75 Responses to “Game 108, Mariners at Rangers”

1. profmac on July 31st, 2008 6:57 pm

   Did you see that… Silva almost ate Corcoran. SOMEONE… GET THAT MAN A HOT DOG!!!

2. HamNasty on July 31st, 2008 6:57 pm

   profmac- The prize in this years draft right now is Stephen Strasburg

3. CC03 on July 31st, 2008 7:00 pm

   Dustin Ackley is a pretty good consolation prize.

4. juneau_fan on July 31st, 2008 7:02 pm

   Is it me, or the Texas heat, or are Mariners/Rangers game the most boring things, ever?

5. msb on July 31st, 2008 7:07 pm

   Baker has updated his “calling my sources in Toronto” story

6. Paul B on July 31st, 2008 7:08 pm

   After Ichiro’s 6th triple of the season, I started wondering what the franchise record for triples in a season was.

   Well, 6 isn’t close. Ichro had 12 in 2005, which is the Mariner record, beating Harry Reynolds who had 11 one year.

7. Paul B on July 31st, 2008 7:12 pm

   Baker’s revision makes the M’s execs appear to be on the ball:

   Seattle’s position was that the two players — yes, it was going to be two 40-man roster guys — had to be the equivalent of the two high-end draft picks they’d get as compensation for Ibanez leaving as a Type A free-agent at season’s end. And in the end, the players the Jays offered did not meet that criteria in the eyes of Seattle’s braintrust.

8. juneau_fan on July 31st, 2008 7:12 pm

   How freakin’ hot is it in the horse costume?

   Look, ponies! Willie walks again!

9. OscarTehGrouch on July 31st, 2008 7:12 pm

   Honestly,

   Is there even a chance to beat the Nationals in tanking this season? Padres could beat us, too…

   The Mariners aren’t nowhere near as bad as the Nationals.

10. juneau_fan on July 31st, 2008 7:19 pm

    *dragging self from morass* Sooooo….Iiii…caaaannn….leeeeavee…theeee…hooouseeee…witttthhh…aaaa….eeeiiightttt….rrrruuuunnn….llleeeeaadd?

11. PaulMolitorCocktail on July 31st, 2008 7:22 pm

    Did you see that? That’s SCRAPPY.

12. juneau_fan on July 31st, 2008 7:24 pm

    *looks up from putting on shoes*

    Dammit!

    The curse of the commentator!

    “Dickey’s only thrown 80 pitches and given up the three hits….” BOOM!

13. cody on July 31st, 2008 7:30 pm

    Well, I think that’s about as good as you would expect from Dickey tonight.

14. scott19 on July 31st, 2008 7:31 pm

    Now Bill is saying that the Griffey deal is a good deal for the WhiteSox. So what does he know?

    Ah, gotta love that Krueger…yet another magna cum laude graduate of the Tim McCarver Institute for Excellence in Sports Journalism.

    BTW, nice job tonight, RA!

15. PaulMolitorCocktail on July 31st, 2008 7:33 pm

    I wonder if Dickey wears Dickies.

16. scott19 on July 31st, 2008 7:52 pm

    Looks like Mark Lowe was doing his best Jose Mesa impersonation out there tonight.

17. dpseadvr on July 31st, 2008 7:57 pm

    Dammit dammit dammit. Your site had a great article on the value of a closer in a 3 run game situation, which did a lot to confirm my disliking of the hype closers get. But JJ… c’mon already. What’s going on with him?

18. abender20 on July 31st, 2008 8:00 pm

    JJ is not 2007 JJ. That’s why trading him at the deadline would have been a good move. The more chance he has to pitch, the more he will either further expose himself or prove that his latest bout of poor pitching is residual funk from being hurt. Let’s hope its the latter.

19. Mike Snow on July 31st, 2008 8:03 pm

    It should be residual funk. Right now he’s in George Sherrill spring training mode. And trading him when his value was this depressed would have been a disaster.

20. PaulMolitorCocktail on July 31st, 2008 8:05 pm

    Um, who is R. A. Hough?

21. msb on July 31st, 2008 8:15 pm

    JJ is not 2007 JJ. That’s why trading him at the deadline would have been a good move.

    so why would someone want him if he is not 2007 JJ?

22. msb on July 31st, 2008 8:16 pm

    wonder if Dickey has called Phil Neikro yet? Niehaus said he passed Phil’s business card along to Dickey after the HOF trip …

23. hincandenza on July 31st, 2008 8:55 pm

    Phightin’ Phils: hincandenza — hotter air is less dense. PV = nRT.

    Oh man, how embarassing (I hope my high school chemistry teacher isn’t reading this game thread!). I think I was confusing pressure with density; now that you mention ol’ PV = nRT, it’s all coming back to me.

    Which makes sense- as the temperature increases the volume isn’t limited so that same quantity of air will expand, making it less dense on the playing field- this leads to longer fly balls, and probably less break on pitches. Which does fit the data with Wakefield; in higher temperatures, the air is less dense, and thus a pitcher relying on breaking stuff- in particular the knuckleball- will be adversely affected. There will be less air to buffet the ball, it will be ‘flatter’, and be teed off on more. Those climate controlled stadiums ensure that his knuckler is more consistent throughout the game, while the lack of real wind or varying temperature means that he’ll have greater control in throwing strikes with the knuckler.

    Which brings us to Dickey; ESPN Page 2 had this interesting article a few weeks ago, where Jim Caple tried to catch a Dickey knuckleball. Dickey throws a harder knuckler than Wakefield; at the risk of embarassing myself a second time, wouldn’t it make sense that the higher the temperature, the less the knuckler knuckles- unless you add velocity? So Wakefield sticking to that 65mph knuckler has a flatter pitch in hot weather, but Dickey’s faster knuckler is perfect.

24. Phightin Phils on August 1st, 2008 8:29 am

    hincandenza — makes sense…and enjoyed your posts 🙂

25. joser on August 1st, 2008 12:58 pm

    Back in 2004 the New Yorker had an article on the knuckler that had this to say about atmospheric conditions:

    The weather—artificial or real—comes up frequently, too. Most knucklers agree that wind in the face is good (anything to add resistance and turbulence), while wind blowing from behind spells doom. Heat and humidity are welcome, unless you’re pitching in a dome; for whatever reason, the consensus seems to be that central air-conditioning can work wonders. Boston’s Doug Mirabelli, who catches Wakefield exclusively (knucklers often get their own personal backstops), has observed that the SkyDome in Toronto causes an extra hiccup per pitch. And in the Astrodome in the seventies, conspiracy theorists will swear, the temperature was always suspiciously cool—the A.C. set to full blast—on days when Joe Niekro was starting for the home team.

    (If you read all the way to the end, Dickey makes something of a surprise appearance.)

    If you’re really interested in the physics, there’s a pretty thorough explanation here.

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