Us
Meta
Reference Material
The Future Forty 3/19/09
Evaluating Defense Evaluating Pitcher Talent
Evaluating Managers
Bugs Bunny, Greatest Banned Player Ever Selected for Best American Sports Writing!
The Attrition WarDisclaimer, Copyright
The U.S.S. Mariner is in no way affiliated with, condoned or given any notice by the Seattle Mariners baseball team, who have their own website. Similarly, we have no association with the ownership group or any businesses related to the Mariners. All article text is written by the authors, all pictures are taken by the authors, who retain copyright to their works. No copying or reproduction of any content here, photographic or otherwise, is authorized. Please email us if you wish to reproduce our work.
WBC title game thread
DMZ · March 23, 2009 at 4:10 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Ichiro! Ichiro! Ichiro!
Tags:
Comments
-
Recent Posts
- The AI Has Taken Over
- ’22 40-Man Preview Extravaganza
- ALDS Game 3: Astros AT Mariners – Welcome Home
- ALDS Game 2: The Pitch and What Follows
- ALDS Game 1 – Series Preview
- Recent Events Fill Mariners Fans With Unexpected Emotions
- AL Wild Card Series Game 2: The Ray Game
- AL Wild Card Series, Game 1: Here We Go
- AL Wild Card Series Preview: The Battle of Robbie Ray
- Game 162, Tigers at Mariners
Author Links
Local M's Coverage
M's Blogosphere
M's Official Sites
Resources
Twittah
Ichiro! Grinning! Wooooooooooooooooooooo!
What a game.
So is it actually possible for Ichiro to be more popular in Japan?
Tall, skinny dude at the UW game, in a sweat jacket?
It was Richie.
He kinda walks with a stoop though, so that might be part of it.
Why can’t the Mariners be good enough that Ichiro will smile like that for us? 🙁
I didn’t even know he had that many teeth.
Kinda cool that these guys are so happy…
Small sample size survey says…
Ichiro is awesome and Johjima sucks.
Daisuke is MVP, hmmm…
Dice-K MVP?
Come on.
And by small sample size I mean their careers. Tonight just happen to magnify their abilities.
Dude.
Ha, as it says on the front of ESPN.
“Ichiro A World Hero” Viva la Ichiro!
ICHIRO YAY
日本ã¯å‹ã£ãŸã€‚
イãƒãƒãƒ¼ã¯è‹±é›„ã§ã™ã‚ˆã€‚
韓国ã®ãƒãƒ¼ãƒ ã¯ä¸Šæ‰‹ã«ã€ãƒ—レーã—ã¾ã—ãŸã€‚
ãŠã‚ã§ã¨ã†ã”ã–ã„ã¾ã™ã€æ—¥æœ¬ï¼
Japan won.
Ichiro is the hero.
The Korean team played well.
Congratulations, Japan!
so, wednesday for Ichiro & Joh’s arrival in camp?
Good for Ichiro, but big deal, no game winning hit can ever beat this:
http://nbcsportsmedia.msnbc.com/j/ap/acf1e370-0e9d-4bda-a9db-991d1239ae71.hmedium.jpg
That is, unless the Mariners ever won the World Series 🙂
Oh, and can we play the WBC in November next time, please?!?!?!?!
Before the final game, Joh actually had a pretty solid Tournament.
@Sports on a Schtick
WBC stats:
Kenji – .400 avg with a .953 OPS (.560 slugging)
Ichiro! – .211 avg with a .500 OPS
In other words, small sample size theatre says Kenji is God and Ichiro! sucks. Can we please stop ragging on Kenji for last year? Seriously, it was brutal, and he sucked–I say that as someone who became an instant fan of him in his rookie year, and even his second year was solid. Last year stank, but there’s no way he doesn’t regress to his mean. Even with that hideous 2008, his career average is over .270 and a .725 OPS. He is an above average player.
As to Ichiro!…we all know he’s god.
Of course there is “a way” he doesn’t. He turns 33 this year. Richie Sexson fell off the freaking table at 33 and never regressed to his mean (the projections for Richie for 2009, at Fangraphs, also show him bouncing back, even though he is as likely to bounce back in reality as he is to join Obama’s cabinet). I’m not saying that he won’t improve, but I’m also not saying that he can’t get worse.
Breadbaker–
Fair enough. How ’bout there’s no way he doesn’t regress towards his mean. Another season hitting .227 with a .609 OPS is nigh unimaginable, don’t you think?
Given the M’s have three catching prospects, I can’t see him getting that many PAs if he’s not hitting more than that. That’s as far as I’ll go. I’m a Kenji fan and I’d love him to bounce back. Nothing is certain, though, even if a better record than 2008 is statistically more probable.
Luc,
I understand that you’re sick of seeing U.S. vs Japan but how is this any different than the watching nothing but the Redsox/Yankee rivalry on ESPN all season long. If you knew or understood the history between these two countries you might better understand why there is such a heated rivarly between these two teams.
