I ventured up to the "Red Loft" to see the angle from up there I caught site of it too. That really adds another DC flavor to the stadium.
I spent $35 on seats that would cost $27 in Philadelphia... plus the service charges...
And I actually thought that the tshirts with "who's your founding father" were pretty funny. Not as good as the bobbleheads from last season, but still funny.
I was in 240 right above you. The pitchcount was on the main scoreboard, but no K total. Also, the pitch speed was there too but I'm a little suspect if it was accurate. Hamels rarely threw over 90 and it wasn't until Lidge came out that I saw it hit 95. They should definitely add more pither data on the small scoreboards instead of the same ad playing across the whole stadium.
I was at the game immediately behind the Phillies' dugout. Great view, but I am not sure the stadium matches CBP (and I live in the DC area). The scoreboard is much improved over RFK and even much improved over Opening Night, when - unbelievably - they could not figure out how to include jersey numbers and positions for the players in the lineup!
One other nice feature at Nationals Ballpark concessions is the favorite food from the opposing city. For this series, they are serving cheesesteaks. I am looking forward to watching a Nats-Brewers game this weekend to see what brats are served (although I had the tastiest half smoke ever - really - last night from Ben's Chili Bowl, a DC original).
I wouldn't be surprised if Cole wasn't hitting over 90, as the cold and relative humidity of the last two nights has had an effect on the ball- you could see it in the hits that Howard and Jenkins had in the first game, and you could feel it last night. Would love it if they'd add more data, you'd think that people would understand that many if not most of us, even if we're casual fans, like to see information like speeds, pitch count, balls to strikes, etc. At one point in the 9th, while I was up in the Red Loft, I looked up to see 2 outs on the side scoreboards when I only thought there was one. I spent awhile thinking about it, and another out was committed, and it turned out that the scoreboards- at least the small ones on the 1st and 3rd sides, were ahead one out.
As for the brats, hopefully they're betther than a) the cheesesteak (I had a chicken cheesesteak last night and wasn't happy with it) and their regular brats...
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