#joe schackman
If you live in the United States and have played, watched or even just mentioned soccer, you’ve heard the lament that soccer is boring.
It’s not true, of course, but it’s understandable when the alternative is the made-for-TV National Football League. Unlike football, there’s a significant gap between understanding soccer and truly appreciating it. Goals are infrequent, scoring chances are squandered more often than not, and a well-executed counter-attack isn’t exactly stimulating to the uninitiated viewer.
But every once in a while, something comes along that upends that whole thought process. Right now, that something is Tottenham defender Kyle Walker.
Walker is the antidote to the common complaint that “things” don’t happen in soccer. Get him near the ball, and something will surely happen. The question is whether that something will propel Tottenham to victory or leave fans cringing.
Take the Spurs’ Dec. 1 match against Manchester United: Walker snuck an 18th-minute free kick under United’s wall and past diving keeper David De Gea to give them an early lead. That was a good thing.
Minutes later, Walker misplayed an opposing player’s cross into the box, leaving Wayne Rooney with the ball and a clear path to the back of the net. That was a bad thing.
Fourteen minutes, two goals, and still all you can say about Kyle Walker is that he makes things happen.
That’s just how it works so far in his brief career. A former PFA Player of the Year, Walker is equally brilliant and reckless. In that same match against United, Walker would race Nemanja Vidic for a 50-50 ball with the Spurs up 2-1. Vidic just barely beat him and sent Walker flying. Seconds later the ball was downfield and Hugo Lloris was bringing down Danny Welbeck in the box. The ensuing penalty kick made it 2-2.
The next weekend, against Sunderland, Walker would put together a spectacular performance. He picked his spots to join the attack and showed why he could be one of the best all-around fullbacks. Most importantly, he was lethal in defense, sticking close to physical striker Jozy Altidore and essentially hectoring him into giving up.
It’s a polarity that fans will have to learn to put up with, at least for the time being. The backlash from his particularly poor performance in a 4-2 defeat to Chelsea last year forced Walker to temporarily take down his Twitter account. But even as he’s prone to stringing together several stupid mistakes, his raw talent is unmistakable.
Last year was my first season following Tottenham closely, and so it’s no surprise I was immediately infatuated with Gareth Bale. He was a one-man wrecking crew, an amazing talent just removed from his 23rd birthday. Like all great players, it seemed everything he touched turned to gold.
Kyle Walker won’t fill those shoes. But there’s no doubt that, for better or worse, he’s fashioning his own path, and it’s wholly, entertainingly unpredictable.
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Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in ‘96. He is attempting to turn himself into a European football fan.
In an instant, Tottenham’s summer of good vibes was over. The club must now put its Derby loss behind it and focus on the long term.
In sports, things can change in an instant.
You never know when that change is coming, and you never know from where: it could be an injury, a trade or transfer or an off-field incident. Or, it could be a short trip across North London on the wings of £107 million that ends in a 1-0 loss.
Deep breath. Gulp. Deeper breath.
It’s these situations where sports fans must cling dearly to the virtue of patience. There are always more games to be played. There will be more success than disappointment. Even if that wasn’t very comforting for Spurs fans last Sunday at the Emirates.
Tottenham came off a promising summer, due in large part to the £107 million brought in by once-undersized left back and current Most Expensive Transfer in Football History Gareth Bale. The club transformed itself into what seems a distant cousin to the one that finished just behind Arsenal last May. And compared with the 2010 squad, it is unrecognizable. That is a good thing.
But that success placed a giant bullseye on White Hart Lane and the Tottenham Triumvirate of Daniel Levy, Franco Baldini and Andre Villas-Boas. Where Spurs spent their summer working toward a top-four finish, the rest of the league was occupied with taking them down a peg or two.
That culminated with last week’s 173rd North London Derby, one in which Tottenham seemed poised to win. Fans and journalists had already labeled Arsenal an utter disaster. The club found itself thwarted at every turn in the transfer window, and came away with nothing. It then frittered away any remaining goodwill with an opening home loss to Aston Villa. Arsenal were down, just in time for Tottenham’s ascension.
Then things changed. Ninety minutes and one goal later, and everything we thought we knew no longer applied.
Tottenham must now answer the awkward questions, while Arsenal spend the next couple weeks all smiles and laughs. The club’s sudden good fortune grew when news broke of negotiations with German midfielder Mesut Özil. The Gunners landed their man less than 24 hours later.
Deep breath.
It might not feel like I’m working my way to this conclusion, but I’m nevertheless confident that Tottenham are going to be okay. In fact, they’ll be more than okay. Working seven new players into the mix takes time. Last year’s top five goal scorers are no longer in the starting 11, and the reworked midfield will take time to jell.
And despite the loss, it wasn’t all bad. Nacer Chadli showed flashes of talent on the wing. Andros Townsend looked like he’d learned a thing or two from Bale, cutting in from the flank to let loose a few shots. Keeper Hugo Lloris was in fine form and Jan Vertonghen was a rock as always in front of him.
The Derby loss and the Özil transfer, on top of the official announcement about Bale’s departure, made for a salty Sunday. But there were always going to be speed bumps, and the first ones just happened to come at the Emirates.
