Game 27, Mariners at Twins
RHP Pineiro v RHP Baker (which ties in nicely to another article today). 5:10, KSTW on your television set. Look for Pineiro to have an extra zip on his fastball, since he worked so little last time he was out there. Of course, Johjima won’t call for it, and I’m not sure if he’ll even play — ESPN tells me that he’s got this custom of not playing day games after night games.
So what’s in the game notes today? M’s are on a streak, they’re near the top of all teams in base-stealing, it’s a short two-game series… man, these are boring game notes… someone in the press office uses “it’s” for the possessive. The M’s staff leads the AL in strikeouts, that’s cool.
The last time Willy Bloomquist was caught stealing was May 1, 2005. There’s a stat that’ll come up in today’s broadcast if Bloomquist gets into the game. Or a camera can catch him in the dugout. Or there’s a recap of any previous games. The item is titled “Sure, he looks like a nice guy, but he’s really a thief”.
Yuuuuuup.
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An interesting game note: Lawton starts in CF.
I often listen to the radio postgame, and callers often bring up Ichiro!’s unwillingness to play center. I think this is inaccurate because, to my knowledge, no one on the coaching staff has asked Ichiro! to play center. But they need to do so. As has been discussed on ussmariner threads many times, it would make the team better.
Ichiro’s been asked to play center for a stretch before and refused. I don’t have a cite, but there it is.
OK. Thanks for the info.
I just read that Lawton will be getting the start in center tonight. I’m escared.
I had always heard that Ichiro said he prefers to play Right, but I had never heard that he had actually refused to play center. In fact, didn’t he fill in there for a few games back when Cameron was here, to give Cammy a day off?
I don’t think Ichiro has ever started a game in CF, other than the ASG. I may be wrong, though.
Well, you’ve heard it now. It’s not that Ichiro won’t play center. He just won’t be a center fielder. You could go to Ichiro and say “Hey, Reed’s arm is banged up and Lopez stubbed his toe so we need to use Bloomquist at second, can you cover in center for a game?” and he’d be okay with that. But he doesn’t want to play there regularly.
ESPN.com lists 3 games in center (starting I believe) in 2002.
I suppose everyone has their comfort level at certian spots. Maybe he doesn’t like having people on both sides, or has some superstition about the foul line or something.
Borchard did not look lost in Center. Hopefully no one will claim him and the Ms will be able to help realize his potential.
Yeah, he started three games in 2002.
si.com has a rumor out of Florida that the Marlins are interested in Borchard to play CF for them.
They batted Ichiro in some weird spots in 2002, btw.
Must have been Lou having some fun!
How much longer do teams have to put in a claim on Borchard?
I’m confused by this paragraph. Tonight’s game is a night game after a day game so why wouldn’t Johjima play?
P.S. Not to mention Johjima had yesterday off.
si.com has a rumor out of Florida that the Marlins are interested in Borchard to play CF for them.
Hey, we can trade him for that lead-gloved clubhouse disruption, Miguel Cabrera!
Nah. Hargrove would keep him on the bench.
Hargrove would start WFB in place of Cabrera, since Willie has all the “intangibles”…
August 17, 2002, NY @ Sea
http://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08170SEA2002.htm
August 18, 2002, NY @ Sea (started at CF, moved to RF)
http://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08180SEA2002.htm
August 19, 2002, Sea @ Detroit
http://retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08190DET2002.htm
Sierra, Ichiro and McLemore. That must have been one fun outfield.
w/r/t the Johjima note: you must have missed it, but ESPN’s been running little snippy anti-Johjima tidbits like he’s developed a custom of not starting day games after night games, and doesn’t call fastballs, etc etc.
I was trying to make fun of that. And, it would appear, failed.
In case you’re curious: yes, I did just go through every box score in 2002. That team had some hoooooooooooooorrrible lineups. I don’t recommend trying this at home.
Lawton in CF. Huh. I guess it’s a change from watching Willie dive for too many balls.
