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October 22, 2006

World Series Prospectus

Diary Time, Game One

by Derek Jacques

7:34 PM EST: Welcome to the diary--we're starting a bit early. The pregame team of Jeanne Zelasko, Samwise Gamgee, and Kevin Kennedy is at a table set up on the field, so that they have to shout at each other in order to be heard. Zelasko’s hair is straight out of the '89 season of Murphy Brown. How did that happen? Did she have some old People magazines lying around?

7:39: Nice taped segment of Ernie Harwell talking about Detroit, and what the World Series means to one of the most economically depressed cities in the Midwest. It's heart-warming to hear Harwell, but it also reminds us that he should probably be in the booth broadcasting the game, rather than having a five-minute spot before the action starts.

7:42: You mean that's not Sean Astin between Kennedy and Zelasko? Eric Byrnes is yelling at the top of his lungs, stuff like "WE’RE IN DETROIT, SO I’M PICKING DETROIT!" which means that I’m already filtering him out. The less said about this, the better.

7:52: Wackiness with both teams' lineups. The Cardinals are passing up Preston Wilson and Scott Spiezio to start So Taguchi against the righthanded fireballer, Justin Verlander. Meanwhile, Ramon Santiago, with all of 86 plate appearances in the regular season, is the starting shortstop for the AL champions. Just as he did in the ALCS, Carlos Guillen moves to first with all of six career starts of experience at the position, while Sean Casey, whose big selling point is supposedly great defense (his 96 career Rate2 suggests otherwise), is the DH. Sure, Santiago brings one more lefthanded bat into the lineup, but it’s not a good lefthanded bat (.173 EqA).

8:06: First pitch from Verlander to David Eckstein is a strike. Verlander's tall and lanky, with a smooth delivery and a fastball that creeps toward the triple digits. His first few fastballs to Eckstein aren’t up in that range yet.

8:07: Think the Detroit scouting report on DH Chris Duncan says "can’t hit the curveball?" Verlander starts Duncan off with three straight curves, beautiful 12-6 drops. This was the opposite of his approach to Eckstein, who was fed fastballs early in the count, and only shown the curve later.