Bobby Jenks is Unhittable

[prohornblower]

Jenks gives up hit to first batter he faces tonight, capping his streak at 41, tied for longest all-time.

I had to get out of bed to bump this thread because Steve Phillips just said perhaps the dumbest thing ever. He was talking about "H/OP", or as he called it hits/outs percentage relative to a count.

Jenks started out Laird 0-0, and he said Jenks has retired like 74% of batters this year when starting 0-0 (in other words, all batters he's faced). Then he got Laird 0-1 and the percentage went up to like 85%, then he got Laird 0-2 and the graphic showed that Jenks has retired 100% of the hitters he's faced this season when getting them into an 0-2 count. OK, small sample size, but whatever, I follow...

Phillips basically said this is a good thing. Then Laird fouled off a couple curveballs or something, keeping the count 0-2, Phillips re-iterated that this was a good thing. Jenks' advantage was still 100%. Then Jenks made a catastrophic mistake by throwing a 94mph fastball up-and-in for ball 1. Phillips showed the graphic went down to like 86% on a 1-2 count, and sure enough next pitch was a hanging curveball for a single to left. Phillips basically (me paraphrasing) said "You see, his percentage went down to 86% here after he threw that ball up-and-in. Although still very good, he no longer had a 100% advantage. That is where he went wrong tonight."

WOWOWOWOOWOWOWOWWOWWW. So getting a guy 0-2, and throwing two more curves over the plate for foul balls, then trying a heater up and in, to presumably set up the backdoor curve on the next pitch (or double-up with another high heater..point is..get the hitter thinking), is a bad idea. Just keep throwing curves over the plate. Wow. I need an FSP blog.