Is the team finally losing patience with Jeremy Reed, I wonder? Excluding his cup of coffee in 2004, he’s hitting .246/.294/.322 over his last 162 games- so, basically, he’s the younger version of Willie Bloomquist, except he doesn’t steal bases as well and can’t play the infield. I don’t think losing patience is a terribly wise idea long term, even if Jones and Choo are in AAA, but Bavasi and Hargrove are probably looking at the attendance and the standings and thinking the same thing- this team could either be DOA in a few weeks and looking at a LONG hot summer, with everybody getting their resumes printed out on the best laser printer in the M’s corporate offices, or in decent shape by Memorial Day, and benching a kid for a veteran with proven OBP talent like Lawton might be the difference. (Reed would be doing pretty well if he had Lawton’s career.)
Seems like a catch-22 to me. Reed won’t be any better unless they play him, but they don’t want to play him until he gets better.
Where’s Yogi Berra when you need him? He’d have a good saying about this…
So long as the M’s lead the league in Ks, and are top 5 in pitching (ERA), Joh can call for underhand softball pitches. Unless Felix is pitching, when he can ask for fastpitch rules. And he can always call for a six-pack of Sapporo in my living room.
If he’s taking requests, he can call for some beer and pretzels to be in my living room too!
Rich Aurilia has more homers than anyone on the Ms.
Hey – according to MLB.com Gameday, “Dome” is a both a wind direction/speed, as well as a kind of weather. Notice I didn’t say anything about Bloomquist…
I never thought I’d type this — I’m so glad Fairly’s doing color on the tv side tonight. Another day of Henderson/Valle and I was going to go into shock.
Leadoff single…good start!
Breaks up the no-hitter.
You know, it could be that Lawton has been doing the “canIplaytodaycanIplaytoday” thing to Hargrove for so long that Hargrove’s doing it just to shut him up.
Seems like Reed’s wrist continues to bother him.
I’m so glad Fairly’s doing color on the tv side tonight
Crap. That means I get Twiddledee and Twiddlekissass on the radio side for the ride home.
Good baserunning…and by good I mean godawful
That was not ‘agressive’ baserunning, it was ‘bad’ baserunning.
You could almost see the two little ghosts on his shoulders.
Hargove-ghost: be aggressive! go for it!
Ichiro-ghost: go back! you’re a smart baserunner!
Ichiro: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
I despise ESPN and usually avoid it except for actual games. I actually watched “Barry Bonds Tonight” yesterday and turned it back off when moron Jeff Brantley said his “biggest disappointment” was Johjima and that he was “killing King Felix”. I mean honestly…
I had been hoping that Adrian Beltre and Eddie Guardado would be taking part into today’s protests and failed to show up to work. I am very disappointed to see that they both showed up today.
I’m so glad they reminded me that Joel has to keep the ball down. I had forgotten.
I had been hoping that Adrian Beltre and Eddie Guardado would be taking part into today’s protests and failed to show up to work.
Guardado was born in Stockton. As in California.
41: Many of the people protesting today were born in this country.
Looking at the Twins’ lineup in the gameday box score, there seems to be a rather large discontinuous transition from goodness to crappiness in the Mauer-Hunter interface.
Would it be an understatement to day that our defense does not look too sharp today?
Going home in the 1st inning?? Show’s how confident in our offense we are!
I take it back
For those who missed it, Joel just hit 93. I think there was something about that possibility at the top of the game thread.
Rizzs and Valle are having simultaneous nerdgasms over Betancourt right now.
I made the mistake of having to cut all the way from the valley to get home tonight… unfortunately that put an enormous protest between me and watching the game. About a bazillion cops and ten bazillion protestors.
I thought an hour from my meeting to home would be plenty of cushion… but i didn’t realized 100,000 people had a different idea.
Tough to get around it when it’s only a few blocks from your house.
At least I got some solidarity time in.
Now I can try to figure out how we led off the first with three straight hits… and yet we have no runs. I have a hunch I get to add another notch on my aggressive baserunning tally sheet.
96mph and 95mph consistantly, there gun must be off.
Lawton singles…cue reckless baserunning?
I think Beltre should be crowding the inner half of the plate, at least until someone backs him off.
WOOHOO!
Johjima!
I note that along with not calling for fastballs and whatever other things ESPN wants to ding him for, he also scorched that ball.
