Game 30, Athletics at Mariners
JA Happ vs. Jesse Hahn, 6:10pm
Man, walkoffs take a lot of pressure off a team. Now it’s Oakland in the cellar, and they’re off to their worst start since 2001, when they…awww, come on!
Hahn’s the righty they got from San Diego in the trade of Derek Norris. At the time, it seemed insane for Oakland to ship out Norris, a high-OBP/solid D catcher AND maybe-ex-catcher, but still a decent lefty bat John Jaso and essentially hand the starting gig to Steven Vogt. Let’s just say Vogt’s off to a good start. Hahn was a sinker/curve guy primarily last year, but he also had a four-seam, a change and a slider. This year, he’s using his four-seamer a bit more, and it’s come at the expense of the curve. It was always a good guess that his K rate would come down as he moved from NL to AL, but it’s plummeted from 22.9% to 14.3%. That said, his walk rate been cut by two thirds, so his FIP’s still fairly pretty. As I mentioned about the entire A’s club, though, it’s sequencing that’s hurting Hahn. His strand rate is an absurd 55%, and while that’ll regress, it’s a partial reason the A’s have won only one of Hahn’s five starts this year.
1: Smith, LF
2: Miller, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Ackley, CF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Happ
Tyler Olson’s option has been rescinded and he’s been placed on the 15-day DL with a knee contusion suffered against the Astros back on the 2nd. That means this doesn’t yet count as one of Olson’s option years.
Miller’s at DH again today, but could see action in the OF as soon as tomorrow, according to Bob Dutton.
Mike Montgomery starts for Tacoma tonight, Carlos Misell for Bakersfield, and Jake Zokan for Jackson. Clinton already played, and got crushed 14-3. Each of the M’s full-season affiliates are now below .500.
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27 Responses to “Game 30, Athletics at Mariners”
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No need to give Brad Miller time to learn his new position(s) in the minors – running him out into the outfield in the majors can’t possibly hurt the team’s shot at a (increasingly distant) playoff spot.
Haven’t turned the game on yet, but checking out mlb game cast, looks like the strike zone is tiny tonight.
That bottom 3 of the order is not gonna fly all season, especially if were looking to contend…
Hey at least they’re winning.
Happ seems like he might be a much better pitcher in Safeco than on the road.
Sucks when we have a pitcher on the ropes, and then we let him off with an easy inning! cmon guys!
Hopefully people will be patient if Taylor gets off to a slow start…
Do you guys actually watch this team night after night and think, “oh yeah, all the pieces are there?”
The umpire has a tight zone tonight. He hasn’t called a single strike out of the zone, and 6 balls inside the zone. Actually 3 balls inside the zone and 3 right on the black. That’s actually pretty good work.
Do you guys actually watch this team night after night and think, “oh yeah, all the pieces are there?”
As opposed to what? Some other hypothetical championship team, or the other 4 also flawed teams in the AL West? If Houston keeps it up all season we don’t have a chance, but if they actually turn out to be not much better than everyone thought, then it’s going to be a competitive division with the M’s right near or at the top of it.
Unless of course someone else gets hot and plays way over their head for a few months. Welcome to baseball.
I’m only following on Gameday but… three errors by Oakland and one by the Mariners? Sounds pretty sloppy.
ugh cmon man!
I haven’t really watched any team and thought “oh yeah all the pieces are there” this season. Hell that’s true for most seasons.
Oakland is a deeply flawed defensive team. Our error was a throwing error on Happ. Pitchers.
Houston is 8-8 at home, including the 4 they swept us, and 11-3 on the road. That might be due for some regression. They look much improved, but nobody plays that good on the road over a sustained period.
bah i just wanna get that one key hit to blow this game open! or maybe im just greedy because im tired of losing.
Nice return from the Bartender
I’m a lot more encouraged by the bullpen starting to re-gel, I think they missed Wilhelmsen a lot. Having him to turn to in the 7th or 8th, or in extras could have made a difference in at least 2 or 3 games this last week.
Farquhar has been really disapointing this season.
I don’t think Lloyd has ever trusted him.
Would you trust him given his last few outings? I wouldnt.
Not this year, since he was hired. Farquhar wasn’t used well last year for no apparent reason.
Well, I Just hope they find their mojo again, the team is gonna need them on non Felix days.
“I don’t think Lloyd has ever trusted him.”
The internet is your friend, but you must be a nice guy and never use your friends.
Lloyd used Danny 34 times last season in a “close and late” situations. Farquar’s OPS against in those situations was .497, if Lloyd never trusted him he gave him lots of opportunities to fail.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=farquda01&year=2014&t=p
Nice arrow shot Beimel!! nice win tonight boys! keep it up PRETTY PLEASE!
The M’s aren’t perfect, but neither is Houston. And I’d rather have on my home team the M’s sort of imperfect than Houston’s, which for the moment is sprinkled with fairy dust. Just saying. No snark intended.
Oakland lost that game as much as the M’s won it. But isn’t it nice to watch Oakland go all ugly and everything like that?
By the way, I regret now having mentally divided the team into the Felix vs. Non-Felix team. Jeff got me thinking about the whole King’s Court thing how this has insidiously become part of the whole Mariners schtick. I mean, back in the day, there was no special section for Randy. We loved it, of course, the days he was pitching. But we didn’t separate them into the Randy vs. Non-Randy squads.
Also, just saying. I love Felix and that mystery change-up thing of his that nobody can figure out. It’s like watching a magic act where, for once, you know there’s no trick.
@Kazinski
That is why you can’t just go by numbers (I don’t see a further breakdown by month/half/etc.). There was at least one conversation on here last year that Farquhar wasn’t being used enough in high leverage situations and it seemed from a outsiders’ view that he didn’t trust him.
Not sure what…”The internet is your friend, but you must be a nice guy and never use your friends.” is all about but…ok.
As it deals with Farquhar, I think part of the reason it seemed that way was because Lloyd could turn to almost every member of the bullpen because the whole group was so good last year. It did seem he was underused some, but I thought he used him fairly well.
And he’s probably used him too much this year because he just hasn’t seemed the same, but he’s not the only one going through that. I think the fact that he’s still going to him proves that he trusts him. I don’t think last year’s perceived notion of not using him enough wasn’t because of Danny, but because of how good the other relievers were. As much as Medina made me nervous and cringe last year, he had a great year and earned some of those high-leverage opportunities.
I’d rather go by the numbers than by my imperfect recollection, sure I remember a few times last year at the beginning of the season when I thought Farquar was a better choice than Rodney, and a few times later in the season when Lloyd went with Medina in a tight situation when I had more faith in Danny.
But the times in which the bullpen is coughing up a lead, that’s when we do the most second guessing and that sticks in our memory. If you look up the stats for bullpen usage it’s clear Lloyd used Farquar in lots of high pressure situations, Farquar was second in innings and WPA and WPA/LI, Wilhelmsen led the bullpen in all three of those. The actual numbers show that Lloyd had a lot of faith in Danny last year, and he’s likely to have a fairly long leash this year as he works himself out of this slump.