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M.T. Karthik

~ midcareer archive, 1977 – 2017 plus 2022

M.T. Karthik

Tag Archives: Cardinals

Giants Come From Behind, Hit With RISP, Beat Cards in St. Louis

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by mtk in Commentary, Post Game Blasts

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Tags

baseball.st., Cardinals, commentary, Francisco, gia nts, Karthik, League, Louis, mlb, mtk, nl, one, San, series, sf, win

This was the game where I began to wonder if we might have this. We might have the division because we are a real team … built from good guys.

I was worried because St. Louis is a baseball town and they’ve won the most titles in the National League, and their … culture, their actual baseball culture is so much better than ours – I don’t mean our best versus their best, I mean our current fans versus their perennial ones.

[I am not DONE complaining about this, you people need to CHANGE].

But this team shows a flexibility and a stick-to-it-iveness that is quite impressive. Giants came from behind twice with power from Morse (doing what we hired him to do) and Pablo Sandoval – wow, the cowboy boots shift is turning crazy now – who hit for an RBI for the 9th consecutive time, with a homer, which has brought comparison to Barry Bonds from everyone.

It is interesting to remember that Bonds arrived in SF from Pittsburgh at the age of 28. Pablo Sandoval will be 28 this August. What if Pablo’s “Barry Years” lie ahead?

(Just tweeted the shit out of that line)

Vogelsong pitched well, the ‘pen continues to impress and Romo continues to be a little shaky. He gave up a run in the ninth and had runners on who, crossing the plate, could cost the game. He wrestled his way out, inducing a pop up to end the game and I tweeted:

TWEET by @giantsbaseballcorner : “I don’t mind Romo struggling a bit against a decent team on the road and fighting his way out of it. #ElMechon #sfgiants 17th save. Builds.”

Moments later Ray Woodson tweeted he would spend the post game show trying to calm down the Romo Angst. My reply was:

TWEET by @giantsbaseballcorner : “Romo angst is typical of the non-baseball playing bandwagonning dumbasses who now occupy our park claiming to feel “tortured”

and I still feel that way this morning.

But it did lead to a discussion for me about the word “torture” and why it offended me when taken on as a badge after Krukow said it. It was true when Kruk said it about 2010.

It was “Torture” for the fans who have watched for five decades as the G-men kept getting close and failed to win the World Series in San Francisco. It was torture for anyone who watched ’02 …. ’93 …. ’89 … ’62.

But after we finally won, the word for the first win in SF was “RELIEF”

See, it can’t really be “TORTURE” again until 2068.

If we don’t win the World Series until 2068, that summer would be torture. Use of the term before then is insulting to long time fans – well at least to me.

 

Series Recap: The Cardinals Have “Figured Out” Matt Cain

02 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by mtk in Series Recaps

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Tags

2013, baseball, busch, cain, Cardinals, doubleheader, giants, june, Louis, matt, mlb, recap, sanfrancisco, series, sf, St., stadium

Crazy double header in which the Cards scored an obscene number of runs off Matt Cain for the second time in a row in, specifically, the third inning – representing some adjustment they are making to a habit he has that allows them to shell him for hits the second time through the order. Ouch.

That said, in the final game of the series the Giants got back to basics, played crisp defense and got a GREAT start from Chad Gaudin. This win was important for many reasons, maybe later I’ll get into some of those but it was:

Cardinals 15, Giants 1 in the doubleheader as they won 8-0 and 7-1.

Giants 4, Cardinals 2 – Chad Gaudin gets the win in his first start of 2013.

Cardinals Back Against Our Wall

06 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in PreGame GBCs

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Tags

#BeatSTL, against, backs, baseball, Cardinals, Francisco, giants, Louis, mlb, our, San, sf, St., wall

The National League Championship Series last year was between the winners of the two previous World Series and both teams relied heavily on defense – and in particular, pitching. Relief pitching. Specialist pitching. Pitching.

When Barry Zito broke the spirit of the Cards with the Giants backs against their wall, and then subsequently The Triple Kiss, Hunter Pence’s broken bat double that escaped Pete Kozma, buried them, a viper found solace in their bosom. The St. Louis Cardinals tears were lost in rain. This is a team that really wants to beat us

In the offseason, Adam Wainwright signed a deal like what we gave Matt Cain in 2011, guaranteeing he’ll retire a Card. He’s their Big Horse. The Cards have been on the road to start the season and lost a 16 inning outing Sunday in Arizona to go under .500. So the Giants are facing the St, Louis Cardinals’ ace with their back against the wall to return home for their opener even.

