Baseball Toaster: The Griddle : Boswell losing his swagger

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Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Los Angeles Angels	100	62	.617	W1
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9	Texas	79	83	.488	W2
10	Oakland	75	86	.466	W3
11	Kansas City	75	87	.463	C4
12	Detroit	74	88	.457	C5
13	Baltimore	68	93	.422	E5
14	Seattle	61	101	.377	W4

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Boswell losing his swagger

2006-03-29 09:29

by Bob Timmermann

Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post used to be big, he used to be a respected baseball writer. I think he still is. I guess the baseballs have just gotten smaller.

Boswell has a paean to the joys of "smallball".

You can find a better critique of the column here, but Boswell has this one passage, I feel I have to say something about.

In the first inning of the WBC title game, Japan paved the way to its championship with four runs without a single hard-hit ball.

Here was Japan's first inning against Cuba (which hardly anyone got to see because we had to watch the NIT!)

Kawasaki grounds out 1-3
Nishioka gets infield single to short
Nishioka steals second
Ichiro walks
Matsunaka gets infield single to short
Odelin replaces Romero
Tamura is hit by a pitch, Nishioka scores 1-0 Japan

Satozaki strikes out
Ogasawara walks, Ichiro scores 2-0 Japan

Imae singles to center, Matsunaka and Tamura score 4-0 Japan

Gonzalez replaces Odelin
Aoki grounds out 4-3

To me this proves that you can score four runs if the other team's pitching and defense are bad. Or you get lucky in one win.

What was the biggest hit for Japan in its semifinal win over Korea? Probably Fukudome's 2-run homer.

If you want your favorite team to rely on putting up four runs like Japan did in the WBC final, I wish you well.

Wow, three straight posts all having something to do with the Washington D.C. area. I need some new material.

Comments

2006-03-29 10:25:19

1. Sam DC

Boswell also writes an "internet only" column that gets emailed to folks who sign up at the Post. The one that just hit my inbox starts: "In spring training, everybody tries to get you to ignore the statistics. 'It doesn't mean anything,' they all say. [para] Don't believe it." (Yup -- just ask Ryan Church . . .)

And if you want to find out who this is about, you'll have to follow the link: "Don't let the tattoos fool you. He's smart and funny. He just wants the hitters to think he's psycho."

http://tinyurl.com/o9adg

(Bob -- you've got a typo in baseball's)

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