D-Backs solving South Side puzzle
CHICAGO -- The wind has shifted on the South Side. It is now blowing away from small ball and toward long ball.
With the wind blowing out at 21 mph Tuesday night, it was not an ideal time for pitchers. It also turned out to be a less than fortuitous evening for the Chicago White Sox 2005 game plan.
For the second straight night, the Sox were outscored rather noticeably by the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks won Tuesday night, 10-4. In two Interleague nights here, the D-Backs have hit six home runs and scored 18 runs.
It ought to be noted that the two Diamondbacks who homered in this one -- Troy Glaus and Shawn Green -- have a history of not requiring a following wind to get the baseball out of the ballpark. Glaus, in fact, hit a towering 422-foot shot off Orlando Hernandez in the fourth that would have left the premises on any of January's 31 days.
The omens were not good for small ball from the beginning. In the Chicago first, speedy leadoff man Scott Podsednik beat out a bunt and reached second on an accompanying throwing error. This was, remarkably, Podsednik's 22nd infield hit of the season. Then he stole third, putting himself in a wonderful position to score with nobody out.
Ball can't get much smaller than this. But it didn't end well. Tadahito Iguchi hit a screamer down the third-base line, but Glaus made a diving stab of it and didn't have to lunge very far to double Podsednik off third. After that, it was time for the extra-base hits to take over.
It appears that the D-Backs, although they had never played in U.S. Cellular Field before Monday night, might be more suited to the current climate than the White Sox. Two White Sox pitchers -- Jose Contreras and Tuesday starter Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez -- were having successful campaigns when the wind was generally at their backs, blowing in off Lake Michigan. But the last two evenings the two White Sox pitchers were merely victims of the conditions and, more than that, of the Diamondbacks.
What you need on a night like this is a pitcher who can make adjustments and keep his focus on the task at hand instead of the hitter-friendly elements. Fortunately for the D-Backs, they had someone just like that: Javier Vazquez. If you looked at his line -- three earned runs in eight innings, one walk, 10 strikeouts -- you would normally think that was fine. But if you looked at his line in light of the conditions here, it was closer to terrific.
Vazquez gave up a two-run homer in the second and a solo shot in the fourth, both hit to right by right-handed batters. But after that, even on a night when the elements were gusting in the hitters' favor, the White Sox got nothing more off Vazquez.
"We're used to that from him, you almost get spoiled by it," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said. "You tend to think tonight that with balls carrying out to right with that sort of distance, even hit the other way, the ball's carrying pretty well.
"But then he makes an adjustment. He keeps the ball down. He's throwing his changeup and probably more curveballs today. He keeps you off-balance. And then when you have 93 (mph) and sometimes 94, you can't sit on the offspeed stuff because that ball gets on you too quick."
"Early in the game I was using a lot of fastballs, and later on I was mixing it up a little better with my offspeed pitches," Vazquez said.
"It's not difficult [to pitch in these conditions]. You still have to make your pitches. Obviously, there's going to be some balls that are carried away with the wind. But you still have to be aggressive, and not think about where the wind is blowing or whether it's blowing or not. You have to do what you do as a pitcher no matter what the conditions are on the field or of nature."
Vazquez is now 7-4. He has already recorded a string of 54 1/3 consecutive innings without a walk, and for the season he has walked just 12 while striking out 82 in 92 innings. Vazquez and fellow starting pitcher Brad Halsey were acquired from the New York Yankees in the trade for Randy Johnson. It turns out that trading your best and most expensive pitcher can sometimes be a very productive move.
Vazquez succeeded in the first half of 2004 with the Yankees, but struggled in the second half. The D-Backs are convinced that more success is on the way.
"I think he was on teams in Montreal that didn't allow him to have the type of record that he was capable of having," Melvin said. "This guy is going to break out one of these years and go 20-8 or something like that. That's the type of stuff he has. We're not surprised by it."
After the last two nights, the surprise was all on the other side of the contest. This was the first time this season that the White Sox had lost the first two games of a three-game series.
But between the Arizona lineup and the performances of Shawn Estes Monday night and Javier Vazquez Tuesday night, the Diamondbacks seem to have found a comfort zone in the Windy City.