Baker came inside one time too many, and not far enough
Good to see Lawton hitting, and better to see Joh go yard!
At least Ichiro’s BA is back up to around .300 after that slow start.
I love how Fairly’s stories are like 50% hime winding his way through the story and 50% winding his way back out, down the exact same path.
You love that?
Hee hee. The Matt Lawton adventure begins. That didn’t take long.
Oh pain in my head…
It cracks me up.
I was going to make a pot pie but I looked in the pantry and couldn’t find any chicken stock so I got in my car and went to the store but when I got there the power was out! Can you believe that? The power was out at the grocery store I went to to buy chicken stock because there wasn’t any in the pantry when I looked before I made a pot pie.
It’s like he’s a story-telling palindrome.
Instead of left-center gap we should call it the Lawton-Ibanez gap. And it’s huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge
#41– Eddie did say before the game that he & AB had been talking about it as his dad was going to stay home, and Beltre’s father-in-law had gone to the first LA rally; AB then suggested that all the latin players troop into Hargrove’s office, where they had Eddie mournfully inform Mike that they felt that had to take the day off in solidarity. According to Eddie, Mike turned a very enjoyable shade of red before he noticed Beltre sniggering in the corner….
the best part is when he gets back to the end of that winding path, starts the heh-heh-heh laugh and then repeats the punchline to himself.
7 hits to 6 outs? Sweet.
(I’m stealing the palindrome story bit. Just so you know. I’m stealing it, but I’m leaving a note so you don’t think you just misplaced it and waste time retracing your steps looking for it.)
Regarding CF, since we’ve DFA’d Borchard, does that mean we *must* move him, or can we pull him back and shove someone else off the roster to make room? Example, if Tampa Bay claims him on waivers, can we put him back on the active roster and put, say, Reed on the DL? (or option a Pitcher to Tacoma, or trade Guardado to a team that needs more 9th inning excitement that we do, or Piniero to a team that needs more 1st innning excitement, etc.).
I’ve grown tired of Sexson.
Dang…Beltre got robbed
Beltre robbed. Ah well. His at-bats are so much more encouraging.
So how does Dewan’s system compeltely inflate Ibanez’s rating….he’s listed as an above average left fielder?
hmm. the Ms don’t get the joy that is playing KC until June, whereas Oakland will have played 6 games against them by then. In fact, the Ms would have more wins than Oakland, were it not for KC
NICE defensive play there by Betancourt!
Hunter must’ve been looking at the Mariner’s strategy guide on that one.
Haha… do not run on Ichiro, Mister Not-Paying Attention.
More nerdgasms from Rizzs and Valle. I wish I was watching this instead of listening.
77: Agreed. Get a room, guys.
Hmm, I guess they are in a broadcast booth.
which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask– while we are crabbing about ESPN, anyone watch BBTN with any regularity? Have they ever noticed Betancourt? Given him a webgem nomination?
of course, Johjima could be holding him back too…..
Sending the catcher? WTF?!?!?
ooh, out by a mile, with an arcing throw. I’m guessing Johjima isn’t a real base stealing threat.
That crazy Johjima!
They should’ve had Yuni try to steal first…..
Hey look, another mixed up signal!
Genius! No one will expect the Running of the Johjima!
It’s a sure thing, an easy base, a gimme. Then we have a man… on second! Mwa hah hah hah.
oh.
Did Rizzs just say Valle was “eating like a Viking”?
I see I’ve missed most of the excitement after watching Hudson throw his first shut out as a Brave.
Damn KSTW and MLB.TV and thier darned black out areas. I mean common I’m in BFE Southern Oregon..we dont’ even get UPN, we should be excluded from the blackout area.
95? I call bs.
87- yeah he did. Matter of fact he’s eating a pretzel the size of a throw rug, or at least that’s Rico’s story.
Don’t worry RD, I missed the whole weekend series because I’m in Baltimore’s black out area. Too bad I’m two states and 350 miles south of Camden Yards, and there’s no way for me to watch an Orioles game otherwise.
91- Damn..that blows yeah I’m pretty far south of SafeCo..From my door to the California border is -> 32 Miles.
#90. those wacky scamps.
fwiw, Ron just told us in great detail how it was a hit & run where Yuni missed the hit part.
