One Pitch

I imagine that So Taguchi's 9th inning homer is getting most of the ink, but I find myself agreeing with John Kruk (Boy was that tough to type!), that the most important pitch of the game was thrown in the 7th inning.

Two on, two outs, Guillermo Mota facing Scott Spiezio. Mota gets ahead 0-2 with two straight change-ups. Speez swung at both of them, coming close on neither. Mota then throws a fastball that Spiezio just crushes, but foul.

I've never pitched, not even in Little League, so I don't know jack about pitch selection. And I'm sure that, with the exception of Jamie Moyer, its pretty tough to keep throwing change-up after change-up. But given the choice between the pitch he hit hard and the pitch he looked foolish on, I'm going with something off-speed there. You are still ahead 0-2, if you want to set up a change up with a fastball out of the zone, you could do that too.

Mota puts another fastball over the plate and Speez crushes it for a two-run triple. Tie ball game and the stage is set for the Cards ninth inning rally.

The biggest pitch of the game and I can't for the life of me figure out why Mota threw it.