Johnny Cueto's pitching performance yesterday is why I continue to watch baseball games after all these years. When many games are over, I feel like I just wasted 3 hours of my life I will never get back. This was not one of those games. This one was inspiring to watch. I feel like a better person for having witnessed it, even if it was via TV. It's what keeps me coming back and wanting to watch more games. I have Johnny Cueto to thank for that.
Here was someone who is very good at what he does, doing it in the best way possible. In the process, he showed me things I have not seen before in all my years of watching the sport. His fastball may have topped out at 94 MPH, very good but not great, but he used it to maximum advantage. He varied the velocities on it by as much as 5 MPH to keep hitters off balance. He threw it exactly where he wanted to throw it, at the edges of the strike zone where the hitters could not get the "sweet spot" of the bat barrel on it. He varied his pitch tempos like only he can with quick pitches, normal tempo, hesitation and the "shimmy." He even broke out a "triple shimmy" where he dipped his shoulder once, twice and three times before delivering the pitch. On top of all that, he mixed in other pitches, curveballs, sliders and changeups to further disrupt hitter's timing and swing location.
If all that was not enough, he projected that he was having fun out there while staying focused and competitive inning after inning. The early innings clicked by in rapid-fire fashion, three up, three down. He got ahead in the count on almost every batter and did not get to ball 3 until later in the game.
It all reminded me of another Giants pitcher from long ago, Juan Marichal, who had a similar mix of pitches and delivered them with a flair and joy that made you feel like you witnessed something special. Even though it was on radio instead of TV, you could hear and feel that wonder and joy coming through the descriptions by the radio announcers.
Johnny Cueto's pitching yesterday was inspiring to watch. I feel like a better person today for having seen it. Now I can't wait to see the next game!
Sensational write-up Doctor! You capture why we enjoy this game so much. Hoping Cueto continues in this fashion and we get to see more like this, especially against the Dodgers and Padres. Ideally a young arm like Logan Webb watched what Cueto did and learned from it.
ReplyDeleteJohnny Cueto was amazing yesterday!
DeleteGreat post Doc. Agree that Cueto is fun to watch when he's on his game. Saw that triple shimmy on a highlight show! I thought I was watching something special last week when the Halos played the white sox on Sunday night baseball, Shohei Ohtani was blowing 95 mph+ fastball past white sox hitters, and he clobbered a high 90's fastball over the CF fence. Watching him kept me glued to that game.
DeleteWelcome back to baseball Dr. B. Good to see that you have escaped from your "Covid19" doldrums.
ReplyDeleteThank you. 10+ years of daily blogging is a lot. I just needed to back off for awhile and not put that pressure on myself.
DeleteI think it is worth recognizing Gabe Kapler and his decision to leave Johnny in after opportunities to pinch hit for him multiple times. I remember Gabe's first game managing with the Phillies when he pulled Aaron Nola after 80 pitches in the 5th inning or so. Nola had the lead and was dealing but Gabe went to the spreadsheet and decided it was time to bring in the bullpen. The Phillies lost that game and that was the beginning of the end for Gabe.
ReplyDeleteFast forward 3 years and Gabe looks like he is using his gut now and not just the spreadsheets. I wonder if Farhan had anything to say to him about not pulling Cueto earlier or if he recognized that Kapler knew exactly what he was doing. It reminded me of how Bochy would have managed that game yesterday and all in all this season I have to say I have been incredibly impressed with the way Kapler has been managing.
It looked like Kapler deferred to Buster Posey's opinion to leave him in for the ninth after losing the shutout. That's a smart managerial decision to listen to Buster!
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