(neither of these men is Mike Piazza or Doug Mientkiewicz. As you might’ve noticed)
Writes Sam Frank,
Is this guy for real? 4 home runs, plus a near miss, in 13 at-bats, plus 3 walks? The walks are almost as encouraging as the homers–he’s not stressed at the plate and has an eye for the zone, so maybe it’s not just beginner’s luck.Is this guy for real? 4 home runs, plus a near miss, in 13 at-bats, plus 3 walks? The walks are almost as encouraging as the homers–he’s not stressed at the plate and has an eye for the zone, so maybe it’s not just beginner’s luck.
Hard to say. 27 HR’s and 95 RBI’s at Binghamton says he might not be a fluke. On the other hand, the pitching gets tougher the second or third time the league has seen you. Or at least that’s the way I remember it with Kevin Maas or Shane Spencer. Still, I’d rather bask in Jacobs’ glory, however fleeting, than see Jose Offerman getting a start.
On Tuesday night, KTAR’s Greg Schuttle and Ken Phelps were grousing about Ramon Castro swinging at a 2-0 pitch with the Mets leading by 10 runs. On Wednesday, with New York up by 5 runs early in the game, the duo began speculating about the Mets stealing signs. It must be hard to protect the integrity of the game night after night when you have to watch such shitty pitching.
Still, you’ve got to give the Diamondbacks full credit for standing up for themselves. A lot of other teams would’ve waited for the Mets to take a 20 run lead before throwing at Kaz Matsui.
Poking around at metsgeek.com, I read that people who’ve seen Jacobs in the minors think he has a hole in his swing for high strikes (not that those get called too often), that he hasn’t had the greatest plate discipline, and that he’s not much at calling a game when he does catch. They slot him as a good backup, no more, once opposing scouts compile decent reports on him for their pitchers. But for now I choose to disbelieve all facts and just focus on a tiny, amazing sample.
The funny thing is how obvious its been that so far, he HAS had trouble catching up to high fastballs but hits everything below the knees – yet the Met announcers have seemed oblivious to this, telling us how supposedly he has trouble with breaking pitches (though he’s crushed every one I’ve seen)
Jacobs is the new Francouer (who was the new Ryan Howard), but seriously, those past two games against the Dismalbacks were just massive beatdowns. The beat up on NL West party ends this Sunday and
the NL East/wild card dogfight starts next week. I have to say that as well as the Phillies have been cruising since the break, they will have their hands full next week at Shea, especially with Pedro and Seo as probables.