Matt Cain was saved the enduring embarrassment of a loss because the Giants can’t provide him run support for the umpteenth time in six  years, because George Kontos took the loss on the freak swing by Kershaw. That said, Matt Cain needs a Home Win, Dammit.

The rubber match should be a very good one, and I expect this one to have more runs. Cain will scatter 4 runs across 7 innings, so WE HAVE TO TAG WAINWRIGHT. Giants 9 – 4 is what I want to see. Cain goes 1 – 0.

Brandon Belt, we need some offense.

Go Giants. Go Matty.

#BeatSTL

Home Opener – Zeets TCB

05 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Post Game Blasts

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Tags

AT&T, Barry, Cardinals, giants, home, Louis, opener, park, San.Francisco.st., sf, Zito

GBC Recap – The Opening Series v. LA (2-1)

04 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by mtk in Series Recaps

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Tags

16, 2013, angeles, Arias, Arizona, baseball, Bumgarner, cain, Cardinals, Casilla, champion, chavez, classic, corner, diamondbacks, dodgers, Francisco, George, giants, gold, hunter, inning, Joaquin, Kershaw, Kontos, Lincecum, los, Louis, Madison, matt, mlb, opening, pablo, pence, platinum, ravine, recap, reliever, Romo, San, Sandoval, santiago, Sergio, series, solid, St., stellar, Tim, world

It took a perfect outing from one of the best lefties in baseball – including the first home run he ever hit in his life  – to mar what was otherwise an excellent opening series for the San Francisco Giants.

The Giants looked crisp off the mound and decent at the plate, hitting in rotation situationally and even manufacturing runs. The biggest issue at the plate is we are once again on pace to lead the league in hitting into double plays! But it’s early and that stuff will hopefully start to winnow out. Pitching – particularly Cain, Bumgarner and Romo – was stellar.

The Giants won the series 2-1 over their NL West division rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers to take an early season lead in what will likely be a fight for first place in the division with Arizona. The Diamondbacks made a statement in last night’s game – a scrappy, hard-fought, come-from-behind, 16-inning win over the St. Louis Cardinals to start their season 2-1 as well.

Pitching

Starting pitchers did not allow a single earned run.

Cain was, typically, Big Horse consistent and stable. Bumgarner was intensely precise and Lincecum used balls and walks liberally, but stayed on top of his game.

Madison Bumgarner’s performance was platinum. He had tight, controlled movement and dominated the Dodger lineup. It was great to see from the young, powerful Big Country Mad Bum.

Relief

Bruce Bochy showed smart sensitivity pulling Cain in the first game. Cain and Lincecum are the eldest on our very young staff, and both got pulled before the 7th. This is how to develop middle and late relief and to protect starters’ arms over the long season.

Over the course of the last two years Bochy has slowly shown an increasing willingness to use the bullpen rather than risk fatigue – either of arms in the long term or of minds on the mound in the short term – with our starting pitching. This has culminated in the masterful use of a committee of late relief and closers last year down the stretch.

It’s important because our most significant problem (as pointed out most clearly by Bay City Ball) is depth at Starting Pitching. If one of our big 5 goes down, we’d have to adapt fast.

That said, poor George Kontos …

Image

shake it off homes. freak swing by the opposing pitcher.

Before that Kontos had an excellent 7th inning and looked ready to work the middle and pass the ball over to one of our capable lefties before Romo. It was a shame it shook out like that. We believe in you George, it was a solid outing before the guy decided he wanted to make history in LA.

In a way George, we needed you to take that hit because a LOT of us really don’t want Matt Cain getting any more losses in tight games than he has to. The poor guy has suffered his entire career with win-loss records beleaguered by our inability to produce runs. You took those runs that night so Matty wouldn’t get them and the loss and we appreciate it.

Casilla’s wild pitch, Lincecum’s, others’ can be chalked up to the season being very young and we should be honest and expect more sloppy working it out in the first month or so.

In Casilla’s case especially, the guy is coming off winning the World Baseball Championship – The Dominicans ran the table! and he was overwrought and excellent in relief. (Haft has details on Casilla’s effort).

The guy has played more ball under pressure than most this year – Casilla gets a one month pass.

(DR vs. Japan would’ve been interesting)

TWEET

Casilla’sWP:coming off winning the WBC,beating PR to do it,more ball under pressure than most this year – Casilla gets a one month pass.

Sergio Romo was SOLID GOLD. and he tweeted throughout including one which read that his “goal” was 50 saves! That was exciting to read.