There are still 35 matches yet to be played. Arsenal is coming our way next time, and by then all of Tottenham’s glitzy new signings will be ready. Things can change real fast in this game.
Deep breath.
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Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in ‘96. He is attempting to turn himself into a European football fan.
Matt Harvey was supposed to be different.
I have had the misfortune of missing the best moments in Mets franchise history.
The Amazin’-ness of the ‘69 Mets came well before my time, and the ‘86 Mets managed their ridiculous season a year before I was born. By the time I became a fan, Tom Seaver was just some old guy, Nolan Ryan had faded into the Texas sun like a western hero and Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were lost to the spiral of drug addiction. Real drugs. Like the ones you take to ruin your life, not resurrect your career. You could make the argument that my birth served as some kind of Antichrist moment, a terrible turning point for the franchise. But that would be crazy. (Right?)
The bottom line is that I completely missed those players. Their time in Flushing might have been short or ended in disgrace, but generations of fans can bask in the memories that those guys created. Mine, meanwhile, revolve around a World Series loss, two epic collapses and a future Hall-of-Famer who is forever remembered for the time he didn’t swing. Oh, and Matt Harvey.
I’d be lying if I said that news of Harvey’s season-ending injury took me by surprise. The Summer of Harvey always felt like borrowed time; like I had already swallowed the poison and was just waiting for it to hit my blood stream. The Mets don’t fall ass-backwards into one of the best young pitchers in the game. They go running, arms outstretched, to guys like Paul Wilson, Bill Pulsipher and Jason Isringhausen.
The Mets don’t have a pitcher who starts his career in historic fashion. They don’t have a guy with a career ERA of 2.39 or an ERA+ of 153. They don’t have a guy who strikes out, on average, 10 batters per every nine innings. The Mets don’t have a guy who starts the All-Star Game. And they certainly don’t have a guy who can do this:
But this time, they did. The beauty of Matt Harvey was that, for once, something the Mets touched actually turned to gold. He’d been drafted by the Angels in 2007, only to spurn them for college. Then six teams bypassed him when he re-entered the draft in 2010, placing him directly in New York’s lap. And even then, we didn’t know just exactly what the Mets had. Harvey’s future was, at best as a career number two starter, or at worst a pitcher with a live fastball but no consistency.
You don’t have to squint very hard to see that Donnie Darko, alternate reality version. In one of the best drafts in the last 10 years, the Mets miss out on Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, and pass on Chris Sale and Christian Yelich to take Matt Harvey. He soon becomes the latest first-round bust, joining the likes of Billy Traber, Aaron Heilman, Phil Humber and Mike Pelfrey as modern-day Mets pitchers who never fulfilled their potential. Within five years, he’s the answer to some obscure trivia question that you’re ashamed you actually know.
Instead, without even really trying, the Mets got ahold of one of the most precious commodities in baseball.
It’s important to note here that the Mets are not to blame for anything other than being, you know, the Mets. Unlike the guy who owns the Ferrari but keeps it locked in his garage, the Mets have to turn their prospects loose at some point. These things happen for no other reason than that throwing a baseball is a stressful and unnatural action for the human body to endure time after time. It’s not overuse, and it’s not poor training. The Mets’ only mistake is that they had the audacity to try and win some baseball games.
And Harvey is not dead, nor is he even a lock for Tommy John surgery. The rational fan would say that there’s a chance he never has to go under the knife, a chance that 2014 begins with the eternal hope that spring brings to all baseball teams. But Mets fans know better. These things are never that easy.
When I sat down to write this, I turned off the TV, flipped open my laptop and turned on the most emo music still left in my iTunes library. It seemed like the appropriately melodramatic thing to do.
Yet after a song, I switched it off. I wasn’t really that upset, I realized. I had been mentally preparing for this moment all summer. I didn’t need emo music. I needed an exorcism.
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Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in ‘96.
The Mets’ second-year starter is one of the toughest hurlers in the league, until he hits his 100th pitch of the night.
Matt Harvey has a problem.
The Mets’ ace has dominated so far in his young career, compiling a 12-8 record and 2.26 ERA over his first 33 starts. His 161 ERA+ and 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings put him in rare company as one of the better young pitchers in history and one of the best pitchers, period, in the game today. Harvey is a threat to throw a no-hitter every time he takes the mound.
But for all the well-deserved fanfare, the 24-year-old has yet to conquer one major obstacle: the 100-pitch threshold. For no matter how good Harvey is on any given night, crossing into triple digits is near guaranteed to turn him from unhittable to downright mediocre.
So far, the Mets righty has thrown a little more than 3,290 pitches in his MLB career. About 3,100 of those came before the 100th pitch of an outing. And for the most part, those pitches have turned out very well for him. Harvey’s allowed just one run for every 72 balls thrown prior to his 100th pitch.
Yet after that 100th pitch, his performance nosedives, and it takes just 17 pitches to allow one run.
Now, the sample size is small so far. Harvey’s thrown just 192 post-100 pitches in his career, and various factors go into a hitter coming around to score. But the difference is drastic nevertheless.
