So, do you also believe Hochevar has special problems in the 7th inning in 2012? ‘Cause in 2012 he had even worse results in the 7th than in the 1st.

And I’m guessing you think Hochevar totally changed his warmup routine from 2011 to 2012, since in 2011 he had good results in the 1st? And that his problem in 2011 was stamina or something, since that year he also had good results in the 2nd and 3rd, but mostly had lousy results from the 4th inning on?

Looking forward to what you think his problem was in 2010, when he had good results in the 1st, terrible results in the 2nd and 3rd, good results in the 4th and 5th, terrible results in the 6th and 7th, and good results in the 8th and 9th.

Seriously, please do entertain us with your laughable storytelling. Please, enlighten us all about what Hochevar was doing so much differently in the 1st inning in 2010 and 2011 vs. 2012. And what he was doing differently in the second inning in 2010 vs. 2011. and so on. You want to tell stories about Hochevar’s 1st inning performance in 2012? Fine–but no cherry picking. I want to hear your story explaining his performance in every single inning of every single year of his career. Because otherwise, you know, I might think you were just cherry picking one small sample from one year and telling a totally meaningless story about it.

Or maybe Hochevar’s results in any given inning and any given year are going to bounce around a lot because they’re all small sample sizes. With the overall average results being pretty poor not because he doesn’t warm up properly and so has terrible problems in the first inning he pitches, but because he’s Luke Hochevar and he’s not very good in any inning.

From a quick perusal of the game logs, it looks like he has more of a “big inning” problem, rather than it being a specific inning.

99 runs allowed in the other 153 = 5.81 RA

“You see, thanks to tremendous advances in “keeping records of what happens in baseball games and putting those records online”, nobody has to rely on their faulty and selective memories any more to know what happened in baseball games.”

You see, if anything, Hochevar has been proven to be much worse in the first inning than the others.

I hate proving people like you wrong all the time.

Luke Hochevar’s career numbers for all innings:

opponent’s BA/OBP/SLG: 273/338/448
K/BB: 2.07

Luke Hochevar’s career numbers for the leadoff inning:

opponent BA/OBP/SLG: 270/334/432
K/BB: 1.95

I admit it, I was wrong: Hochevar actually has been, if anything, very slightly BETTER in the first inning than overall. But I’m ok with being wrong on that, because you were way wronger.

You see, thanks to tremendous advances in “keeping records of what happens in baseball games and putting those records online”, nobody has to rely on their faulty and selective memories any more to know what happened in baseball games.

One unfortunate side effect of these tremendous advances however, is that they’ve also increased the ability of people like you to goad people like me into wasting thirty seconds proving people like you wrong.

Third inning BA against .287, 17 HR allowed, ERA 6.73, 1.57 WHIP in 125 2/3 innings.
First inning BA against .251, 14 HR allowed, ERA 4.71, 1.27 WHIP in 128 innings.

I’m not too lazy to look it up, I just watched the games.

You mean signing a minor league contract with the Twins, just like Davies did this offseason?

Putting him in a situation where he’ll only pitch one inning at a time is going to be a disaster.

What they need to do is change his pre-game warm-up routine so he’s better in the first, not put him in the bullpen.

The Royals haven’t known baseball since Bo left.

That’s just not true. He pitched very well for Omaha in 2009.