The businessman’s special in Anaheim yesterday left time to watch Tin Cup on Versus last night.
Cup’s adventures at the range before the U.S. Open gave me an odd sense of comfort after his stink-bomb.
Look. Niemann is 6’9″. That poses a challenge when it comes to pitching rhythm and (if you’ll indulge me in a Maddonism) delivery repeatability. The guy just has a lot of arm and leg that he needs to get in line to throw strikes. Think about it. One of the benefits of height is not grace. How many 6’9″ ballroom dancers do you know?
Three weeks off is always going to result in some funk for Niemann. That is why I am not worried. That performance was utterly predictable (and, in fact, was predicted by the skipper).
Niemann is going to get right. He’ll put his change in his left pocket, a tee behind his right ear, and turn his hat around backwards. Then his delivery will stop feeling like an unfolding lawn chair.
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[...] Last week, when Jeff Niemann peppered the backstop at the Big A during his wild return from the DL, I wrote that some rust was to be expected because, at 6’11″, Niemann has more moving parts than [...]
[...] gone through the baseball equivalent of the stages of grief. I wrote off the struggles in his first start as the natural result of a 6’9″ body finding its rhythm again. Then, I explained away his struggles in his second start reasoning that a guy with [...]