Woody’s Knuckler
Mon, Apr 17, 2006
by Geoff Young
First off, what a great win on Sunday, and what a great way to do it. After those first two losses in Atlanta and being completely dominated by John Thomson for six innings, to overcome a 3-0 deficit late in the game and pull it out was huge. Now the Pads head to Denver for some Sillyball with a .500 record on the current road trip and a little momentum working for them.
Second, if you only saw the box score and noticed that Woody Williams struck out nine Braves, realize that plate umpire Phil Cuzzi’s strike zone was almost Greggian. Williams had some good stuff going — for the most part he located the fastball and curve pretty well, and mixed in a few knucklers (more on that in a bit) — but not as good as the punchouts would indicate.
Williams made a few bad pitches, notably a first pitch breaking ball to Andruw Jones that was crushed over the fence in left center in the second and a fastball out over the plate to Todd Pratt in the fourth hit so hard off the left field wall that he was held to a single (it was basically the same ball that Jeff Francouer had hit over the fence for a game-winning homer on Friday night, only about three feet lower). And Williams was in trouble for much of the second, third, and fourth innings. Still, he kept the Padres in the game and that’s all anyone is asking of him. If he can do that consistently, the Pads will be okay. Or at least better than we thought. Or something.
So, about the knuckleball. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Williams threw four of them. I only counted two, but his breaking ball had good movement on Sunday, so I may have gotten crossed up on a couple of those. The two that I saw were an 0-2 pitch to Marcus Giles in the first that he swung on and missed or tipped foul at the plate depending on who you believe. Cuzzi called it a foul ball, but Giles was running to first base on what he presumably thought was a dropped third strike. Either way, it was a good pitch and Williams followed it up by freezing Giles on a fastball for called strike three.
The other pitch I identified as a knuckler was a 1-2 offering to Wilson Betemit with two out in the third. It stayed up in the zone and completely handcuffed catcher Rob Bowen (making his first Padres start due to lower back stiffness on the part of resident knuckleball catcher Doug Mirabelli) for a passed ball. The pitch had some sick movement on it.
Speaking of Mirabelli, the television guys were talking a little about the history of Williams’ knuckler. Apparently it’s a pitch he’s been toying with for a very long time. Seems he and Padres pitching coach Darren Balsley were teammates in the Toronto system at Double-A Knoxville in the late-’80s, and Williams would throw him a few knucklers for grins during warmups. According to Padres broadcaster Matt Vasgersian, the Blue Jays even liked the pitch but wanted him to work on the change-up instead. Fast forward a decade and a half: Williams throws some knuckleballs to Mirabelli (formerly Tim Wakefield’s catcher in Boston) in a bullpen session, and Mirabelli’s quote is, “It’s so good, it’s unusable because I can’t catch it.”
I don’t know about that, but I do know that the knuckleball looked pretty good, and it made his fastball look even better. Both of those facts give Williams a chance to keep the Padres in games. And really, what more could you want?
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April 17, 2006 at 8:06 am
Yeah, but, yeah, but….how bout AG making the Top Ten Plays on ESPN? Thats the real news yesterday, no?
April 17, 2006 at 8:27 am
Cool, I didn’t know that. He and Blum both made terrific plays behind Trevor last night.
April 17, 2006 at 8:51 am
That was a beautiful play by AG and some slick footwork by Trevor. I was gonna be mad if they didn’t make the top 10.
What a great win yesterday. For some reason, 4-7 sounds a lot better than 3-8.
April 17, 2006 at 9:50 am
http://tinyurl.com/qwwsc
Todd Jones on players’ songs. Trevor’s the best.
That AG replay was awesome.
April 17, 2006 at 10:31 am
If you want to see a gold glove highlight, click on the link that says “Vizquel turns amazing DP” under “April 16″ … http://tinyurl.com/efnzs … as Jon Miller says: “Where’s my gold glove ballot?”
No video at mlb.com of the AG play
April 17, 2006 at 10:46 am
Oops, thought it was Woody covering. Trevor will do to. Either way, looks like AG can play.
April 17, 2006 at 10:47 am
WC @ BP reports … David Wells heads back to the DL to receive the increasingly common Synvisc injections in his painful knee …
April 17, 2006 at 11:02 am
Maybe Wells should just lose some weight. That guy irritates me.
April 17, 2006 at 11:20 am
Anyone see that sick play by Iguchi of the White Sox? I went through Gaslamp Ball and got a link to the video.
April 17, 2006 at 11:23 am
BTW — Loretta just hit a GW 2 run jack for the Red Sox, off Everyday Eddie.
April 17, 2006 at 11:39 am
One’s that got away tracking:
Aki: 5.2 IP, 9H, 0BB, 5K, .360 BAA, ERA .476
Eaton: IR
Nevin: .782 OPS in 48 AB
Nady: 1.069 OPS in 41 AB (Burning irritation with Bochy from last year)
Bay: .927 OPS in 47 AB
Perez: 13.1 IP, 18h, 12BB, 15K, .321 BAA, 8.10 ERA
Hernandez: 1.305 OPS in 38 AB
Burroughs: IR
Lawrence: IR
I can’t help doing this. A very strong theme; ex-pitchers from the Padres don’t do much, but ex-hitters do. This vaguely coincides with my belief that Towers is very good at assessing pitchers, but not so much with hitters. It also coincides with Bochy’s willingness to use pitchers well, regardless of age (in fact, with Tankersly and others, often puts young pitchers in too high of leverage situations), but seems loath to play young players who can hit but are not great defenders. He will play Khalil because he can field, but wouldn’t play Nady. I hope the Padres get someone focused on assessing and playing young hitters.
April 17, 2006 at 11:51 am
Back from Glamis and finally posted #92
April 17, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Had to double check that ops for Nevin, as I just did that yesterday. You can see that its so early in the season that just one “0-4″ can drop you from .860 to .792. He also leads the Rangers in hrs(3) and rbi(12).
April 17, 2006 at 3:14 pm
It’s the “DL” in baseball.
April 17, 2006 at 3:38 pm
#91 is now up, too.
April 17, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Thanks, Richard! The Top 100 is *GREAT*!
April 17, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Prince Albert is awesome … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/bo.....=260417123 … take *THAT* Mr. Shelton