Joel 9-2 G-F so far.
And really, that run he gave up should be unearned, given all the crappy fielding that led to it…
Ichi’s definitely warming up.
93 – HAHAHAHA…Fairly doing TV huh? Hey do they just save Hendu for home games? Because I’m enjoying not hearing his voice.
Um, Ford caught that ball, right? Gameday has it as Ichiro hitting a double.
97: Yeah so does Gamecast…I’m confused.
Was Ichiro’s hit not a double?
Ford caught it…hell of a catch
Adrian Beltre will see your hell of a catch and raise it.
And Beltre did not want Ford out-doing him… that was an even better catch. Jesus.
So how did Ichiro get on second? I had my headphones off so I was relying on gamecast.
He didn’t. It was an F9.
Humorous. Gamecast still hasn’t figured it out and made Richie 0 for 3 now with a line out to Adrian Beltre.
103: Looks like Ichiro actually flied out, and the play that ended the inning on Gamecast (Sexson lining out to third) was actually the first play of the bottom of the inning.
It’ll probably take a while for Gamecast to sync back up with what’s really going on.
Was there any doubt about that one? Woah.
BIG SEXY!!!!
That’s what Gamecast gets for making him 0-3 prematurely.
Sexson feasts on the terrible pitching. Like a pothead feasts on junk food.
Hubba Bubba
I never get tired of Sexson!
Like a pothead feasts on junk food
Or Freddie Garcia, your choice.
>>Sexson feasts on the terrible pitching. Like a pothead feasts on junk food.
Gamecast is all fucked up, they say Sexson just lined out to end the inning.
Well that didn’t work.
What if the pothead is the one doing the terrible pitching?
I hate HTML codes.
Beltre just crushed that one too…woo hoo
He went to to right field. I don’t believe it! My oh my!
Arrgh, one foot from a homer for Beltre.
obviously Scott Baker wasn’t wearing his lucky cup.
Gamecast head asplode!
Dammit…missed Beltre’s rope. What kind of pitch and where was it in the zone?
Sexson would’ve hit that one out….
Beltre is coming around. Didn’t he get hot in May last year too?
What kind of pitch and where was it in the zone?
A stupid one up in the zone.
Gameday is still messed up too. Checking Yahoo for the Hat Trick.
give Joel a 3 run lead and only bad things can happen…im scooting over to the Yanks-Sox game….
Yep. Yahoo’s all screwered up too. It seems that Lew Ford’s catch has divided the internet simulcasting systems by zero…
OH SHI~!
Cbssportsline has it correct.
http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/gamecenter/live/MLB_20060501_SEA@MIN
Im glad the M’s didnt get that Arroyo turd
The bats are workin nice tonight!
Yikes. Baker had 101 pitches in 5-1/3 innings, and our Jo-El is at only 59 pitches in his 5.0 innings. I’m flabbergasted.
Remind me again why Johjima is such a terrible catcher.
This park is a morgue.
Gotta assume Eddie could hold a 6 run lead if this holds up!
This is silly. Isn’t this what teams usually do to us?
This park is a morgue
It’s the Twins, what did you expect?
Yu-Bet? YOU BET!
We’re….. scoring runs?
RE: #127. It may be only an early-season aberration (similar to last year at this time), but isn’t it weird to see Alex Rodriguez with a .264 BA, OPS of .874, with only 8 extra base hits in 86 ABs?
Joe Mauer looks friggin’ huge
It’s weird to see a 3B for whom .874 is a massively disappointing OPS.
Sniffing a three game winning streak…
I LIKE WINNING-its so much better than losing!!!!!!!!!!!
Save some for tomorrow, guys.
ive already voted for the allstar game, when do playoff tickets go on sale?
Did I accidentally click on the wrong radio feed? What team am I listening to?
146- Your listening to, what they call in the biz, a “Blow Out”.
I didn’t realize the Twins were *this* terrible this year. And you wonder how the Royals could possibly be worse.
Ill tell ya what’s weird…Barry Bonds having an OPS over 1.2 as he loses another body part with every swing….
When was the last time the M’s hit for the cycle in an inning?
