Keis to the game

At first I thought I may have jinxed Randy Keisler.

A few hours after the Soap in the Towel Award post, Keisler took the bump against the hated (by me, at least) Giants. After an easy first inning, the Keez found himself in trouble each inning he pitched afterward.

Especially worrisome was the bottom of the fourth. Giants second baseman Ray Durham led off the inning with a triple, and Keez then walked Bengie “Not Yadier” Molina and Pedro Feliz (or Peter Happy, if you prefer) to load the bases with nobody out.

According to TangoTiger’s Run Expectancy Matrix, with the sacks jacked and nobody out, the Giants were set up to score 2.417 runs in that inning. Randy Winn came to the plate and flied out to left, plating Durham for one of those runs, reducing the RE to .971. Giants manager Bruce Bochy then elected to give up an out by having old friend Matt Morris sacrifice (.634 RE). The Keez then got Omar Vizquel to foul out to end the threat, thereby preserving the lead.

Keisler managed to get through five innings and thus avoided the ignominy of becoming the first entry on the SitTA leaderboard. And he didn’t seem to pitch as poorly as his rather unsightly line indicated. His breaking ball was working better than his previous start, and he more or less was hitting Yadier Molina’s target.

His biggest problem was home plate umpire Gerry Davis’ strike zone, which was all over the place. At least Davis was squeezing both pitchers equally, as MattyMo had issues as well. Pitches that were six inches off the plate or low were called strikes, and pitches that looked good were called balls. And the next inning, the outcomes of those same pitches likely were reversed.

Occasionally it seemed that the amorphous strike zone was getting the better of Keisler, judging by his body language: lots of shaking heads and Elvis-like lip sneers.