Balls and Strikes

I know it sounds like being a sore loser when you say that a game was decided on balls and strikes, but if there ever was one, it happened last night in Boston for the A's. Ben Sheets threw a ton of first pitch strikes that were called balls, and they significantly altered the game in innumerable ways.

On the other hand, 84 of Daisuke's 109 pitches were called strikes, and Greg Maddux he was not. I can think of three pitches to Daric Barton and 2 pitches to Jack Cust that were obvious balls, but were called strikes that would have significantly altered the game. But the proof is in the pudding. 84 strikes is a significant achievement. For a comparison, in the two-hitter Justin Verlander threw last month, he only pitched 80 out of 116 for strikes, and that was a very dominant performance.

For 84 of Daisuke's 109 pitches to be called strikes, the umpires were saying that he was significantly more dominant than a pitcher that threw a two-hitter. That doesn't make much damn sense.