Over the last 33 innings, the Twins have been outscored 41 to 2.
Jojima is a triple away from the cycle, which is surprisingly easy to do in the Metrodome.
It’d be really cool if Johjima managed to leg out a triple, ’cause he’d be among an elite bunch of MLB players — catchers who’ve hit for the cycle.
I don’t think “easy” is quite the word you’re looking for there.
Oops. TIF typed faster than I did…
They just announced the attendance on the radio for the Metrodome crawd: 11,796. Pretty pitiful.
This radar gun is on crack. 89 on a slider from Joel? Hah.
156: And by crawd, I mean crowd.
Dan Gladden needs a better hairpiece.
Fairly with some absolutly magical commentary there…..
what? Rizzs is talking about past events?
Great AB, AB.
Second double by Beltre. I’m a happy camper.
Another double for Beltre.
I thought he was finished, right Steve Kelley?
Rizzs, every other game: “Hey, remember 1995?”
Wow, Beltre is really hitting. Like, getting hits.
Are these the Mariners we’re watching?
Adrian Beltre: .202 BA
Aggressive! Baserunning!
What exactly was the point in sending him with a 7-run lead?
Do we really need to be aggressive with a 7-run lead?
oh fer chrissakes.
okay, we’re up, but was that absolutely necessary? This aggressive baserunning is going to make my head expolode.
171: It’s spelled ‘asplode’.
On the plus side, it’s nice to actually be able to type 7-run lead.
I’d put $100 on it that the M’s lead all of MLB in outs-made-on-bases.
Yay, Belter is off the interstate!
Boo, Grover and crappy baserunning.
Pineiro’s GO-FO: 14-6.
er, 15-6.
Beltre’s numbers since the nadir – April 16th.
.291 .370 .417
Not awesome, but sooooo much better.
With tonight’s debacale, the Twins have caught the Royals for worst run differential in major league baseball; they’re both -57. In just 25 games, they’re getting beat by an average of 2.3 runs per game.
They suck.
“Beltre picked it up like a cat and threw him out”
–Dave Niehaus, on the radio
Thanks for dooming the M’s to a 19-2 drubbing tomorrow, guys.
So wait, why was that ball fair? It looked like Sexson grabbed it on the foul side of the bag.
“That’s not bad! That’s Lou Pinella-ish, the hat went 8 or 9 feet in the air!’
Oh, I love you Dave Niehaus
Piniella
Sorry, didn’t spell check myself
So that’s only 90 pitches for Pineiro through 8. Think he’s going to be given a chance to finish the game?
Woah..Petagine! They must have unchained him from the bench.
181. Exactly my thoughts. With Washburn’s flyball tendencies and uber-ace Santana it’s gonna be tough.
And Petagine slaps one.
Think there’s a Twinkies blog somewhere that’s lamenting their hitting making a bad pitcher look good? Because, y’know, we NEVER have occasion to do that around here.
Beltre with another hit!!
Man, these guys are bad!
The Twinkies are mailing it in at this point.
In yesterday’s thread, bigred (post number 161) predicted this.
Beltre is now hitting .211
It’s German Heritage Night at the Metrodome?
Don’t mention the War.
Joel with 0 BBs and 0 Ks. Hmmm.
Johjima and Lawton are both 3 for 4, Lopez and Beltre are both 3 for 5. I sure like playing the Twins.
196. There must not be many Germans left in Minneapolis.
All hail the junkballer!
198: Bring back the Kingdome!
201: I have some really, really bad news for you…
How rare is the no BB – no K complete game?
CG! The first for the M’s! And he kept it to around 105 pitches.
Trade Joel. Now.
And hooray for a 3 game win streak
Lawton and Petagine have now dethroned WFB for batting average King.
Holy whatever. A complete game win for a Mariners pitcher. Pineiro, no less.
Nice to see the Ms have a relatively easy victory for once. Hopefully this will help lift their confidence with the bats.
#190 – yes there is: http://www.bat-girl.com/
#205, I couldn’t agree more!
203. It’s pretty rare. Mark Fydritch (probably misspelled) used to do it a lot in is spectacular, though brief career for the Tigers.
