O/T - Yawn..another no hitter for 2012

[WhenItWasAHobby]

This is the 7th of the year and this time it was Homer Bailey of the Reds.

It was no major achievement in my opinion as it was against the deplorable Pirates. This loss guarantees no winning season for Pittsburgh and extends their losing record streak to 20 seasons - a North American professional sports record. The Bucs at one point were 16 games above .500 and tied for first and then took a free-falling dive the past 5 weeks. What a travesty.

[z28jd]

Speaking as someone who makes a meager living writing about the Pirates and their farm system, I think that was great for the team. They just decided to keep everything status quo in their front office for some unknown reason(possibly as a punishment for those involved in this mess) and hopefully this is another wakeup call that maybe things aren't all sunshine and roses in Pittsburgh.

They sent out a playoff ticket package last month that included raising prices for a second straight season and making people buy tickets through game seven of the WS if they wanted to buy tickets early. Team is a complete joke and run by people who don't realize that things aren't getting better. Finishing under .500 in a very weak central division this year isn't an accomplishment just because they won a few more games than last year.

They claim the farm system is better but overlook the fact they threw a ton of money into it and missed on a lot of players. It also overlooks the fact that the draft and Int'l signing system has been totally overhauled to make every team on a level playing field, even if team's like the White Sox and Cardinals showed little interest in doing that in the past. So all of those misses in upcoming years, including a garbage signing class from this past draft, will be magnified and the problems will start all over again.

The team is run by a group of guys with very little eye for talent except for their Latin American scouts and now they're handcuffed by the new system. End rant.

[scmavl]

Yes, no hitters are coming more often that they used to but the Pirates hadn't allowed one since 1971.

I like Homer Bailey so I was happy to hear this news.

[ctownboy]

Actually, it was a one hitter.

Early in the game, a ball was hit that Scott Rolen had to move towards the line to try and field. It took a funny hop and the official scorer called it an Error. The Reds TV announcers were saying that it should be a hit.

At the time, I thought the official scorer might go back and change the Error to a hit. Of course now, since Bailey didn't give up any more hits the rest of the game that wont happen.

David

[z28jd]

Actually, it was a one hitter.

Early in the game, a ball was hit that Scott Rolen had to move towards the line to try and field. It took a funny hop and the official scorer called it an Error. The Reds TV announcers were saying that it should be a hit.

At the time, I thought the official scorer might go back and change the Error to a hit. Of course now, since Bailey didn't give up any more hits the rest of the game that wont happen.

David

Theme this year with the missed hit in Santana's no-hitter too I guess, that one should come with an asterisk

[D. Bergin]

I don't know what it is? Maybe they'll lower the mounds next year.

I get the feeling major league hitters are becoming more and more undisciplined at the plate. Either that or the strike zone has gotten considerably bigger without me noticing. Devil Rays just set the record for strikeouts as a team. Orioles have nearly an entire lineup of 100+ strikeout guys.

I haven't compared statistics from previous years, but it just seems like OBP has been down overall.

More guys are swinging for the fences, even with two strikes on them. The power guy with 20-40 HR's a low batting average and and a negligible amount of walks are all too common now.

That guy used to be Dave Kingman. Seems there's a Dave Kingman on every team now.

Curtis Granderson is pushing 200 K's with the Yanks. Adam Dunn is............well Adam Dunn (at least he DOES walk quite a bit). There's going to be about 2 dozen guys with 150+ strikeouts this year and none of them have an impressive number of walks.

[freakhappy]

This year was crazy for no-hitters, but when someone throws one I'll be damned if I'm going to act like it's no big feat. Although I live in Ohio, I'm not a big Reds fan but do root for them. I know it's disappointing that the Pirates decided to suck the second half of the year, but throwing a no-hitter takes skill, luck and possibly a bad call or two (like we've seen with Santana). Rarely will you ever see a no-hitter thrown with total domination and not a single close call. So whoever throws one, gets a tip of the cap from me...twenty seven outs without a hit is amazing! Even if it was against the lowly Pirates. Look at the Astros. The Astros are a Single-A ballclub...they should be getting no-hit on a weekly basis if it were that easy!

Give credit where credit is due...

[ctownboy]

D. Bergin,

I blame the PED era and Free Agency for what you are talking about.

I started seriously watching baseball at the start of the 1975 World Series (there is a story why but I wont tell it now). Back then, you could break players down into two categories; home run hitters and non-home run hitters.

Guys who were home run hitters you could expect and understand why they struck out so much. With run scoring at a premium you could also put up with a home run hitter striking out a lot because of the possibility of him hitting a home run.

The non-home run hitters, however, were a different story. Those guys were expected to try to get on base no matter what and to NOT strike out. They were expected to try and bunt for base hits, drop bunts down for sacrifices, take walks, move runners over and do the other little things. The one thing they were expected NOT to do was strike out.

Then came the Steroid Era. The time when EVERY player thought they were home run hitters. The time when Managers didn't mind the little guys going up to the plate and swinging from the heels. The time when the little guys didn't choke up with two strikes and just try and make contact. The time when little guys didn't move forward in the batters box so as to try and not be out in front of a change up or swing over the top of a curve ball.

The time when hitting home runs meant players made more as Free Agents and got bigger raises in Salary Arbitration.

For about 20 years EVERY player thought they were home run hitters and were allowed to play home run derby every time up to the plate. The minor leaguers coming up saw this. The college players saw this. The high school players saw this and the Little Leaguers saw this. So, for 20 years less time and effort was put into the fundamentals of the game.

Then, the anti-steroid rules were put into place and the little guys didn't know what to do.

They couldn't hit home runs as easily and didn't know the fundamentals from the pre-steroid era. So, they flail away, make unproductive outs ans strike out at a prodigious rate. All the while, scoring goes down because of this.

Also, pitchers now throw harder. So the combination of pitchers throwing harder, more relief pitchers being used, more shifts being employed on defense and non-home run hitters not knowing the fundamentals has caused no hitters to go up and scoring to go down.

I say in five to 10 years, scoring will go back up because, by that time, young kids will have learned that the home run era in MLB is over and that knowing the fundamentals and being smart instead of aggressive is the way to play and score.

David

[toppcat]

I don't know what it is? Maybe they'll lower the mounds next year.

I get the feeling major league hitters are becoming more and more undisciplined at the plate. Either that or the strike zone has gotten considerably bigger without me noticing. Devil Rays just set the record for strikeouts as a team. Orioles have nearly an entire lineup of 100+ strikeout guys.

I haven't compared statistics from previous years, but it just seems like OBP has been down overall.

More guys are swinging for the fences, even with two strikes on them. The power guy with 20-40 HR's a low batting average and and a negligible amount of walks are all too common now.

That guy used to be Dave Kingman. Seems there's a Dave Kingman on every team now.

Curtis Granderson is pushing 200 K's with the Yanks. Adam Dunn is............well Adam Dunn (at least he DOES walk quite a bit). There's going to be about 2 dozen guys with 150+ strikeouts this year and none of them have an impressive number of walks.

There are a lot of free swingers but pitching is becoming better I think; there is an unbelievable amount of specialized instruction available to young players now when it comes to pitching. When my son was in little league and playing school ball we sent him to a pitching coach the level of detail in developing pitches was impressive from what I saw.