I hope you make it my man … That’s What’s Up!

Batting

Shutdown performance by Kershaw was followed by a solid job of hitting by the Giants in game 2, specifically by Joaquin Arias, but as YahooSports pointed out “The Giants scored their first run on three consecutive one-out hits, including Arias’ RBI single.”

Situational hitting and manufacturing runs was the story of the offense and this continued to game three when Crawford and Pagan joined in on the action. But the team added homers by Pablo and Pence! Thrilling stuff to see the offense coming together – power, contact, base-running (I’m excluding el caballero loco on that last one). Pagan leading off, Scutaro, Pablo and Posey behind him is going to work well.

The problem remains that too often the Giants destroyed opportunities by hitting into double plays. It is the beginning of the season and on any other team I wouldn’t bat an eye, but we have a historic problem that reaches back several years in this regard. Maybe bunt practice in order to take advantage of squeeze chances would help in other situations as well. If we aren’t going get a lot of hits, or score a lot of runs we have to at least keep runners on the paths and continue to manufacture runs as we have been doing the last year and change.

Defense

Infield

With Brandon Belt falling sick, Bochy had a chance to do more moving of the chess pieces. Arias on first and Sanchez behind the plate yielded and didn’t, had succeses and problems, but more I was happy to see this kind of constant moving about of players. I am of the mind we need a flexible team offensive scheme.

(Hec or Bus)ter at plate

Belt, Posey, Arias or Panda at first

Arias, Panda or Scutaro at third

Blanco or Torres in LF.

It’s flex-offense. I love Bochy for this team approach and have no problem with half a season going by with pieces moving in concert or individually to suit opponent, weather, interleague and etc. I have come around on this. Used to chew my nails to shreds over Bochy’s calls, now I see a logic in it. We can recreate units to suit. Cool.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Brandon Crawford also known as @bcraw35 continues to rock short. Golden Glove campaign [BCrawGG13] required.

Outfield

Hunter Pence still looks like a crazy-eyed wild man going after balls. I trust him … and yet … it makes me nuts to see Pence and Pagan still doing the chipmunk act from the old Looney Tunes cartoons .. “After you.” “No, After You. “No I insist.” (ball drops to the field). I know Pence has only been out there a few months for us, but he and Pagan have to work that out because problems we saw last year continue. Pagan manhandled CF again. LF hardly saw any action at all so the platoon was untested.

All told an excellent series for the Giants and a great way to launch Giants Baseball Corner. I will be posting Series Wrap-ups like this whether I post full series game for game or not. Feel free to comment, feedback etc. best is on TWITTER, in my opinion.

Sorry to everybody but particularly to Julian for over tweeting while getting GBC set up.

All are welcome here where we are focused on the relentless flow of the positive river.

Karthik

The Triple Kiss and the Side Effects of Slow Motion

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by mtk in baseball, essay, journalism, sport

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2012, Cardinals, crazy, critique, David, definition, hd, high, hunter, kiss, Kozma, League, Ma, mlb, moments, motion, National, NCAA, nlcs, overcranking, pence, Pete, referee, replay, review, screwball, series, slow, slow-mo, sports, St.Louis, triple, umpire, video, volleyball, weird

I refer to this broken bat double which swerved into play, as:

The Triple Kiss

This excellent .gif of The Triple Kiss is by @CorkGaines

Hunter Pence knocked in three runs when this ball left his broken bat after a crazy series of three collisions – the last of which caused it to swerve in the air and bound past the outstretched glove of the shortstop.

Second-year Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma, who was very well positioned, reacted at lightning speed, but was caught going the wrong way for a fraction of a second because the third point of contact changed the ball’s direction.

The Triple Kiss happened in less than half a second. Watching it live, as broadcast, I had no idea the ball hit the bat three times; not until seeing it like this.

I knew it was a broken bat hit, my shoulders slumped at the same instant that Kozma jumped – and then suddenly, the ball took a crazy turn in the air and, as if it had eyes, bounced past the outstretched glove of the recovering Kozma, on the second base side.

The Triple Kiss was significantly faster than the human eye … even the highly trained eyes of a ballplayer, or an umpire. It affords us the opportunity to discuss the intense amount of new information that slow motion yields.

Slow motion was originally known – in analog filmmaking – as overcranking, a method by which the speed of the film was altered through handcranking the frames. Overcranking was first used in sports as long ago as the 1930’s in the coverage of boxing matches.