Gamecenter over at Sportsline had Piniero in the low 90′s in the 9th inning and I saw a couple of 95′s in there as well. Is that total bunk or was Joel doing espresso shots between innings??
212 – I think the radar gun was doing the espresso shots.
Rick L… interesting. I don’t recall offhand ever having seen it.
#212 Radar guns can be deceiving.
The Twins are bad, but this has just been a silly month. They had some pitchers that you could worry about, but I’d like to see the analyst that picked their starting rotation to put up a 7.21 ERA for any one-month period during the season.
And then there’s the Rondell White debacle. PECOTA’s 10th percentile projection had him at -5.5 VORP over 227 PA, and in 91 plate appearances so far this season, he’s hit .136/.143/.148 for a -15.5 VORP. And he’s been doing a lot of that in the #4 spot, right after the only three guys on the team that are acutally hitting right now.
Like I said, a bad team, but they’ve had some pretty extremely bad individual performances, ones that don’t seem very likely to continue to this degree.
Maybe he’s getting the good fastball back. Joel used to be able to hit 92-94 pretty regularly, with the occasional 96.
I saw a game that Fydritch pitched once where he pitched a complete game with something like 79 pitches. Every batter hit a ground ball on the first or second pitch. Or so it seemed.
I like the radar gun on espresso angle. I’ll go with that but I’ll be interested to see what the readings are in his next start.
BTW, Yuni gets webgem #3 tonight
I find it hard to believe Hudson had never had a CGSO before….after asking the ESPN question, I checked in on BBTN, which led off with 15+ minutes on the Sox/Yanks game. Do they really think that there is that great a percentage of their viewers who care that much about a May Sox/Yankees game? Oh, wait, make that more like 20 minutes. Kruk is now explaining to us about hitting a knuckleball pitcher.
ok, at 40-some minutes in, they are now at homeruns & webgems. No Mariners hit a homerun aparently, but Yuni did make the webgems, with a comparison by Karl Ravetch to Nomar. uh-huh.
#130– there was a great quote on BBTN– someone quoting a scout who said he could see whay Arroyo was doing so well, “no one had seen him before, and after the lineups he faced in the Al, this must seem like a holiday”
9 innings, 9 hits, 2 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 17/9 GB/FB.
“Hello my name is joel pineiro and you can tell how good my defense is by looking at the box score”
Good game. Encouraging to see beltre get a couple of extra base hits.
I find it hard to believe Hudson had never had a CGSO before
Not only that, but his first as a Brave.
Wait, that’s not right.
Yes it is Huddy’s first shut out as a Brave.
His 9th Career Shut out.
221. Beltre’s play should be #2 then.
So, the Metrodome has the old Jamie Moyer radar gun from a few years back? The one he got from France…
Ooo, la la.
#224. that makes a lot more sense.
interesting discussion on the postgame about Joh, and how nicely rested he was today; Drayer wondered if he might not get a few more regular days off (like it or not) just because of their awareness of the chance of wearing-down from the longer American season & the vastly-increased travel on top of learning 2 languages, his own pitchers, new pitchers, new hitters, new ballparks, new umpires, a different style of calling a game, etc etc etc…
oh, and they just played Sexson saying that he’d trade that home run for a few good ground balls when guys were standing out there on 2nd or 3rd….
227- Whats more interesting is the 1 hit he allowed, was to the Rockies pitcher.
Today’s game takes the edge off of the fact that the M’s would be leading this division if Ichiro, Sexson, Beltre and Guardado had put up career-average stats for April.
I guess that’s the tradeoff when Betancourt, Lopez and Johjima are playing about as well as you could possibly expect.
Is anyone keeping track of the outs by stupid baserunning? We got three today: Ichiro getting picked at second, the ill-advised hit-and-run with Johmija and Beltre getting thrown out at home. Last year I thought Hargrove should be more aggessive, but if this is what it amounts to I’m ready to go back to station-to-station ball, thank you very much.
