Article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...ike-afternoon/
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Article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...ike-afternoon/
Your title confuses me.
Good story. It documents just how unusual it is for Mauer to have those kinds of at-bats. Those of us at the game may never see that again from Joe. It could be that nobody does.
I rolled my eyes that those three strikeouts involved one of my pet peeves about Mauer - watching a called strike for the first pitch. It looks like he changed his approach for his fourth at-bat, hacking at the first offering (and grounding out).
Mauer has the highest OBP in the AL and is one of the best hitters in all of baseball.
Nobody should criticize Mauer's approach at the plate...
Because of his approach, people think pitchers throw Mauer a strike on the first pitch almost every time. That isn't true. In fact, exactly opposite is true. He gets the fewer first pitch strikes than nearly every hitter with a qualifying number of PA.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Bonnes
In fact, he only gets strikes 54% of the time on the first pitch. Of 142 hitters with the qualified number of PA, 135 of them have a first pitch strike percentage higher than Mauer.
I, too, think its pretty tough to criticize this approach, even if it sometimes seems frustrating to see him take that first pitch strike more than half the time. It works really, really well over the course of the at bat and the season.