It took a long time for overcranking to become slow motion and in that time we got pretty used to it. We allowed slow motion to creep into our observation of games with such ease and normality that the NFL, NBA and MLB now all stop play to incorporate it as a tool in evaluating what has actually taken place.

But yesterday, after a fascinating conversation with an NCAA referee in another sport, David Ma, I began to wonder whether there’s a measurable visual side effect of using high definition slow motion when trying to call a game.

A paranoid part of me also began to wonder whether we’ve already begun what sci-fi feared: letting machines that are ‘more than us’ run our most human aspects.

David Ma believes we should alter the rules of instant replay review so that any referee or umpire using video replay should NOT be allowed to use the slow motion effect in the review.

Ma says, “I have no problem with the use of multiple camera angles for the review, but video review referees should not be allowed to use slow-motion.”

Ma believes there is a significant effect on the field when calling games with video review that includes slow motion, which he refers to as akin to “refereeing under a microscope.”

He points out that no human being could possibly see some of the things that slow motion reveals. In fact, Ma believes referees are already changing the way they call a game because of the presence of the super-slow-motion of HD:

“In pro football now there’s mandatory booth review on any score and in the final two minutes … if you’re a ref and you know that, why would you make a call? The camera can see everything you can’t so you’re most likely going to be wrong!”

Ma speaks with the authority of knowing what it’s like to have to make a call with a super-slow-mo eyeball looking over your shoulder: “With HD slow motion, by far, most of the time the referee’s call is going to be wrong.”

It opens up a discussion about what our perception of real-time is. For example would an umpiring or refereeing crew allowed only to watch the replays in real-time be more effective within the state of play? Ma believes assuredly yes.

This process by which we have accepted the super-slow-mo eyeball as the authority has taken place without significant consideration of the side effect – a human response to the presence of a machine that can see things we can’t.

But perhaps more significantly, the use of slow-mo in sports coverage points out that despite the presence of a tremendous amount of data being added to the information of the events of real-time by slow motion, it’s an effect we’ve subconsciously accepted without critique as a part of our capacity to watch something that has happened.

To David Ma, we’ve stepped onto an escalator which will take us to the point where it will be impossible for a human being to call a game.

I argued that perhaps the refereeing crew could judge the play on the basis of human terms: take in all the data, including the super-slow-mo stuff, and then the video review ref might say: ‘Well, sure we can see that under scrutiny, but there’s no way we could have seen that in real-time’ – thus overriding the machine.

But David Ma reminded me who pays the bills:

“The broadcast media, which is putting out incredibly detailed HD video in super slow-mo will grab that ref by the collar and say, you’re calling it like the nation just saw it, now.”

It rang true. But not one to make an issue of the problem without offering a solution, Ma says the only smart fix is to take slow-mo away from the refs. Alter our use of video replay to remove slow motion.

It’s a bold idea designed to keep the real-time on the field … well, real.

But there would emerge the huge issue that we, the fans, would have the access to all this information that the super-slow motion yields and would be stuck with an unresolvable dispute against the call made by humans trapped in a real-time consideration of events at hand.

The best example – when such frustration peaked – is the now infamous “intertouchdownception” that gave the Seattle Seahawks a victory in the waning seconds over the Green Bay Packers by virtue of a Hail Mary pass that was impossible to call with the human eye and replacement refs and the current NFL rules and the tacit agreement that management isn’t calling interference on Hail Mary’s (lol).

intertouchdownception

One of the refs on the field who signaled touchdown still believes he made an acceptable call as per one reading of the rule book. Fans remain unconvinced.

CBS, the widest, slowest form of sports broadcasting, interviewed two of the replacement refs a few days later.

If, as Dave Ma suggests, we were to remove slow-motion from the toolbox for referees, could we as fans accept the difference of our view being an enhanced view from that of the refs?

Would we hound the refs for their inability to see what only a machine can see?

Or could we embrace the idea that we are keeping machines out of what is a fundamentally human exercise – sport.

In games like tennis and cricket, slow motion is used to define where or when a fast-moving object or person is at a given moment: the ball on or outside the line, the bat past the line before the ball strikes the wickets and so on.

The absolute exclusion of the slow motion effect would be a pointless exercise. However, it may be that the exclusion of slow motion from video review in certain situations would help keep the game real.

M.T. Karthik

This blog archives early work of M.T. Karthik, who took every photograph and shot all the video here unless otherwise credited.

Performances and installations are posted by date of execution.

Writing appears in whatever form it was originally or, as in the case of poems or journal entries, retyped faithfully from print.

all of it is © M.T. Karthik

a minute of rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYLHNRS8ik4

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