Lost in the minutiae, just like the Giants greatness at times. The casual fan turns off or clicks to another channel after about 2 or 3 foul balls and misses the greatness that was embedded, but well hidden, in this AB. Like a pearl in a shell.
This AB is a mini-clinic on having a good hitting approach and strategy, plate discipline and batting eye as well as tough as nails two-strike hitting
from FanGraphs Baseball:
Buster Posey Fights for His Pitch | FanGraphs Baseball:
When a hitter gets into a two-strike count, his mission is to protect the plate. The expectation is that he’ll swing at anything close, so that he doesn’t strike out looking. You look stupid when you strike out looking and nobody likes it. This outside fastball was very close and Posey didn’t swing at it. It was a ball, it was definitely a ball, but it was almost a borderline strike, and there have been worse strikes before, probably even called by this very umpire. Posey didn’t swing at it. Had this pitch been called a strike, some fans might’ve been upset at Posey for not protecting. This pitch was called a ball and we wonder instead if Posey has just the most amazing eye in the universe. Results-based analysis allows us to label this a spectacular take. Blanton executed perfectly. Posey did the right thing, probably. Posey definitely did the right thing in hindsight.
'via Blog this'
The author ends his piece with "Great at bat by Posey. He seems to have a lot of those." Now you know why. Sometimes greatness in baseball is disguised or hidden beneath the surface and what seems to be inaction to the casual observer is really greatness in disguise. I think Paink and Belt show similar approaches and discipline and consequently they throw out great AB's on many occasions as well as Posey. Matt Carpenter of the Cardinals is another one from the opposite side of the field. They don't back down or give in with two strikes and they certainly don't just swing from the heels. They hunker down and battle.
If you have a lineup full of these type of guys you can grind down and wear out even the best pitchers. It seems like the Yankees and Mariners in the early 2000's were loaded with guys like this and go figure, both teams won a lot of games.
More from the article:
Okay, it’s 1-and-2. Blanton has thrown a first-pitch curve for a strike, a low changeup for a ball, and a slider for a strike. Already he’s given Posey a different look.
It’s hard to tell from the camera angle, but this is a fastball down and in, tucked just inside the corner of the zone. It looks like the pitch was supposed to be just a little more inside, to tie Posey up, but it wasn’t in a bad spot, and a foul was about the best Posey could’ve hoped for in a defensive situation. Posey couldn’t cheat by sitting on a fastball while behind in the count.
The thing about most curveballs is that they aren’t really swing-and-miss pitches, like you’d think they might be. They disrupt timing and frequently catch hitters looking. From his body language, Blanton probably hoped this was a swing-and-miss curveball. It was perfectly located, low, and just off the plate. Posey wound up ahead of it and barely got a piece. A piece was all that he needed to get to keep himself alive.
This is a pitch that was quickly forgotten, given the way the at-bat wound up. Ahead 1-and-2, Blanton missed with a fastball and gave Posey a heater right down the middle of the zone. This was presumably not one of the put-away pitches to which Blanton was referring. This was a mistake, but because Posey probably still had offspeed pitches in his mind, he couldn’t get the swing he’d like to get on this pitch. He stayed alive, though.
When a hitter gets into a two-strike count, his mission is to protect the plate. The expectation is that he’ll swing at anything close, so that he doesn’t strike out looking. You look stupid when you strike out looking and nobody likes it. This outside fastball was very close and Posey didn’t swing at it. It was a ball, it was definitely a ball, but it was almost a borderline strike, and there have been worse strikes before, probably even called by this very umpire. Posey didn’t swing at it. Had this pitch been called a strike, some fans might’ve been upset at Posey for not protecting. This pitch was called a ball and we wonder instead if Posey has just the most amazing eye in the universe. Results-based analysis allows us to label this a spectacular take. Blanton executed perfectly. Posey did the right thing, probably. Posey definitely did the right thing in hindsight.
Back to work. Blanton throws Posey a fastball tucked into the low-away corner. Maybe a little too over the plate, but not that badly over the plate. Posey knows to protect this time, because the pitch looks like a strike, or it looks like it could be called a strike. Foul ball. Tough pitch to hit; maybe the next one will be better. That’s the idea of the whole at-bat, basically. Tough pitch to hit; maybe the next one will be better.
I still can’t quite figure out how the at-bat didn’t end with a strikeout right here. This is a changeup, low, out of the zone, just over the outer half. It begins away and tails back over the plate, like a backdoor changeup, and also there’s the part where it was low and out of the zone. This is a strikeout pitch. I suppose it could’ve been more low, but it was sufficiently low to generate a swing and miss. Posey gets out in front and gets a piece. Tough pitch to hit; maybe the next one will be better.
Kablammo! “M-V-P” chants. “Beat L-A” chants. Starting to think that Blanton doesn’t only do the little hop when he thinks he’s getting a swing and miss. This is the very definition of a hanging slider. Instead of being thrown to a good spot, this slider is thrown to pretty much the worst possible spot, up and over the middle of the plate. I wouldn’t say it looks like a homer off the bat, but it looks like it might be a homer, and indeed it was a homer. Posey was working toward this, and after fighting off a bunch of pitcher’s pitches, he took advantage of a hitter’s pitch.
To review:
Old-timey baseball wisdom asserts that a hitter gets one pitch to hit in any given at-bat. Of course that isn’t always true, and it would be outrageously bizarre if that were always true, and here you could say that Posey got two good pitches to hit, even after falling into a two-strike count. The second pitch to hit was much much more hittable than the first one and Posey made no mistake. It was Blanton who made the mistake, after having executed so effectively before.
The temptation is to believe that Posey did this on purpose. That he kept fighting pitches off so he could live to see another. I’m guessing Posey wasn’t trying to just foul off all those pitches, but it’s to his credit that he could anyway. For the most part Blanton did what he wanted and he couldn’t make Posey go away until Posey made himself go away after jogging in a circle. Buster Posey kept himself from striking out when he easily could’ve struck out, and eventually, a pitcher will make a bad mistake. No pitcher can hit his spot every single time. Sometimes even the best command pitchers will miss by a foot, or more.
And that’s the story of how Buster Posey hit his 20th home run of the season. Draw all the parallels to the NL West race that you like. The Dodgers got off to a quick start, but they couldn’t put the Giants away, and the Giants ultimately vaulted ahead. I’ve said before that everything is something else in a nutshell, and this Blanton vs. Posey at-bat is most certainly included in everything.
Great at-bat by Posey. He seems to have a lot of those.