Post-100 pitches this season, Harvey has faced 44 batters. They’re hitting .400, with a .533 slugging percentage and only seven strikeouts. To put that in context, fellow Cy Young contender Clayton Kershaw has faced 44 batters in that same situation and allowed just a .205 batting average against. Yu Darvish? Prior to yesterday’s near no-hitter, he’d seen 68, and they were hitting .156.
It’s not that Harvey struggles when he gets tired. That tends to happen to any athlete. It’s that he morphs into an almost completely different pitcher.
Those late-game issues have received little notice so far, largely because Harvey has been so unexpectedly great over his first 100 pitches. On a team that’s overachieved and yet still sits eight games below .500, any outing that keeps the Mets in the game past the sixth inning is considered a good one.
But as New York takes its next steps forward, they will increasingly need Harvey to finish out his starts on a strong note. He’s the ace, and therefore the de facto stopper. He’ll be relied on to throw effectively deep into games on those occasions the Mets desperately need a big win or some extra rest for their bullpen.
The Mets realize that, and appear to already be trying to improve Harvey’s late-game performance. Pitching coach Dan Warthen before Harvey’s Aug. 7 start against the Rockies challenged him to “pitch at 80% and try to get into the ninth inning with 90 pitches,” the New York Daily News’ Andy Martino reported.
Harvey responded with 8⅔ shutout innings, allowing just three hits. With one out to go, he released his 100th pitch of the game. Charlie Blackmon volleyed it right back at him, sending it screaming off Harvey’s knee cap and into right field. It was one of the hardest-hit balls he’d allowed all game, and his latest post-100 test.
Harvey returned to the mound. Six pitches later, he’d retired Troy Tulowitzki and hit 98 mph in the process. It was his first career complete game.
Whether that’s the turning point, we won’t know for a while. But it’s certainly a sign that Harvey and his coaches are working hard to string out his abilities over a longer period. At 24 and with less than a full year under his belt, he’s got plenty of time to fix the flaw preventing an already-great pitcher from becoming a perennial Cy Young candidate.
As far as problems go, that’s not a bad one.
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Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in ‘96.
The Yankees’ ace is missing his fastball, and getting hit hard as a result.
Once it starts to fade, a pitcher’s fastball can never be nursed back to full health.
Velocity for a Major Leaguer is the equivalent of an NFL receiver’s extra gear or an NBA guard’s quick first step: It’s what got him to where he is, and most likely will be what forces him out of the game when it falters and then disappears. In between, there is just a small window for figuring out how to adapt.
CC Sabathia sits firmly in that window. He is 32 years old with $76 million remaining on his contract, and is nevertheless far from the athlete who donned pinstripes nearly five years ago. Sabathia’s record so far is 9-8, with a 4.37 ERA and 92 ERA+, and for the first time in his career, looks absolutely nothing like an ace.
The simple reason for that is that his greatest weapon is losing steam. Sabathia once boasted a high-90s heater that exploded from the left arm attached to his massive frame. But a closer look at his performance of late reveals a decline in his fastball as significant as it was sudden.
Sabathia’s signature pitch has averaged 93.2 miles per hour since 2007, when these velocity statistics first became available. His single-season peak was 94.1 mph in 2009. He could ramp it up too when needed, hitting at least 97 in every season from 2007-‘11.
That’s not so this year. Sabathia’s average fastball velocity is just 90.9 mph, and he has yet to touch even 95 on any single pitch so far in 2013.
Now, that wouldn’t matter much if those low-90s fastballs were still zipping by hitters. But already this year, opponents have blasted 23 home runs, more than half coming off of his fastballs. That’s a career high, and there are still three months left in the season. Factor in all the hits Sabathia’s given up, and batters are hitting .291 versus fastballs alone.
The slowdown is creating a domino effect for the other pitches in his arsenal. Sabathia’s changeup, which relies on a hitter’s fear of the fastball, has yielded nearly as many home runs and doubles as ever before. Opponents hit .282 when a changeup crosses the plate, .100 points better than in 2012.
The end result is that hitters are making making contact more, hitting the ball harder and sending it much further than normal. That’s a trifecta of bad signs for any power pitcher.
It’s also not unusual, even for a perennial Cy Young candidate like Sabathia. Athletes deteriorate, skills diminish and eventually age wins out. But that’s little consolation for the Yankees, who likely didn’t expect Sabathia to hit his decline so soon, and at a time when there are few other options to pitch the big games.
Ace-in-waiting Michael Pineda has sat on the sidelines with a shoulder injury almost since New York acquired him. The Yankees have shown little ability for developing front-line starters of their own, and a 2014 free agency pool headlined by the likes of Matt Garza and Ervin Santana is thin, to say the least.
That means their best bet also requires the most work. Sabathia is far from done as a useful starter, but he’ll likely need to reinvent himself to maintain his effectiveness. That often includes better developing the rest of his pitches, and becoming more cerebral in the way he attacks hitters.
It’s a roadmap that players like Pedro Martinez and Roy Oswalt followed to late-career success. The downside is that that same path is littered with the remains of countless careers sunk by fading fastballs.
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Joe Schackman is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96.
