Game 27, Mariners at Rays
Millwood vs Niemann, 10:10 am.
The road trip comes to an end with a day game, so the M’s are running the unconventional day-after-night line-up out there. With Montero sitting and Smoak demoted to the bottom third of the order, Kyle Seager is your new cleanup hitter. Better than when Adam Kennedy was hitting cleanup last year, but still kind of hilarious.
Oh, also, Chone Figgins is playing because he’s 7 for 14 lifetime against Niemann. Joe Maddon is shifting his defense on every play because of the work the Rays front office has done to figure out the spray tendencies of every hitter in the Majors, and Eric Wedge is starting Chone Figgins because of the results of 14 at-bats against a particular pitcher. But, yeah, us stat nerds are the ones that are out of touch with today’s reality…
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Seager, 3B
Jaso, C
Carp, DH
Smoak, 1B
Saunders, CF
Kawasaki, SS
Oh strikeouts, how I loath you…
Haha. Yeah it was definitely a comprehensive evaluation of Jaso’s skills. I was imagining some sort of Ben Davis/Olivo hybrid of garbage. But he has been ok so far. Haven’t seen his arm yet and pop time.
I gotta think Wedge just had some sort of thing in his brain that made him forget Jaso was a catcher.
Ackley and Ichiro!
What I mean by framing is not moving the glove after the ball is caught. Its about positioning your body, swaying with the pitch, in order to receive the ball directly in front of your chest. This makes pitches just off the black appear more over the plate, and also clears your body a bit to give the ump a better look. Turning your wrist over to put more of the glove over the black can help to.
Its all pretty subtle, and probably doesnt make much of a difference at the pro level. But Jaso does seem pretty static back there. That said, Olivo has been so horrible this year that I’d rather have a piece of plywood back there.
Gosh, do you think Jaso should have played more this year?
Bench him!
I think Mike Fast did research on framing pitches. Sorry can’t link right now, just google it. It is worth the time.
Smoak chases pretty much every two-strike chase pitch. Came home for lunch to watch some action. Could definitely benefit by seeing some more of “it”
Thanks for clarifying Swershow. We have the same understanding of “framing”.
Jaso looks awesome with the bat tonight. He is the only lefty in the lineup that has figured out not to chase niemann’s bad breaking stuff down, and fastballs a foot up and out of the strikezon. Niemmann had bad command and mediocre stuff tonight, and virtually never threw strikes when ahead in the count. And our lefty heavy lineup chased him all over the place.
I don’t think that last pitch to Saunders could have been any more down the middle (from the reliever). What was he waiting for with two strikes?
Does “Sleep Country” only sponsor the offense? Or is it geographically specific to Smoak?
Well there was Jaso’s arm and pop time. He looks to have a quick release, but I hope that isn’t his normal arm slot–reminds me of Johjima. That ball breaks toward the runner and is bad for arms and wrists of infielders.
I would not have guessed Millwood would have outlasted Niemann in the midst of that 4-run implosion.
I can’t wait to see Figgins not get pinch hit for in the 9th
Thanks for the link reference, Spanky. Just as I stated … A good catcher can get favorable calls on borderline pitches. Oh, and Keith Law should strap on the gear sometime and give it a whirl – just to see how easy umpiring is.
I think it’s cool that when Joe Madden makes a lineup change, he moves 4 or 5 guys around in the field.
All hands on deck for backing up that throw from Jaso. I think the bag was had, but sheeeesh.
Yeah that was not a pretty throw–at least he had a better arm slot than the first one.
We need some rally fries!
Don’t we pinch run for Carp in a situation like this?
I wonder what has gotten in to Jaso powerwise? His best slugging % before this season was .378, and his best ISO was .130.
Of course its an ultra small sample size for him so far this season. But he already has 3 doubles, a triple and a HR in 24PA. Something is different.
That was a lame way to end things. Saunders got two fastballs down the middle and did nothing with them.
Hard to find any excuse for playing Figgins after today.
There is no reason to not have Ryan pinch run for Carp, unless … Wedge is simply fearful that it might result in the game going into extra innings and having to watch Ryan “hit” later.
Or, maybe he didn’t want to risk missing the team flight back to Seattle and losing the opportunity to be greeted by all of his fans at the airport.
He looks to have a quick release, but I hope that isn’t his normal arm slot–reminds me of Johjima.
I hope it reminds you of Johjima. Kenji had a career CS% of .400, which is very good. Compare that to Olivo’s .342. Unfortunately Jaso’s is at .195. It is likely that even Montero will be better at stopping the running game than Jaso.
Kenji had a very quick release. It did not always look pretty, but as you stated, Kazinski … it was effective. Very effective.
I don’t know what these guys are looking for. If you’re a young player who’s scuffling, you try to get into hitter’s counts. 2-0, 2-1, 3-1, etc. When you get into that count, you’d better be ready to do some damage. Watching these guys take fastballs right down the middle is disgusting. You’ll never have success if you don’t get the bat off your shoulder. The whole point of a hitter’s count is to get a predictable pitch in a predictable location. If they can’t handle that, then there’s no helping them. I’m also baffled on the decision not pinch run Ryan for Carp. We’re leaving opportunities out there to be had, plain and simple.
Olivo’s caught stealing rate translates to 1 runner every four or five games.
How many times per game does a runner advance because he let a ball get away? That’s what Jaso needs to beat.