I'm not threadjacking though. I think a pitcher's confidence goes up in direct correlation to the drop on his sinker. No drop = no confidence.

Baez' confidence will come back when he starts pitching better. Plain and simple.

Yeah, speaking of bullpen implosions, how about the Padres' Shaun Cassidy, I mean, Scott Cassidy?

Why didn't the Rangers think of that last night?

And Giles has made it 14-10.

"Confidence is very sexy...don't you think?"

8 Ah.

or as my Bollywood-loving friends would say, "Ai yah."

'k, gotta go watch and review a straight to video movie now. Fun!

So much for the D'Backs Yankee-like comeback.

None of you know me so I can admit I'm going back to Idol now.

He looked really good out of the gate (WBC) He's been a huge disapointement for seattle.

The Golden Calf?

The Austin Kearns Scouting Expedition?

I think you would have plenty of time to prepare.

Must be a side effect of interleague play.

bonus: there's a nice beach towel being given away on sunday the 25th of june. and it's a day game, which may be preferable?

This weekend, teams should be playing their "natural rivals". But the Pirates don't have one. They play Cleveland, but they don't play them a second time. They play just 15 interleague games.

The Dodgers play the Angels 6 times, Oakland and Seattle 3 times each and Minnesota 3 times, 15 games in all.

Some of the other teams play 18 interleague games.

In the Baseball Prospectus 2004 book, there's a long section in the Red Sox article that talks about how poorly Grady handled the 'closer by committee' Sox pen in 2003. Their point was that he would have everybody pitch one inning, with different guys pitching the ninth, eighth, etc. No matter how they were pitching, he would shuttle people in and out, was the critique.

So Broxton threw, I believe, 13 pitches in fanning two guys and otherwise totally shutting the Rox down in the seventh. So we knew he was throwing well. Every time you go to another reliever, you have to ask: does this guy have it today? When that somebody is Joe Beimel, despite his ability to avoid disaster so far, you have to REALLY wonder whether he will have it today.

I just wish Grady and other managers would look at more variables besides (1) the handedness of batter/pitcher and (2) relation to save situation. Broxton misses bats. So does Saito, although I notice Japanese relievers tend to have a short shelf life, once the league sees them a few times (Takatsu, Otsuka). Those guys should be out there in tight games, not Joe Beimel.

I tend to agree with Jon. Confidence isn't going to improve Baez's ability to get outs. It may only change his decision making on the mound.

I think if anyone is gaining confidence from his outing yesterday, it is the faithful dodger fan - not Baez despite his quote about its return.

And if he did truely doubt his ability to get outs and be a utilitarian ML closer due to 2-3 rough outings, then he probably isn't the best guy for the job.

And I stumbled upon this, of course:

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/features/column.asp?sport=MLB&column=94

Granted if you're lousy, you're lousy no matter how much you trust your stuff, but I would rather have a guy out there who has confidence in throwing all of his pitches.

I'm not talking about "I'm the king of the world" confidence, but "Hey, I can throw this pitch where I want it".

I feel I'm getting into the "Does [put c-word here] breed success, or does success breed [c-word]" thing, so I'm just sorta asking.

I heard John Kruk say that the Reds were in it for the long haul because of their improved pitching behind Bronson Arroyo, and their ability to score runs without relying on the long ball.