Addressing The Strikeout Scourge ...

Tuesday night, I went to bed earlier than usual. Much earlier than usual. But with Strasburg and Cain facing off in San Francisco, I hit the DVR’s record button in the top of the sixth inning.

I woke up earlier than usual this morning. Much earlier than usual. After putting the dog out, the first thing I did was pick up Strasburg and Cain where I left off, with Cain pitching to lefty-hitting Danny Espinosa. First pitch I saw was an 0-and-2 off-speed pitch, which Espinosa took for a ball. Second pitch was a funky slider on the outside corner that Espinosa took for strike three, ending the inning. Espinosa thought it was actually outside. I thought it was actually outside. Bruce Dreckman thought it wasn’t, and so Espinosa struck out. Happens many times every day.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, disirregardless of his political stripe -- and such categorizations are pointless anyway -- is a fine thinker and writer, and so I was please to learn last week that he knows a lot about baseball, too.

The occasion: Douthat was pointing out a column by a political writer who’s apparently becoming a baseball writer -- you know, because we don’t have enough of those already -- in which said new baseball writer argues that baseball is currently in the midst of a Golden Age. I basically agree, and so does Douthat.

Over at Baseball Musings, David Pinto writes:

Well, then we’ve simply got a difference of opinion. I like home runs and strikeouts, too; I simply like them less than David Pinto likes them. But my point wasn’t that the current levels of strikeouts and home runs are undesirable; my point is that the trends are clear and don’t show any signs of letting up, and that in a few years even David Pinto might think there are too many strikeouts.

And with that, I nominate myself for the understatement of this young season.

In his last 11 innings, Frieri’s struck out 23 batters while allowing exactly zero hits.