EOBHR

1980 EOBHR#37:  DAY 2 N.L.GAME SUMMARIES

26  CC (1-1) 2-7-2  SD (2-0) 9-18-0

While the scores of the 1980 games may seem high lately.... Overall, across the 1st 26 contests, the Replay #37 (1980) batting average is just .254, with an OPS of only .694.  There have been 8.5 runs in the average EOBHR '80 contest so far.  The real world MLB BA in 1980 was .264 (+.010 over EOBHR so far), but of course that includes the designated hitter rule in the AL (.269) but not the NL (.259).  Just slightly more than 8 runs per game (8.07) were scored in the realworld non-DH N.L. compared to 9.01 in the DH-rule A.L for an average very close to EOBHR's 8.5 so far observed.

In this particular game, the home Padres gently instruct the poor Cubbies -- or some of you may think their illuminating, clearcut educational methods seem unfair and mean  - But to me it seems that the Padres are trying to point-by-point instruct the Chicagoans on the mechanics of an efficient offense and the right approach to playing a winning baseball contest.

And, with a 9-2 win for the Padres over the Bruins, they did a good job.  Especially illuminating were the exemplary, inspired performances of althletic RF Jerry Mumphrey, who is a perfect 5 for 5, although only one of his hits goes for an extra base -- and that safety doesn't factor into the scoring.  But Mumphrey still scores two runs and drives in one, while playing a modest 'behind the scenes' role on other runs -- by say moving a runner into scoring position with a single -- so that he is ripe for the scoring by subsequent batters C Bill Fahey (1-3/R/2RBI/BB/SF) and 3B Tim Flannery (3-5/2RBI).

Padre backstop Gene Tenace, though, by virtue of not only doubling like his pal Mumphrey, but also hitting the Padres' only round-trippler ends up an even more impressive 4-5/3R/3RBI.

Meanwhile Rick Wise judiciously does not try to blow away every Cubbie batter just to show he's better than them, but instead just tries to get the batters to hit his pitches, not theirs.  His performance in this wild game is brilliant, allowing just seven hits, five of them singles, and walking not a single mortal soul.,.. While also conserving his energy by pitching to contact (only four punchouts) and thus getting his outs so quickly so he has the strength to go   ALL            THE                         WAY!!

On the other hand, Cubs' starting P Dennis Lamp seems to be in the dark as far as how to successfully pitch a baseball game, at least today.  He needs to retire a gaggle of 16 patient Padres just to scratch and scheme and claw his way through the first two innings...And then is gone to the showers, having allowed more runs (6) than patient Padre Rick Wise will ever need for his W.

Jerry Martin viciously homers in revenge for the Cubs in the 5th, slashing the Padres humbling lead from 6-0 to 6-1.  Angry little 2B Mike Tyson then smashes a double off the RCF, and PH Jim Tracy hacks an RBI single to cut the Padre lead to 6-2...

But San Diego calmly tacks on 3 runs in the B6th and B7th to leave the Cubs with dwindling time left, an enraged manager and an even bigger gap to overcome!

 

    

 

25  HA (2-0) 12-15-0  CN (0-2) 5-6-2

C  Alan Ashby 2-5/D/3R/RBI

2B Joe Morgan 2-4/T/2R/3RBI/2BB/SB

SS  Rafael 'Land Ahoy!' Landestoy 3-5/D/2R/RBI

3B Enos 'Cow Bell' Cabell 4-5/2T/R/3RBI

Astros infield hitting goes into orbit!

 

 

24  SF (0-2) 2-6-1  AB (1-1) 8-15-0

The thinking behind the Brave player acquisition and lineup must have been a) Who needs speed?  We'll have one or two token speed guys in the lineup just to keep the critics off our back.  b) The best lineup according to Bill James is just one slow-moving big slugger after another -- guys who homer or get free passes, setting up big innings,  because the opposing hurler's afraid of the long ball.  c) You don't need speed to run around the bases on homers, except the occasional inside-the-parker.  We can get by without the one or two of those an average team collects in a year, and as far as d) fielding... I mean with fielding percentages in MLB at .980 or higher, who needs to go higher.... As far as fielding range factors...Well, we believe it's more a case of being in the right place at the right time -- you know, a proper parking of each big guy's hulk in the right spot so he can just put up his glove to snag the ball without any running necessary, except to jog in and out to his position nine times a game!  And remember two other things: a) the weight information in particular provided on baseball players can be 1) tweaked a little (a lot?) and 2) reflect his weight after doing lots of laps every day in spring training -- not his pot-bellied real season beers & steaks & potatoes weight!!

Plus 3) height/reach, important in power because of the leverage involved, usually adds some gawkiness and error-proneness...sometimes CF Jason Werth being one possible current day exception -- but even he looks really awkward out there to me!

The Braves' lineup in slot #2 thru #8

2.  The long-winded 'Sarge', Gary Matthews, really nice man who lost his color job with the Phillies from rambling on and on about the obvious.

