Well, I suppose it was inevitable but that doesn’t make it any easier. Ever since I noticed Jeffrey Scott Keppinger’s walkless existence around 50 plate appearances in, I had made it my duty to spread his impatience across the interwebz. And in the blink of an eye, it was over.
Basically, the Angels are terrible. Specifically, their bullpen. The Angels had a 4-2 lead heading into the eighth inning on Thursday night. The super tall Dane De La Rosa (who?) gives up two runs and the game is tied 4-4. Mike Scoscisocisocisociacoiaosicsa brings in Michael Kohn to face Paul Konerko with Adam Dunn on first and one out. Kohn gets Konerko to ground out, and Dunn advances to second base.
This is what happened next:
Michael Kohn walked Jeff Keppinger on four pitches with the bases loaded. My immediate reaction:
Michael Kohn: Killer of dreams, loser of baseball games.
Ben Lindbergh wrote a more complete write up of this tragedy over at Baseball Prospectus. Jeff Sullivan also had an inspirational summary of Jeff’s accomplishments earlier last week at FanGraphs.
Jeff Keppinger walked once yesterday, bringing his total to 2 over 151 plate appearances. Jeff Keppinger has a wRC+ of 4. The next lowest among qualified hitters is Danny Espinosa at 27.
In other walk-related news…
How are those three young catchers doing that we checked up on last week? Well, not one of them walked once last week. So as of today, J.P. Arencibia, Welington Castillo and Salvador Perez have now walked SIX TIMES through 430 plate appearances.
Arencibia specifically has walked twice in 155 plate appearances. Prince Fielder has walked 30 times in 155 plate appearances.
Endy Chavez, Luis Cruz, Mark Ellis, Erick Aybar, Luis Jimenez, and Chris Heisey have combined for TEN WALKS through 484 plate appearances.
Through a combined 847 plate appearances, Wilin Rosario, Starlin Castro, Yadier Molina, Adam Jones and Carlos Beltran have walked 37 times. That’s the same number times Joey Votto has walked in 207 plate appearances.
Have a good Monday, everybody.
