Worrywart, or, Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud ...
Yes, the A's whomped the Reds again last night.
Yes, the hitting continues in high gear, even with the continued absence of Chavez.
Yes, our overall prospects look much better than those of the Angels, pace Rob Neyer's piece today.
However ...
The Confidence Man is a bit concerned about Rich Harden.
Harden had a tough-as-nails showdown with Ken Griffey, Jr. in the 6th inning last night. Ken Arneson waxes rhapsodic over said at-bat here at Will Carroll's joint.
Whereas Ken sees the joy in Harden reaching back for something extra (97-98-100-98 mph pitch sequence) trying to whiff Griffey, The Confidence Man sees the callow overconfidence of youth -- and the lack of a guiding paternalistic hand.
Ken does concede that after the Griffey at bat, Harden fell apart. But he notes no seriously ill consequences.
The Confidence Man, however, fully expects that Harden may report "stiffness" in his arm, leading to a skipping of his next turn in the rotation. Not that we have any inside dope, or anythign like that. But the pattern -- headstrong young hurler overamps his deliver to impress living legend at bat -- gives us much trepidation. Again, we have to ask: where was pitching coach Curt Young? Yes, it's good to see Harden confident and going right after hitters -- but what good does it do to have him blow out his arm doing so? Note also that Harden threw 106 pitches in 5-1/3 innings.
We'll be monitoring the wires for reports on any of Harden's lingering aftereffects.
On a sidebar, various commenters at Athletics Nation* note that Neyer conspicuously fails to eat crow for his antiHattebergianism; The Confidence Man would also like to point out that Neyer neglects the recent hot streaks of Kotsay and Crosby, which have propelled them both to respectiable offensive profiles of late.
*Note: corrected ascription of anti-antiHattebergian comments.
3 Comments:
Did I really say that about antihattebergianism? Not that the thought hadn't occurred to me, but I don't remember writing it.
Antihattebergianism: I gotta use that word more often.
Oh, and welcome to bloggerdom, Confidence Man.
Also, I was too busy enjoying the moment to worry about Harden's arm. I usually don't fret until about 110 pitches. I'm still not really worried. I think he's going to go on 6 days rest in his next start.
I agree that Macha should have had Duchscherer warm up a couple of batters sooner than he did, though. With two runners on and Harden around 100 pitches, it's time to get prepared.
Thanks for the kind words, Ken.
My bad -- I conflated a couple of comments at Will carroll & at Athletics Nation, and mistakenly ascribed the anti-antiHattebergianistic comments to you. Yes, I think all of us A's fans who read Neyer's piece were thinking, "What? No Hatteberg mea culpa?"
But, yes, I think we should definitely propagate "antiHattebergianism" across the baseball blogosphere -- or, rather, propagate the *term* to describe rabid and indiscriminate hackery (both at the plate and on the page/screen).
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