FIRE JOE MORGAN: Only Reason Teams Lose: Inexperience

FIRE JOE MORGAN

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

 

Only Reason Teams Lose: Inexperience

Ah, two weeks ago. The nation was young and innocent. The Patriots were a mere 5-0 instead of a dominant 7-0. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was soaring at just above 14,000 instead of struggling at just below 14,000. And the Arizona Diamondbacks were losing to the Colorado Rockies because of their woeful inexperience:

After spending most of the playoffs looking like seasoned contenders, the Arizona Diamondbacks are showing their age.

Arizona's 3-2, 11-inning loss to the Colorado Rockies on Friday night left the Diamondbacks in a 2-0 hole as the best-of-seven NL championship series heads to Denver.

The young Diamondbacks won't admit it, but their lack of postseason experience may be catching up to them.


Thank you, AP writer Andrew Bagnato. Flash forward to today. The Comebacks has been released, changing the way America sees sports spoof movies. Viva Laughlin has revolutionized the way we think about musical-dramedies set in Laughlin. And the Colorado Rockies are losing to the Boston Red Sox because of their woeful inexperience:

But, on baseball's biggest stage, Colorado has choked.

And that would mean the Rockies are guilty of nothing more than being human.

The Red Sox have been there, done that and got the T-shirts as a reminder of their championship experience.

What's the difference between the clutch hits delivered by Boston third baseman Mike Lowell and the runners stranded by Colorado counterpart Garrett Atkins? It's not talent. It's experience.


Kudos, Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post. It truly takes a man of courage to blame the Rockies' inexperience after a game in which one Boston rookie goes 4-5 with three doubles, two runs and two RBI, another goes 3-5 with a run and two RBI, and a third gets the win and two RBI of his own.

Colorado has swung the bat so anxiously and thrown so many mistake pitches to think anything except that their hearts are beating too fast. It's a natural overreaction by players in the World Series.

Sure, heartbeat overclocking could be a factor. Also a factor: Josh the Dragonslaying Mediocrity Fogg has ERAs of 4.94, 5.49 and 5.05 the past three years. Not a great pitcher. Ubaldo Jimenez, over six years of minor league play, had a BB/9 rate of 4.47. He was lucky to only give up two runs after yielding eight baserunners in 4.2 innings. Bit much to expect of him to both regulate the speed of his heartbeat and keep the walk-happy Sox from clogging up the basepaths when he couldn't really even do that to minor league hitters.

Yeah, the hitting's been bad. But does experience alone explain why Troy Tulowitzki's hitting .333 while Garrett Atkins is sitting at .100? Or can we just agree that it's an infinitesimal sample size and the Red Sox are, on balance, probably just a little bit better at baseball, not just at slowhearting?

Nope, we can't. If the Red Sox lose tonight, the blame will fall squarely on that inexperienced pre-rookie asshole Tacoby Bellsbury.

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posted by Junior  # 3:24 PM
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