Game 2, Twins at Mariners
DMZ · April 5, 2005 at 5:13 pm · Filed Under Game Threads
Satana v Meche
Oooooooooooooooh yeah. I’m curious why the Joel-less rotation didn’t go Moyer-Madritsch-Meche-etc etc though, as long as you assume that Moyer’s a lock for Opening Day because he’s Jamie Moyer.
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163 Responses to “Game 2, Twins at Mariners”
Did anybody else notice what Hendu said in the first inning on the radio? With a runner on third and one out, Gardenhire brought the infield in and he said something like “If a manager brings the infield in, that’s his way of telling the pitcher that he wants a strikeout now”.
Hmm, it would appear that if you get a strikeout, it doesn’t really matter where your infielders are, so to get that point across, it might be better to put all infielders into foul territory or something like that.
#148: I didn’t say “one game”, I said two.
But Barry Bonds had six at-bats in a game just last year. 6/12/04 against Baltimore. Three hits, one a homer, though!
I did find an 0-6 stretch, an 0-7, an 0-13, two more 0-7s, and an 0-10. Shocking, I know.
Ichiro, who posts a gazillion more AB than Bonds because he rarely walks, but is also rarely hitless, went 0-10 and 0-9. After three games last year, he was essentially washed up, hitting .154 with an OPS of .368! Slow start? Uh, no; after eight games he was hitting .351.
Two games means jack. As Joe Sheehan at BP says, “it’s silly to pretend we know anything more today than we did on Saturday” (today’s article, making my point from last night more effectively than I did).
I’m glad he put Thornton in there. Lets get him enough action in the first week that they’ll have to waive him. Better now than keeping a worthless reliever on the roster just because he was a first round draft pick and their afraid someone will actually claim him.
I hope some idiot team (i.e. Tampa) WILL claim him so he won’t be our problem anymore. The Rockies always seem to pick up our trash too, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in purple and black either.
If you flip a coin it will sometimes come up tails 6 times in a row. But the coin is still a .500 hitter.
#151:
Hendu was pretty much on the mark with his comment. With a runner on third, a strikeout or pop-out are preferable. But regardless of whether they are preferable, there is no guarantee one of them will occur, so you still must pull the infielders in. You can’t just assume a strikeout…and “put the fielders in foul territory.” Henderson may not have said it exactly the way you wanted it, and it may have sounded out of place, but he was right. I think you just misunderstood the comment. It was less literal, and more along the lines of hinting that Hargrove was probably thinking “Boy, a strikeout would sure be great right about now.” …regardless of player positioning.
I feel like people are giving Thornton a bad rap for last night. Granted, he gave up the big three-run jack, but he could easily have been out of the inning with minimal damage before Jones ever came to the plate:
He got a double play ball that would’ve ended the inning still ahead 4-1, but Valdez was running to cover on a steal. Then a bloop hit fell in front of the Ibanez (Winn would have had it)…
Thornton may not be the answer in that situation – I was surprised as well at the move – but he pitched well enough to get out of the inning without much damage….then threw the meatball to Jones.
#156: Of course, a strikeout or pop-out are the best outcomes for the defense in that situation. That should be obvious to even the most obtuse pitcher (no statement implied on Meche’s intelligence). In positioning your players, you decide on what your preference is if you can’t get either–give up a run for an out, or maximize your chances of preventing the run, at the expense of increasing the batter’s chances to get a hit. However, bringing the infield in in that situation is no more a way of telling the pitcher to strike the batter out than electing to play the infield out is telling the pitcher that you don’t particularly care for a strikeout.
If, on the other hand, you are right about was Hendu was trying to say, he merely had inordinate difficulties of expressing something that was blatantly obvious to begin with.
And no, I wasn’t serious about putting the fielders in foul territory. Really.
RE: 157
Thornton’s fastball was laser straight, which I think is a problem. If you don’t have any movement on your fastball, you need location, right? We know Thornton can’t pinpoint his pitches. So he was bad there.
My biggest problem is with the decision though. I understand wanting to know whether you can trust your LOOGY to get out the opposing teams two best hitters, who happen to be left-handed, in a clutch situation, but I don’t understand doing it before you use him in a couple of meaningless situations to see if he can even get major league hitters out at all.
It’s true that Thornton’s line could have ended up a lot better with better defense. I think we could have gotten out of the inning with only one run scored, or maybe even none with Meche still on the mound, with better defense. But that doesn’t mean Thornton pitched well. He couldn’t throw strikes that didn’t get hit. That’s bad. And in my opinion, that’s because his supposedly valuable 95 mph fastball is easy to hit because it’s laser straight. I think he should be waived, though I do trust the M’s management to make smarter decisions than me (though not necessarily smarter decisions than the other guys who don’t want him on this team).
If this was Hargrove’s way of getting Thornton off the team, I guess I can handle that, but we’re not going to get many chances to beat Santana, and we wasted this one. It sucks.
Thornton was used in lots of meaningless situations against major league hitters in spring training — and didn’t get them out. But he was kept on the roster as the LOOGY.
To me the most important question isn’t whether Hargrove should have used him yesterday. It’s whether he should have been kept on the roster.
It’s Jarvis all over again.
RE 89: DO NOT be dissing Bob Wolcott. He didn’t make it in the following seasons, but that emergency start against the Indians in the 1995 ALCS has earned him a spot in Mariner lore. For one glorious night anyway, he was da man! 🙂
Yes, #161. After Walcott walked the first three Indian batters, Pinella visited the mound. Everyone expected Pinella to come rant at the young pitcher. Pinella left and Walcott settled down and pitched a gem. The story goes that, rather than rant, Pinella talked to Walcott about going fishing in the off-season. Who knew that Lou was a psychologist?
Re #160: Thornton did exactly what anyone who has watched him pitch would expect him to do. His control was all over the place and he came in with some meat to Jones that might has well have been served up on a tee. Big surprise. This is what he does. It isn’t his fault. My question is why would Grover expect different results when Thornton has demonstrated he isn’t ready to pitch at this level?