Phillies Investigated by IAEA After Detonating Two Small Nuclear Devices: Phillies 9, Nationals 6

by WholeCamels on May 31, 2009 9:43 AM EDT

I really hope Cole Hamels bought Ryan Howard a drink last night: all he did was take the attention away from his subpar performance on the mound (6 IP, 6 ER, 8 H). No, no one's going to be talking about that, thanks to Howard.

Howard connected for two titanic blasts last night off Nationals starter Shairon Martis, the second of which -- a grand slam in the 3rd inning, which put the Phillies ahead for good -- landed in the third deck of Citizens Bank Park, only the second ball to do so. The other? From Howard, of course, nearly three years ago off Mike Mussina.

Hit Tracker hasn't updated yet (as of early Sunday morning) but you'd have to think Howard might have edged out teammate Raul Ibanez and his Yankee Stadium blast last Friday for longest homer in the majors this season.

As for the game itself, it was your classic Nats-Phillies matchup, and can be best described in the same manner as my bathroom after a trip to the all-you-can-eat Super Buffet -- sloppy, and a lot of runs. These games are starting to remind me of those classic Phils-Cubs games at Wrigley, when the wind was blowing out. Screw realignment, that was hot baseball.

The Phillies bullpen did its job, with only the two hits allowed by Scott Eyre as significant blemishes.

Brad Lidge faced the minimum three in the ninth for the save, bailed out by a double play that, on a normal night, would have made headlines -- on a grounder up the middle, Rollins ranged to his left and scooped the ball to Utley, who took the ball barehanded and threw to Howard in one motion to complete the play. It was truly pretty and among the four or five best 6-4-3 double plays I've ever seen.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Carlos Ruiz, for another fine night of keeping the pitching staff in line and for scoring two runs. Now come on, seriously... who do you think?

via www.fangraphs.com

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Amazingly, Hit Tracker rates Howard’s bomb at only 432 feet true distance. I emailed the owner of the site asking him about it.

by phatj on May 31, 2009 11:40 AM EDT reply actions

Let us know what he says, I’m curious too.

http://www.thegoodphight.com

by WholeCamels on May 31, 2009 11:42 AM EDT up reply actions

Howard's slam

Listening to post game on the way home yesterday, I could have sworn that it was measured at 475. Anyway, I was there and I have never witnesses a HR like that live in my life!

by gcap2719 on May 31, 2009 5:38 PM EDT reply actions

“Official” home run measurements are pretty much wild-ass guesses.

Greg Rybarczyk of Hit Tracker wrote back and explained that Howard’s grand slam looked much more impressive than it was because of landing in the 3rd deck, but the compact dimensions of Citizens Bank Park, combined with the relatively close third deck and the fact that the ball was pulled fairly close to the right field line, mean that the point where the ball struck was only 386 horizontal feet from home plate. And while the third deck is 70 feet above field level, the ball was on its way back down at that point and home runs always come down at a much steeper angle than they go up, so his formula predicts that if it continued all the way to the ground unimpeded it only would travel an additional 46 horizontal feet from the point where it actually hit.

Looking at the replays, I think I see why it wasn’t longer than it looked. The pitch was pretty high (maybe not even a strike), higher than most hitters can handle, and even as tall as Howard is, he got under it just a hair and hit it a little higher than is ideal. It speaks to Ryan’s tremendous power that he was able to hit such an impressive blast on a pitch that most players, if they made contact at all, would pop up weakly.

by phatj on May 31, 2009 8:32 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

Velocity and angle of ‘elevation’ – shouldn’t you be able to accurate dtermine the distance it would have gone?

Of course, i have no idea how you measure the velocity of a homerun ball :)

"Someone created the box score," Morey says, "and he should be shot."

Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much.

by jemagee on May 31, 2009 8:41 PM EDT up reply actions

My knowledge of physics (and caring about it) ended in spring 1994 after I completed the college to get my biochemistry degree…just saying

"Someone created the box score," Morey says, "and he should be shot."

Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much.

by jemagee on May 31, 2009 8:41 PM EDT up reply actions

I last took physics in spring of 1994 as well, but it was always a subject I liked (I very nearly majored in physics).

by phatj on May 31, 2009 9:15 PM EDT up reply actions

Pretty much what he does

Greg looks at video and does freeze-frame to calculate angles and speeds (he can do the latter because the frame rate of US television is a constant 30 FPS). He compares the estimated trajectory based on this information with the actual landing location (and time of flight) and then revises the estimate to include spin and atmospheric conditions. Then, based on his calculated trajectory, he estimates where the ball would have landed if it descended all the way to field level unimpeded.

by phatj on May 31, 2009 9:14 PM EDT up reply actions