additional evolution, perhaps a return to the era wh | Forum
miaowang123
Oct 17 '19
DETROIT -- The St. Xander Bogaerts Red Sox Jersey . Louis Blues were workmanlike, methodical and -- most of all -- effective on Monday night. Magnus Paarjarvi, Barret Jackman, Kevin Shattenkirk and Jay Bouwmeester scored to give the Blues a 4-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings. Alex Steen added two assists and Jaroslav Halak made 22 saves for the Blues, who had lost their previous two games. "The first two periods we played the way we had to play," St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. "I think the scoring chances were about even in the first two periods but the zone time was in our favour." Jackman and Shattenkirk scored 1:20 apart early in the second period to break a 1-1 tie. "We had a full team effort, at least for the first 2 1/2 periods," Jackman said. "... The first 50 minutes, I thought we played a total, controlled, very aggressive solid game." Gustav Nyquist scored for Detroit. Jimmy Howard stopped 22 shots before being replaced by Petr Mrazek midway through the second period because of a left knee injury. Its the same knee that caused Howard, one of the Team USA Olympic goalies, to miss much of December. "He got hurt. The same knee, I guess," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. Howard is day to day. Detroit came into the game missing several regulars because of injuries. Mrazek made 13 saves. "Well I think we obviously were not good enough from our side," Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said. "Still we had it 1-1 after the first, had some good looks on the 5-on-3 (in the second period) there and couldnt really get it going, but in the third their fourth goal kind of ended the game tonight." Jackman broke a 1-1 tie with a screened one-time shot from the high slot at 1:01 of the middle period with the teams playing 4-on-4. It was Jackmans third goal of the season. Shattenkirks goal was on the power play and came on a screened shot from the left point 2:21 into the period. It was Shattenkirks seventh goal. "There was no chance. ... There was no way Howie was going to see any of those," Hitchcock said. "We had two big bodies at the net all the time." Jackman added: "We had a lot of guys going into the hard areas of the ice. Its a lot easier to get the puck through." Nyquists power-play goal tied the game with 27 seconds remaining in the first. He controlled and put in a loose puck during a goalmouth scramble for Nyquists sixth goal and his first in nine games. "They got the power-play goal late in the first period, but we got the momentum back." Bouwmeester said. He got his fourth goal, 2:14 into the third, when his shot from the left point went in off the Red Wings Riley Sheahan. The game was tied at 1 after the first 20 minutes despite St. Louis outshooting Detroit 18-7. Paarjarvi opened the scoring with 8:47 left in the opening period when he banked one in off Howards leg on a wraparound from behind the net. It was Paarjarvis fourth goal. NOTE: C Darren Helm returned for Detroit after missing 18 of the past 19 games with shoulder and groin injuries. ... St. Louis defenceman Ian Cole is from Ann Arbor, Mich. ... The Red Wings were without C Pavel Datsyuk (lower body), RW Johan Franzen (post-concussion syndrome), RW Daniel Alfredsson (back spasms), D Jonathan Ericsson (ribs), C Joakim Andersson (back), C Cory Emmerton (finger) and G Jonas Gustavsson (groin). ... Blues RW Ryan Reaves celebrated his 27th birthday. Boston Red Sox Shirts . They named Mark Washington as their defensive co-ordinator on Thursday and appear to be closing in on an offensive co-ordinator. Marco Hernandez Jersey . 1-9 on TSN. With more than 65 hours of exclusive live coverage, TSN delivers all the action beginning with Draw 1 on Saturday, Feb. 1 at 2 p.NEW YORK, N.Y. - Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz already consider themselves relics.Baseball transformed during the second half of their careers and has been revolutionized in the five years since their final pitches.Out: big boppers.In: strict pitch limits, a profusion of relief pitchers and sudden swell in defensive shifts.Old goats is what Martinez called the newest Hall of Famers, products of another age — remember back before high definition TVs and mobile Internet browsers were commonplace?So much has changed so quickly.The game has kind of gone to a Stratomatic-type baseball game, where hitting is difficult because youre facing nine and 10 pitchers combined per team, Smoltz said Wednesday. Guys are not going attain 3,000 innings. Theyre not going to get 3,000 strikeouts.Vive le difference! seemed to be the motto of their joint news conference.Smoltz, pretty much average for a pitcher at 6-foot-3, stood on a chair to drop a cap onto the head of Johnson, the tallest of 215 Hall of Fame players at 6-foot-10. All the while, the Big Unit struggled to button his cream-colored jersey with Hall of Fame in red script, unable to line up the buttons with the correct buttonholes.Those left-handers, Johnson quipped.At 5-foot-11 the shortest pitcher picked for Cooperstown since Whitey Ford in 1974, Martinez held both hands up with fingers raised and smiled broadly.The trio of pitchers, elected to the Hall on Tuesday along with Craig Biggio, are among the all-time greats statistically, given the era they pitched in.Martinezs 2.93 career ERA is 1.47 below the big league average during the years he pitched, easily the best margin in major league history among pitchers with 1,500 or more innings, according to STATS. The next best are Carl Hubbell and Lefty Grove at 1.15, Hoyt Wilheim at 1.14, Greg Maddux at 1.13 and Roger Clemens at 1.12.Johnsons 1.01 is 13th and Smoltzs 0.97 is 15th.Speaking at a Manhattan hotel, Johnson said the game is just starting to get back into whack. He thinks pitching became more onerous in the 1990s and early 2000s because smaller ballparks replaced multiuse stadiums and Major League Baseball introduced QuesTec, a computer system put in place in 2001 to evaluate ball-strike calls. Umpires responded by shrinking strike zones back toward the rule-book ddefinition. Pedro Martinez Jersey. .When I watch old footage of pitchers throwing strikes from the letters to the knees, its black-and-white footage, back when dinosaurs roamed. Thats not the strike zone that I pitched in, he said. Things still are slighted towards offence. Offense is what creates fan base. But theres still well-pitched games out there, and things are starting to balance out now, yes, absolutely.Drug testing has played a part, too. Since urine samples started to be collected in 2003, offence has shrunk along with muscle mass. And the rise in computing capability has led to defensive shifts that take away hits, too.At the tail end of the Steroids Era in 2000, scoring rose to 5.14 runs per team per game and ERA to 4.76, the highest for both since 1930. By last year, runs dropped to 4.07 and ERA to 3.74, the lowest since the early 1970s.Every team seems to have hard-throwing relievers heading in from the bullpens in earlier and earlier innings.We never had a pitch limit, Smoltz said. Your managers eyes and pitching coach knew when your pitch limit reached the mechanical failures or the fact that you werent getting it done.Johnson won 303 games and struck out 4,875, second-most in major league history. Martinez was 219-100 and struck out 3,154. Smoltz went 213-155 with 154 saves and 3,084 strikeouts, the only pitcher with 200 wins and 150 saves.Martinez believes theres more of a level ground for every team these days because of changes such as revenue sharing and the luxury tax, which has created additional home-cooked product, made more teams contenders and heightened competition.I can only imagine, he said when asked whether his stats would be even better now. I dont know what it would be like. Im not going to try it. But Ill tell you what, I enjoyed the way I did it. I enjoyed my era. I enjoyed the way I competed. And thats the way I wanted it.Smoltz predicts additional evolution, perhaps a return to the era when starters went deeper into games. He thinks babying arms has led to more catastrophic injuries. He had a ligament replaced in 2000, then spent most of four seasons in the bullpen before returning to Atlantas rotation.Somethings got to change, he said. And I dont think condensing it and lowering the pitch limit is the reason that were going to save arms. ' ' '
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