from Amazon
Friday, October 30, 2009
Curtis Granderson’s take on hitters being hot or cold…
We know that Granderson is a smart guy. He was being interviewed on the Dibble and McDonald show on XM radio today. Dibble, the quintessential talking head, asked Granderson something like:
“After being so hot in the post-season, A-Rod looks a little uncomfortable out there now, going 0 for 8 with 6 K’s in the WS. Why do you think that is?”
Of course, the Dibble assessment is the usual B.S. (batter goes 5 for 10, he looks confident, comfortable, and locked in - batter goes 0-6, he looks uncomfortable and is “pressing").
Anyway, Granderson, responds with something like this:
“You know, sometimes a hitter just gets a bunch of good pitches to hit and sometimes he doesn’t.”
He then goes on to say:
“And sometime a hitter decides to be aggressive against a certain pitcher and he swings at the first fastball he sees, but the pitcher just happens to hit the corner with that pitch. Or sometimes the batter decides to be patient and he takes a fastball right down the middle.”
How come this guy (Granderson) can be so sensible and everyone else in baseball is not? What he is saying, and it is true, is that there are a million (not quite) ways for a batter to be 0-8 or 4-8 that have nothing to do with how “locked in” or “pressing” he is.