04/09/04 Astros (Miller) @ Brewers (Obermueller)

[Kraft4a3]

"Pods looked like Sanchez"

 

Remember Scott plays pretty shallow in Center. And Lopes/Yost had Sanchez playing basically on the warning track so nothing could get over his head. That is what pissed all the pitchers off about Sanchez, normal outs were falling in front of Sanchez.

[DHonks]

And Lopes/Yost had Sanchez playing basically on the warning track so nothing could get over his head.

 

I seem to remember them constantly wanting him to play shallower, but Sanchez's inability to track flyballs and drop-step hurt the team. I think Jenkins has the same problem, hence why he's been allowed to play so deep for so long. He's able to catch them at the wall, but it seems each game a soft liner to straight-away left falls in because he has to run so far to get back to a normal starting spot.

[LouisEly]

I was at the game and while Obie didn't have great command, I have to come to his defense on two points:

 

1) I missed the start of the sixth inning (bathroom line), but in the first five innings there was only one hard-hit ball off of him - the line drive RBI single by Bagwell. And it shouldn't have been an RBI - they obviously have Pods well-scouted and know he has a terrible arm. The ball was to Pods by the time the runner got to third - a halfway-decent throw would have gotten the runner. But Pods has a weak and innacurate arm, and the runner scored on a bad throw. Same thing happened later - poor, weak throw by Pods allowed another run to score that shouldn't have. But that was the only hard-hit ball off of Obie that I saw in the first five innings. Everything else was a bloop-hit.

 

B) The home plate ump was terribly inconsistent. I know, because I was sitting right behind home plate. Obie wasn't getting any help from the ump.

 

Command won't be linked with Obie any time soon (remember, he didn't take up pitching until his senior year in college), but he has good stuff and even the Astros great-hitting lineup had trouble getting good wood on the ball.