Over the past few weeks I witnessed a number of magnificent events. My parents, both immigrant Koreans, had never watched a baseball game in their lives but took the time to actually watch every Korea/Japan game to include all 10 innings of last night’s game. Even with their lack of knowledge for the game of baseball they thought it was asinine to pitch to Ichiro. I was rooting for Korea but I’m glad that it had to be Ichiro who won it for Japan.
Correction, I meant Korea vs Japan in the first sentence of my last post. Sorry.
Speaking as a baseball fan and an Ichiro fan, that game was effin amazing. Even Joe Morgan couldn’t succeed at ruining it, despite his best efforts.
Seriously, the guy just spent the majority of the final and the last semifinal complaining about the format of the WBC. The complaints were predictably nonsensical, and the subtext of all of them was explaining away the U.S. loss. Someone mentioned him throwing Davey Johnson under the bus, that was a big part of it. There was also some nonsense about the start date favoring the foreign teams, and the US being without its best pitchers and being unable to get its best players because they’re all focused on the upcoming MLB season. If you think about any of that for more than a couple seconds your hair will start to hurt.
This tendency to attribute the U.S. performance to some structural flaw in the tournament itself really plucks my last nerve. What’s so hard about saying that Japan outplayed us? Morgan’s spouting off about how we aren’t fielding our strongest pitching staff in a game where Japan beat up on Roy effing Oswalt! He had a bad day. It happens.
The whole thing smacks of prejudice. In the Korea-Venezuela semifinal, Yoon struck out a Venezuelan hitter with a filthy changeup, which Steve Phillips noted was clearly MLB-quality. When he asked Morgan if he thought Yoon could compete in the majors, Morgan muttered something about it being hard to tell, because a lot of these guys aren’t ready, and then trailed off. I could’ve sworn the conventional wisdom had pitchers as the ones who aren’t ready in March.
How can this man continue to keep his job as the most prominent color analyst in the country? It boggles the mind. Isn’t his supremely obnoxious personality driving down ratings? (Yes, I know about firejoemorgan.com, and I miss it dearly.)
I’ve invested a tragic amount of time in thinking about Morgan here, but I needed to get that off my chest for some reason. I thoroughly enjoyed the WBC, I just really hope he’s not it calling it again in 2013.
Jorge Arangure has a piece about “a new Ichiro,” over at the Worldwide Leader. In it he says:
If you don’t cover someone enough to know them, please don’t tell the mainstream fans things that might not be true.
Early in the game, Joe Morgan was complaining that Japan was not stealing, and then Japan had a caught stealing and Joe mumbled something about picking spots or having the right person steal or something completely meaningless. It was at that point I muted the TV. Straw/Camel. Based on what I am reading, it was a good thing I muted it because I probably would be shopping for a new TV today otherwise.
for instance, isn’t Japan preparing for its major league upcoming season?
but that’s the American way!
so, wednesday for Ichiro & Joh’s arrival in camp?
Thursday, according to Wakamatsu.
Korea’s manager claims he meant to walk Ichiro but the “inexperienced catcher” didn’t get the sign.
Ichiro’s comment was classic:
Correct me if I’m wrong but this isn’t a rookie catcher for Korea. I think it would have been almost common sense to walk Ichiro in that situation after 2b was stolen. Korea’s strategy and style of play throughout the tournament would also support this. If the catcher was in any way confused by the decision to pitch to Ichiro, shouldn’t he have called time to confirm the signs?
Isn’t the MLB signal for “intentional walk” just holding up four fingers? Is that really a signal that needs to be secret?
Exactly. I don’t understand this confusion between the catcher and manager. Sounds like he’s throwing his player under the bus to save face. Just say you made a mistake pitching to the awesomeness of Ichiro.
“They did not convey signals well,” Korean manager In-Sik Kim said. “The catcher understood the signs, but the pitcher didn’t understand it very well. It was not to try to walk him, but to throw him a ball. If it did not work, then we would walk him. That was the strategy. So the pitcher and catcher did not communicate well. That hurt us in the end.”
“Oops, did that bus just roll over you? I didn’t mean to throw you under there.”
The Koreans could not intentionally walk Ichiro for pride’s sake, but they could throw around him.
How did Ichiro get a piece of that 5th pitch? Unbelievable. I think it bounced before it hit the bat.
I guess “In-Sik Kim” is Korean for Jarrod Washburn.
I believe if the four fingers don’t work, you can also just scream out “walk him” in any language he might understand. Or walk out to the mound and say it in plain Korean.
A friend in Japan texted me to say that somebody there (I guess a commentator?) said “Before, Ichiro walked in Heaven. Now, he is Heaven” Though I’m not sure that translates exactly (maybe it’s walked on air? On water? I don’t know. Me know no Nihongo)
NY Times:
Now, this is kind of interesting. Now Ichiro can hit when he is the sound of one hand clapping, as well as when he isn’t. How does an Ichiro who has surpassed himself play during the regular season?
Totally. If I’m the manager and I want my pitcher to intentionally walk Ichiro and I see my pitcher NOT intentionally walking Ichiro, don’t I get up on grass and start yelling? Do I really just sit there and think “Dang, they must not have understood me. If only I could somehow reach them…”
Stay classy Korean manager.