Source: http://arizona.diamondbacks.mlb.com/
With the wind blowing out at 21 mph Tuesday night, it was not an ideal time for pitchers. It also turned out to be a less than fortuitous evening for the Chicago White Sox 2005 game plan.
For the second straight night, the Sox were outscored rather noticeably by the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks won Tuesday night, 10-4. In two Interleague nights here, the D-Backs have hit six home runs and scored 18 runs.
It ought to be noted that the two Diamondbacks who homered in this one -- Troy Glaus and Shawn Green -- have a history of not requiring a following wind to get the baseball out of the ballpark. Glaus, in fact, hit a towering 422-foot shot off Orlando Hernandez in the fourth that would have left the premises on any of January's 31 days.
The omens were not good for small ball from the beginning. In the Chicago first, speedy leadoff man Scott Podsednik beat out a bunt and reached second on an accompanying throwing error. This was, remarkably, Podsednik's 22nd infield hit of the season. Then he stole third, putting himself in a wonderful position to score with nobody out.
Ball can't get much smaller than this. But it didn't end well. Tadahito Iguchi hit a screamer down the third-base line, but Glaus made a diving stab of it and didn't have to lunge very far to double Podsednik off third. After that, it was time for the extra-base hits to take over.
It appears that the D-Backs, although they had never played in U.S. Cellular Field before Monday night, might be more suited to the current climate than the White Sox. Two White Sox pitchers -- Jose Contreras and Tuesday starter Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez -- were having successful campaigns when the wind was generally at their backs, blowing in off Lake Michigan. But the last two evenings the two White Sox pitchers were merely victims of the conditions and, more than that, of the Diamondbacks.
What you need on a night like this is a pitcher who can make adjustments and keep his focus on the task at hand instead of the hitter-friendly elements. Fortunately for the D-Backs, they had someone just like that: Javier Vazquez. If you looked at his line -- three earned runs in eight innings, one walk, 10 strikeouts -- you would normally think that was fine. But if you looked at his line in light of the conditions here, it was closer to terrific.
Vazquez gave up a two-run homer in the second and a solo shot in the fourth, both hit to right by right-handed batters. But after that, even on a night when the elements were gusting in the hitters' favor, the White Sox got nothing more off Vazquez.
"We're used to that from him, you almost get spoiled by it," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said. "You tend to think tonight that with balls carrying out to right with that sort of distance, even hit the other way, the ball's carrying pretty well.
"But then he makes an adjustment. He keeps the ball down. He's throwing his changeup and probably more curveballs today. He keeps you off-balance. And then when you have 93 (mph) and sometimes 94, you can't sit on the offspeed stuff because that ball gets on you too quick."
"Early in the game I was using a lot of fastballs, and later on I was mixing it up a little better with my offspeed pitches," Vazquez said.
"It's not difficult [to pitch in these conditions]. You still have to make your pitches. Obviously, there's going to be some balls that are carried away with the wind. But you still have to be aggressive, and not think about where the wind is blowing or whether it's blowing or not. You have to do what you do as a pitcher no matter what the conditions are on the field or of nature."
Vazquez is now 7-4. He has already recorded a string of 54 1/3 consecutive innings without a walk, and for the season he has walked just 12 while striking out 82 in 92 innings. Vazquez and fellow starting pitcher Brad Halsey were acquired from the New York Yankees in the trade for Randy Johnson. It turns out that trading your best and most expensive pitcher can sometimes be a very productive move.
Vazquez succeeded in the first half of 2004 with the Yankees, but struggled in the second half. The D-Backs are convinced that more success is on the way.
"I think he was on teams in Montreal that didn't allow him to have the type of record that he was capable of having," Melvin said. "This guy is going to break out one of these years and go 20-8 or something like that. That's the type of stuff he has. We're not surprised by it."
After the last two nights, the surprise was all on the other side of the contest. This was the first time this season that the White Sox had lost the first two games of a three-game series.
But between the Arizona lineup and the performances of Shawn Estes Monday night and Javier Vazquez Tuesday night, the Diamondbacks seem to have found a comfort zone in the Windy City.
Source: http://arizona.diamondbacks.mlb.com/
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