3.  Pudgy, lethargic-moving  Bob Horner. supposedly at the time the 2nd coming of Babe Ruth.

4.  6'4" Dale Murphy

5.  6'2" Jeff Burroughs

6.  Turtle-like 1B Chris Chambliss, still another player well over the 200 lb mark 

7.  Bruce 'Eggs' Benedict.... Maybe not over 200 lbs, but with all the slowness of a catcher.

8.  The astute company that makes the game identifies 2B Rennie Stennett as a notably Slow runner, along with Horner, Burroughs, and Chambliss.

With the slowness, we would also suggest that fielding awkwardness is part of the heavy price you pay for guys who can shower and sometimes shatter the mostly empty seats with expensive baseballs during pre-game batting practice.

Now, at a portly 200 lbs myself, I have nothing against heavier people in general.  It's to me the almost unparalleled homogeneity of this lineup as just focusing on one particular kind of player/hitter, eschewing all others! 

Diversity is needed for a lineup to succeed in the long run, not just guys that are big and strong and also may run real slow and go into long slumps due to their all or nothing approach.... 

In fact, this '80 Braves team reminds me a bit of the expansion 1961 Angels, who finished in last in the A.L., 37 1/2 games behind the great '61 Yankees.  These slow-moving Angels had a lineup made up mainly of old, out-of-shape sluggers:  C Del Rice, 1B Steve Bilko (perhaps the all-time icon of the one-dimensional slugger!), 2B Rocky Bridges, SS Jim Fregosi, 3B Eddie Yost, OFs Bob Cerv, and Faye Throneberry (and yes, they did have tiny Alby Pearson, who had 11 of the Angels' pitiful total of 37 steals, just for the extreme in variety!)

Other slow moving on the '61 Angels roster included the slow-moving likes of  Lee Thomas, Ted Kluszewski, Joe Koppe, Ken Hunt, Earl Averill, anc Ed Sadowski,  

Okay, yes, my daughter did recently back up her new car into my son's car in the driveway and practically tear the side off it... So maybe I'm a little quick on the trigger here...

On to the game, where, despite my diatribe against them,  was really about the  8-2 winners, the Braves.

B1st: 

1.  Dale Murphy go-ahead double

2.  Jeff Burroughs sac fly

B3rd:

3.  Gary Matthews bashes winning-margin double deep to LCF

4.  Bob Horner back to back double

B7th: (Giants only scores here as '1-2')

1-2. (S.F.) Jack Clark leadoff hit, Darrell Evans 2-run HR just over RF fence down foul line

5.  Chris Chambliss long RBI single RCF

6.  Brian Asselstine sac fly to the track in RF

B8th:

7.  Another Gary Matthews RBI double

8.  Jeff Burroughs slices RBI single down RF line

Speed kills....opponents' hopes for victory?

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

23  LD (1-1) 6-10-0  PT (0-2) 2-4-1

With this loss, the Buccos become the first N.L. team to sink to an 0-2 record... They are the opposite of their cross-state rival Phillies (2-0), who are the only 2-0 team so far in the N.L. portion of the EOBHR's 37th '10% replay plus tourney' of ALL MLB seasons, even 1876 when we get around to it, each to be reported in detail at the EOBHR homesite and also submitted to APBA for their message board. 

For the Dodgers, big Bob Welch not only pitches the 1st 8 innings allowing just 4 hits and 2 runs for the easy win, but also aids the offense with a 2-out T6th insurance run double into the LCF gap to  bump the Bum lead to 4-2.... And not only that, but Welch's 2-out 2-ply hit keeps the inning alive, so that starving 0-7 Derrel Thomas and worried 0-6 Rudy Law can both get off their schneids with RBI hits against the great (but NOT in the HOF; call your local congressman or HOF insider to lobby accordingly!) submarine baller Kent Tekulve, who relieved in 1,050 games with a 2.85 ERA and 184 saves.

The Pirates only big hit was a 2-run homer by 'The Hit Man', Mike Easler, B4th.  It was a laser that just cleared the RF fence...But then determined winning Dodger starter Bob Welch comes right back with an RBI double at his 1st opportunity, re-establishing a 2-run Dodger cushion T6th.  What a control freak!!

Bob Welch was accused of singing his song 'Hypnotized' throughout the game while making his pitches...

'Seems like a dream, because I got you hypnotized...'  P Bob Welch, with some help from the stands by the rest of Fleetwood Mac as well as fans who know great modern rock music -- I bet F.Mac might be big, BIG, BIG fans of MLB/EOBHR!!  Well, I'm not really that sure about that at all...could be way off

 

22  ME (1-1) 2-5-0  PH (2-0) 3-6-2

The Phils become the 1st 2-0 team in the 1980 EOBHR N.L. with this tight, comeback 3-2 late inning victory over the Expos, who actually finished one game behind (90-72) the 1st place Phillies (91-71) in re-al (like Real Madrid) 1980.

