Soriano Slider Watch
Theories have been abundant on the rapid decline of $100 million dollar man Alfonso Soriano, from age, to bad legs, to just a bad season in 2009 because of bad legs and his age. As our man Transmission showed last year, as well as Joe Posnanski and a few other articles, part of the puzzle was teams throwing more sliders to Soriano as well as Soriano not doing his normal damage on fastballs.
So let's see how Opening Day went for #12 with the caveat that Pitch F/X and its pitch recognition isn't 100% accurate.
1st AB vs. Lowe (2 outs, nobody on)
Slider - Ball
Slider - GO 5-3
2nd AB vs. Lowe (leading off the 4th)
Slider - GO 5-3 (yes, Soriano swung at a first pitch slider low and outside)
3rd AB vs. Lowe (2 out, nobody on)
Slider - Called Strike
Slider - Swinging Strike
Slider - Swinging Strike
4th AB vs. Wagner (2 out, nobody on)
Slider - Called Strike
Slider - Ball
Fastball - Fouled Off
Fastball - Swing and a Miss for the K
10 pitches, 8 sliders total (2 from a lefty though)
Days left on Soriano's contract (assuming Sept. 28, 2014 is the last day of the season, could be Oct. 5, 2014).
Some other observations from yesterday's game...
- As Carlos noted in Parachat, yesterday's bottom of the first inning was a highlight reel on the luck(or lack of luck for the Cubs) of BABIP
- At least Z kept his composure out there and the Gatorade machine was spared. I keed.
- Byrd looked kind of slow out there in center field, didn't he? I also thought he liked to play shallow?
- Speaking of defense, the adage is you want to be strong up the middle. The Cubs answer to that is Byrd, Theriot, Fontenot and Soto.
- Where will Ninja be playing on the home opener - Wrigley or Iowa?
- How do we convince Fukudome it's always April? 337/452/535 with 15 2B, 2 3B,5 HR, 38 R, 25 RBI's over the last two seasons and a game during the inaugral month.
The good news is there are 161 games left to go...I think that's good news.
Comments