ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Braves at Expos – 04/15/2003
Marcus Giles is definitely going to be benched tomorrow, after his tenth-inning game winning homer. Heck, the precedent is in place for him to be sent down to Richmond. Marcus’ homer off of Dan Smith capped a rare come-from-behind win for the Braves, one set up by Gary Sheffield’s own solo shot leading off the ninth.
To that point, the only run of the game was a solo homer by Orlando Cabrera off of — guess who! — Kevin Gryboski. Gryboski then allowed a double but managed to get out of it, leaving aside the question of why he was still in the game to begin with. I think he’s inherited Lockhart’s photo collection.
The rest of the pitching staff, of course, escaped unscathed. Shane Reynolds wasn’t around for the decision, of course, but pitched five innings, allowing five hits and no walks, striking out three. I’d like a report on his velocity from any Turner South-receiving aliens, but the results at least were promising. Roberto Hernandez struck out the side in the eighth, and Jung Bong picked up his first career win with a one-hit ninth. John Smoltz, of course, got the save.
Chipper Jones had two hits but was pulled for Darren Bragg as a pinch-runner in the ninth. I don’t know why. Robert Fick is still having shoulder problems it seems and Matt Franco got his first start of the season. He was 0-2 with a walk before giving way to Julio… The Braves are now in third place, three games behind the Expos and Phillies.
Chipper probably got pulled because he had to leg out an infield single in the ninth. Of course it could have been for defensive reasons; the Cabrera home run could have easily been caught if Chipper had jumped a half of a foot in the air.
ESPN.com’s reporting Chipper as day-to-day with a sprained groin after the aformentioned infield single.
Oh, and how about 2 and 0 pitcher… Albie Lopez? I know it’s early yet, but I laughed when i read that.
After Chipper reached on his 9th inning single (BTW blown call by the ump – he was out) he ran up and down the line a few times trying to stretch out his leg and limped off the field.
TS doesn’t have the speed listed on every pitch like ESPN or TBS do, and Reynolds didn’t throw many fastballs anyway. But he seemed to be getting it up there in the mid to upper 80s.
And FYI, all three homers would have been fly outs in any other park, none going more than a single row into the seats. Cabrera’s and Sheffield’s might have been catchable if Chipper and Guerrero respectively had gotten to the wall earlier. On both plays, it appeared that the OF was surprised to find a wall at his back so soon.
Of course don’t let the fact that the “home run” Gryboski gave up would have been and easy fly ball in any other major league park (or the fact that a good left fielder would have caught the ball anyway) stop the senseless campaign to drive Gryboski out of town. I know I’m dying to get a disinterested Marquis back out there in relief and watch the opponents have a five run inning.
Gryboski does well in a very specific role: Coming in with men on base and getting out of it.
Opponents OPS against:
2002 2003
Bases Empty 954 1000
Runnes On 607 867
Scoring Pos. 766 452
Of course the 2003 numbers are a really small sample size. Anyway, just looking at the numbers we would guess that he is doing something different with the bases empty than when he’s in trouble. I don’t remember if he uses a windup, so I would guess it’s just pitch selection. Last season he gave up 6 HR with the bases empty in 92 ABs, and 0 HR with men on in 103 ABs. This tells me that when the bases are clear he feels he can challange hitters (a big mistake with his marginal stuff), but with men on he just relies on his good sinker and racks up the double plays.
Based on what I’ve written, last night was typical Kevin Gryboski. Sixth inning, Ray King walks Vidro with one out and up steps Vlad. Men on with less than two outs? That’s a job for Kevin. Guerrero ends the inning with a 6-3 DP. Unfortunately Bobby decided to let Gryboski go another inning and after getting the first two outs he gave up a “homer” and a double (both with the bases empty of course) and then got Macias to end the inning.
I never could imagine I would write so much about Kevin frickin’ Gryboski.
>Gryboski does well in a very specific role: Coming in with men on base and getting out of it.
From BP, here are his 2002 stats:
Bottom 10 ML Relievers at preventing inherited runners from scoring
(Ranked by Inherited Runs Prevented)
Pitcher Team IRnr EIRs IR EIRf IRP
—-
Cruz,N HOU 26 8.2 20 0.0 -11.5
Carrara,G LAD 29 7.8 17 0.0 -9.6
Graves,D CIN 40 15.2 23 0.0 -8.1
Bynum,M SDP 17 6.4 11 0.0 -6.8
Bernero,A DET 17 6.0 12 0.0 -6.5
Neal,B FLA 16 5.5 11 0.0 -6.4
Gryboski,K ATL 34 9.8 13 2.4 -6.0
Davey,T SDP 15 4.8 9 0.9 -5.7
Reyes,D C/T 27 8.6 13 0.9 -5.6
Chen,B N/M 30 9.7 10 5.2 -5.4
10 ML Relievers most overrated by conventional
run assignment (ranked by ARP – APR)
Pitcher Team IRP BRS ARA RRA APR ARP Diff.
Carrara,G LAD -9.6 5.5 3.79 5.25 8.2 -5.6 -13.9
Cruz,N HOU -11.5 0.8 5.13 7.08 -3.0 -15.8 -12.7
Gryboski,K ATL -6.0 2.6 3.46 5.26 6.9 -3.4 -10.3
Bernero,A DET -6.5 1.1 5.73 7.85 -4.4 -13.2 -8.8
Neal,B FLA -6.4 1.5 3.52 5.78 4.2 -4.1 -8.3
Bynum,M SDP -6.8 0.1 6.29 13.82 -1.8 -9.8 -8.1
Herges,M MON -4.0 4.4 4.77 5.83 -0.8 -8.4 -7.7
Reames,B MON -5.2 2.1 4.90 6.34 -1.3 -8.9 -7.6
Reyes,D C/T -5.6 1.3 3.74 4.83 6.1 -1.1 -7.2
Riggan,J CLE -4.9 1.1 7.16 9.07 -9.1 -16.2 -7.0
(http://www.baseballprospectus.com/current/rrereport02.html)
This is almost sad…
Giles is in fact benched today in favor of DeRo.