However, in this column, we are of course dealing here with the faux, sham, ersatz, cheesy. seedy world of EOBHR.  Not to put EOBHR down.... Just to make sure no one thinks this game really happened on a real baseball diamond with tens of thousands of drunken fans forgetting most of the details of the game by the time they arrive home.   

EOBHR, while just a guy playing games on his PC while he drinks lots of coffee, has its own essence', its own presence'.....its own 'c'est la vie' , its own 'qu'est -ce qui se?'.... 

C'est vrai... Until two out B8th, the Phillies are being shut out, sanded down to a smooth nothing by Scott Sanderson and then unable to stand the heat in the kitchen against closer Woody ('Fry Cook') Fryman...

But finally, as we join the action, things are beginning to unravel a bit for les Expos... The Phils' 39-year-old Pete Rose, close to his last hurrah...But no, not really...Pete leads the real N.L. in hits in real strike-shortened 1981, collects 172 hits and scores 80 runs in '82, hits .365 after being dealt back to his original Reds in '84 (.286 for all of '84), draws 86 walks in 119 games in '85, and then finally bites the dust he had somehow been avoiding, crawling off the stage with his pathetic realworld 8-2-0-25/15R/.219 in 72 games for the Reds in 1986...at age 45!

Anyway, in this game,  39-year-old Pete Rose, still with plenty of deterioriating to do before he's lost enough to have to face his last hurrah, draws a crafty, checked-swing ball 4 one out walk for his Phillies with one out B8th, Philly down 2-0 to starter Scott Sanderson.... 

And hold it, fans, I've just noticed that walk just got Scott yanked, and coming in will be 40-year-old reliever Woody Fryman... Gee: In this era had most of the good athletes evacuated MLB to play other sports??.... Elsewise, where are all of these elderly hangers-on coming from??

And sure enough, crafty Larry Bowa does against elderly Fryman just what long-toofed Rose did against young Scott Sanderson!  He draws a walk, to put the tying men on base!

Mike Schmidt, a man born back in the 1940's like me, manages a slow chopper (but listen: I'm sure Mike was going all out for the fences: he just got a little piece of the ball on his savage swing)... and now the runners are on 2nd & 3rd with two down.  So up steps fine Venezuelan second-sacker Manny Trillo, born on Christmas in 1950 when I got my 1st electric train, one of those rare years, the first since 1915, wherein the Phillies actually had reached the real World Series.  (This 1980 of course was to be another: in reality, not necessarily in EOBHR...probably not in EOBHR...but you never know).

So, with the bases bloked (i.e., filled with blokes in red and white), Manny Trillo fists a lead-reversing bases bloked single into short RF!!

Now, reflecting on this game in my old age, thank goodness strong-armed, fleet as the wind RF Bake McBride had thrown out the Braves' speedy OF Rowland Office trying to score on Warren Cromartie's double with two out T5th, or this game might still be dragging on!

Manny is called and 'phew!' -- he is in fact chosen by subsequent events -- to drive in what proves to be the winning run! 

 

 

21  SC (1-1) 2-3-0  NM (1-1) 3-6-2

Both of these teams were in fact sub-.500 clubs in real '80, the Mets 28 games below .500, the Cardinals 14 games below...Of course, the games below notion is kinda spurious, because it doubles the real win gap of a team from .500... For instance, if the Mets had won just 14 (not 28) more games, they would have been 81-81....they were 14 wins below .500, since all a loss is just the inverted, hideous mirror image of a win.  If the Mets had won 28 more games, like the '28 games below' convention might suggest, they would have won 95 games and had the best record in either N.L. division.

Well, enough of that side-chatter.  There is very little in the way of manly offense in this game.  Steve Henderson (2-3/T/2R/RBI/BB) is far and away the most productive hitter on either side.  You see, in this anemic, almost pathetic game between two real-world second division teams, two of the winning Mets' three runs come from S.Henderson scampering home from 3rd when pitches get by offensively-focused C Ted Simmons....

But, in a partially offsetting, and even more bizarre and extreme catcher gaffe, one of the two Cardinal runs scores when Met C Alex Trevino drops a Pat Zachry strike 3 to none other than Redbird C Ted Simmons with Ken Oberkfell (game-tying single T2nd) on first.  Met C Trevino has to locate the exact location of the ball after his gaffe sends it spinning around under his feet -- then, once Alex snatches the spheroid in his haste to redeem himself he throws it over 1B Mike Jorgenesen's head into RF -- where an amazed RF Joel Youngblood hesitates momentarily, as the unexpected/unusual defensive opportunity caught him deep in thought about the pretty redhead in the RF stands who keeps yelling his name and then her phone number!~!

Pat Zachry pitches a 3-hitter over 7 innings to defeat Pete Vuckovich (CG 6-hitter), with Jeff Reardon registering the save with no-nonsense, no wild pitch, 6-up/6-down relief in the 8th & 9th!

Mike R.: That's right, Pat, I'll handle the Reardon of this game