Beltre needs to do exactly what Jose Lopez needs to do to succeed—and he’s finally doing it: a) lay off stuff out of the zone, especially away, until you walk or get a strike, b) sroke the outside pitch the other way, preferably with authority, c) if you get a fastball over the plate, don’t miss it. They’re very similar hitters. I’m just glad, in a way, that Adrian was finally going so bad that he was willing to let go of pride and fer Chrissakes _STOP_ slashing that power-pull swing at any pitch he guessed he could reach. Beltre might actually turn into, like, a hitter again if he keeps this up.
Lawton played for years in the Homerdome, and even though he doens’t have the legs for CF anymore he he knows how to read balls against the ceiling there, which is the tough thing, and which I think Reed had trouble with last year. Giving Lawton the start was the ‘good manager’ thing do to, and it really paid off.
Ichiro: Look, he starts every year slow, it’s deliberate, he’s said so in the past, and it’s all part of the plan. The team was going so bad that Ichi had to step on the gas 2-3 weeks earlier than he would have otherwise. His first week or so, he was off, but really there was _nothing_ wrong with him.
I just love Betancourt; we’re going to be rooting for him for years. Cat can hit, too.
Mark Fidrych: I started watching, really watching baseball the year that was his year, ’76, and because it was his year.
The thing about the Bird was his control was unreal. Decent fastball, good change, no real breaking pitch—but everything was in the bottom six inches of the strikezone unless the catcher called for a pitch outside the zone. He through like Timmy Hudson, only with less velocity. GB after GB, not many Ks, the other team just could never get anything going off him ’cause, like, they never had anything to hit. He was a rookie and way over his previous innings pitched, so he got tired in September, and the ball came up a bit so he lost his last four to go 19-9.
. . . Then next spring he tweaked his knee fielding a squibber (like Eddie G. pulling his hammy his first spring here), pitched with it, and blew up his shoulder. I suspect it was the labrum, but it was before those kind of diagnoses. He lost 5 mph at least when he came back, and couldn’t locate the ball sharply ever again; in other words, he had no game and was through. Rotten luck. He was the funnest dude to watch I’ve ever seen on a diamond, although I expect that watching Kirby Puckett was a similar larf.
Probably pumping gas somewhere, just like he said.
If you tried to take out a trademark on “Unpretentious Joe,” you’d find it was registered at birth for Mark Fidrych.
Did Joel P really go nine innings-without a strikeout?!?!?!?!?!?!
Just scanned through the highlights of this game on TiVo. Lots of weird wild stuff jumps out. At one point Beltre hit a double and I think it said it was his 2nd double of the year. Now I knew he hadn’t homered since the other day, but – only one double all month??? I hadnt realized it wss THAT bad. In spite of the 19 hits that was a blast to watch just for the defensive highlights. M’s made me proud with the glovework.
Its good to see the M’s beginning to get some wins. It looks like the teams they were playing were among the best in the AL, and they were just struggling. Hopefully we can keep playing and winning against the bottom half teams and build a little confidence. I’ll assume that everybody is disregarding the article in the Tacoma News Tribune about Felix (wanted to send him down because he is pitching worse than Meche). I think they just miss him in Tacoma.
The game also marks a milestone — Beltre has surpassed Everett by 2 points of batting average. Still behind him by 28 points of OBP and 145 points of SLG but gaining fast.
#236– not an article; a column. big difference.
in the PI, Jason Churchill reports that Travis Blackley continues his comeback from labrum surgery and is faring well in Double-A San Antonio and says that a certain outfielder “is close to returning after spending the past four weeks in extended spring training. He’s hitting, running the bases and playing some in the field, testing out the left knee that required surgery in September. “I caught a few games down there and he looks ready to me,” said the scout. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s playing in Seattle by the end of May.”"
Bill did say he wouldn’t be 60 days.
Who would they get rid of if a “certain outfielder” comes back? Petagine? Lawton? Trade C-Rex? I would have to think in the short term at least they’d send Petagine down.
Minor League Small Sample Size Theater:
Asdrubal Cabrera 355/512/484
Shin-Soo Choo 349/417/558
Hm. Fat and gaudy numbers. Which of them are looking solid?
they’d send Petagine down
The problem with that is, he’s out of options. So he’d have to be DFA’d, and I’m betting he’d never clear waivers. You DFA him, and he’s good as gone.
Snelling? Chris Snelling?
Snelling? Chris Snelling
Who?