The Machete moniker might have to be replaced with El Hechicero. The Twins would agree.
Maldy is an interesting case study.
My feeling is his role in managing our pitchers gains several notches of importance with every postseason series.
That leaves Diaz scrounging for ABs, but his time will come.
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I think yesterday was a perfect example as to why Maldonado is our starting catcher. Diaz needs to be taking notes and learning all that he can from Maldonado.
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Correa gave credit to Maldonado for keeping the Twins hitters off balance. Said he called pitches against expected slugging (i.e. avoiding the hitters’ power zones), called breaking balls in hitters’ counts, fastballs up in pitchers’ counts, etc.
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In yesterday’s post game interviews correa gave maldanado’s preparation credit for keeping the twins hitters off balance.
Glad that yanier has him as a role-model.
Pitching backwards
All the bitching about Diaz needs to stop. Machete will be and should the catcher in every postseason game. As has been said, Diaz should learn all he can because his time will come.
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Verducci has been covering the series and his post-gamer this morning focused on Machete:
https://www.si.com/mlb/2023/10/12/astros-beat-twins-game-4-alds-martin-maldonado
Maldonado guided four pitchers through the night. In ancient Greece, the captains of trading vessels would hire local fishermen to bring their ships safely into harbor. These locals who knew the waterways so well became known as harbor captains, or as they were known in Greek, pedon , literally the blade of an oar. From pedon we get the word “pilot.” Today, often as required by law, we have pilots who must be hired to board large vessels or those with hazardous cargo to steer the boat safely to shore. Maldonado is the baseball equivalent of such pilotage.
Pressly had thrown 68 full-count pitches since July 15, 2022. This was the first one that was a fastball called for a strike. It was the perfect pitch—and the perfect ending to another team getting Maldonado-ed.
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Tell me you got bullied for being a nerd in high school without telling me you got bullied for being a nerd in high school.
Good lord, fucking windbag.
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He’s been calling him Albus Maldonado which is even cringier.
I admire Rosenthal’s efficiency with the bow tie. Far fewer words.
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Fucking Rosenthal. His article this morning has the Astros “cheating” in 2017 AND 2018 and a gutless “some say” in 2019 also, but there was no definite proof.
Boy was that some horseshit. I expect better from him.
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Commissioner’s report said part of 2018 they essentially did the Red Sox method without the live-relay from the trash can, then gave up on it because players believed it was ineffective. That was corroborated by the recent interview with the former video guy who said they junked the system altogether early in 2018.
The “some say” 2019 shit is beneath him. I think the only place I’ve seen that on paper is in Andy Martino’s book with no named sources, and I believe no unnamed sources who even claimed direct knowledge.
That’s only because the Astros cleverly lost every WS home game to throw 'em off the scent.
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I hope the Astros give these reporters and fans who are still hung up on the Astros beating the Dodgers to win the 2017 World Series another big old shitburger to eat by winning it again this year.
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Verducci suffers from pedonphilia.
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FUCK KEN ROSENTHAL
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Are we sure Bob Costas didn’t write this?
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His editor must have been drunk.
Vin Scully was the only one who could pull off a classical tangent to a baseball game, tell an interesting story or factoid about it, not miss a pitch, and not seem pretentious in the slightest. Nobody else can do that, and they should stop trying.
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