Friday Night Links

Well, the Rockies lost for the third straight night, this time to the Reds at Coors Field falling 4-2. Ken Griffey Jr. hit the 575th homerun of his career and Alex Gonzalez hit a three-run homer down the left field line. Those were the two big blows that Taylor Buchholz gave up - otherwise he pitched a pretty good game and was very efficient with his pitches.

A couple of interesting links:

Bad Interview - An interview with Buzz Bissinger regarding an article that will come out this weekend in the New York Times magazine (update: the link is now active and the article is excellent with the caveat mentioned below) on pitching featuring Kerry Wood. In the interview Bissinger says that pitchers have been coming to the big leagues younger and younger. Turns out that's not true although in Bissinger's defense his underlying point was really more about the number of minor league innings today's pitchers throw which as far I know has not been studied. The questioning of the "younger and younger" statement then takes the interview on a bad turn (hat tip to Will Carroll). While I certainly agree with the interviewer's primary point that we needn't take someone's word for what is in the end an objective question for which there is data to definitively answer, it could have and should have been handled better. Bissinger seemed to lose control himself a little which hastened the badness.

Singular - A really well done article by Steve Treder on Steve Dalkowski on THT and one that befits the fact that "His performance profile is beyond question the most singular in the sport's long and meticulously detailed accounting."