Game 17, White Sox at Mariners
Danks vs. Millwood, 1:10 pm
There was the perfect game yesterday and then Tacoma was one-hit. The report is that the Mariners wanted to go down swinging, but instead they went down check swinging. Technicalities can be kind of a bummer.
I didn’t mind it all that much. With how bad the offenses of recent years have been, it seemed like it was going to happen eventually, and thus an ordinary loss that I would have listened to anyway became a historic event. I probably will think about it now and then, just not too much in the coming weeks. I didn’t really think of Armando Gallaraga much before his almost perfect game and I certainly haven’t thought of him after it outside of that one particular context. Oh look, he’s a free agent. And was with the Diamondbacks last year. When did these things happen? All in all, I would have preferred that this would have happened two years ago before we had promising young players in the offense, but even with the perfecto and offense seemingly down in a lot of places, we’re still on pace to score 567 runs, which is eleven more than last year and fifty-four more than two years ago. Today is another game of baseball.
CF Figgins
2B Ackley
RF Ichiro
DH Montero
1B Liddi
3B Seager
C Olivo
LF Wells
SS Ryan
Rainiers Game Thread, Somebody Get a Hit Edition
I’m not trying to take anything away from Philip Humber, who pitched an exceptional game (14 swinging strikes, including 7 on 29 curves) and can’t be blamed for the line-up Wedge threw at him, but today’s M’s matinee didn’t look like history in the making. It looked like a collaborative effort – a pitcher with good command, and an opponent committed to chasing every out-of-zone breaking ball. It’s a great story- Humber was designated for assignment by Oakland in January of 2011 (when they signed Guillermo Moscoso), but I’m ready to see some offense. As the M’s don’t face the A’s in a while, we’ll need to look to the minors.
The Rainiers return home tonight to begin a series against Fresno. Mike Carp made his return to the OF last night in Sacramento, and Vinnie Catricala knocked in a run in his hometown. But both Carp and Catricala are mired in slumps, and both get the day off tonight. Carp’s 4-30 with 2 walks and a HBP, while Catricala is 11-62, and the pair have 3 XBH (all doubles) between them. This isn’t exactly playing Miguel Olivo at DH against a righty, but this line-up is a little different. I’d hoped the Rainiers would get new signee Chris Pettit, but the team’s sent him to AA Jackson instead, and the Rainiers get more Johan Limonta in left.
The Rainiers’ line-up looks like this:
1: Trayvon Robinson (CF)
2: Chih-Hsien Chang (RF)
3: Carlos Triunfel (SS)
4: Luis Jimenez (DH)
5: Guillermo Quiroz (C)
6: Johan Limonta (LF)
7: Luis Rodriguez (2B)
8: Scott Savastano (1B)
9: Leury Bonilla (3B)
SP: Jeff Marquez
If you want a better chance for runs, check out High Desert’s game at 7. They’ve got three of the top hitters in the Cal league in Brad Miller, Steven Proscia and Jack Marder and play in the most extreme hitters park in affiliated pro baseball. Check for a gameday link here around 7.
My prediction for a good pitcher’s dual in Jackson today looks about as good as my prediction that today’s M’s game “can’t be worse than yesterday’s game.” James Paxton didn’t make it out of the 3rd inning, giving up 7 hits and 5 walks in only 2 1/3. He struck out only one batter. About as ugly as Justin Smoak’s at-bats today.
C’mon, Rainiers. Score. Do something interesting.
Game 16, White Sox at Mariners
Well, it can’t be worse than last night’s game, huh?
Philip Humber starts for Chicago against the surprising back of the rotation star, Blake Beavan. Humber’s a FB/SL/CU guy who finally put together s solid season in 2011 after being labeled a bust in pro ball after a brilliant college career at Rice. M’s go with their lefty line-up today, meaning Kawasaki starts in place of the struggling Brendan Ryan.
Game time is 1:10 – here’s the line-up
1: Figgins (LF)
2: Ackley
3: Ichiro!
4: Smoak
5: Seager
6: Montero (DH)
7: Saunders (CF)
8: Olivo (C)
9: Kawasaki (SS)
SP: Beavan
Game 15- White Sox at Mariners
The M’s take on another AL Central foe as they try to put last night’s collapse behind them. Hector Noesi gets the start for the M’s in his first game since his brilliant 8-shutout-innings performance against Oakland on April 14th. On the hill for Chicago is lanky left-hander Chris Sale. He’s listed at 6’5″, 170 which honestly looks too high by about 40-50 pounds. Sale was drafted in 2010 and made his MLB debut in the White Sox pen that same year. After another very good year as the set-up man last year, he’s moved to the rotation. Sale features a very good sinking two-seamer that sits in the low-90s, a four-seamer in the mid-90s, a change-up and a good slider.
As a reliever, he was death on a stick to lefties; his FIP was just over 2 against lefties, compared to just over 4 against righties. As such, the M’s are going with a lot of right-handed hitters tonight. That may put more pressure on Sale’s change, though to be fair, he’s always thrown it to both lefties/righties, and it’s been effective. He doesn’t have pinpoint command, so the M’s should make him throw a lot of pitches and take a walk if they can. Sale’s going to be a test for an M’s team that’s dominated by lefty hitters. While the sample’s tiny, the M’s have struggled mightily against lefties thus far, and they haven’t faced one with the kind of velocity that Sale brings. A Jesus Montero home run would be nice.
1: Figgins
2: Ackley
3: Ichiro
4: Smoak
5: Montero
6: Olivo
7: Liddi
8: Wells
9: Ryan
SP: Noesi
Notes: In today’s installment of dog-bites-man, sun-rises stories, Hisashi Iwakuma has become the last injury-free MLB player not to appear in a game despite being on the big-league roster since March. The Sox had held starter Philip Humber back a while, but he’s got a start under his belt. Now it’s only Iwakuma, who once – ONCE – got close enough as warming up.
The Rainiers signed OF Chris Pettit who’d been cut by the Dodgers at the end of spring training. He spent years in the Angels organization and had a very good 2009 for Salt Lake, hitting .321/.383/.486 and playing all three OF positions. This landed him on several Angels top-10 lists, and after a cup of coffee with Los Angeles and the departure of Vlad Guerrero, he was poised to get a lot of time in 2010. Instead, he missed essentially the entire year with a shoulder injury and by the time he returned in 2011, Peter Bourjos was ensconced as the everyday CF, the Angel had acquired Vernon Wells (hahaha) and 19 year-old Mike Trout was poised to make his MLB debut. He was a solid if unspectacular player, and the Rainiers could use him. With injuries to Carlos Peguero, Mike Wilson and Daren Ford, the R’s have had to use some non-traditional OFs – Utility IF Scott Savastano played in LF last night, and actually made a game-saving, HR-denying catch in the Rainiers 1-0 win. They’ve brought up Chih-Hsien Chang, but haven’t wanted to get Johermyn Chavez or Denny Almonte, so a minor-league pick up like this one makes a lot of sense. It also makes sense for Pettit, as playing AAA in affiliated ball’s preferable to playing in the independent Atlantic League.
Felix’s Change-Up
Most of the talk about Felix so far this year has centered around his missing velocity, and as a result, the mediocrity of his fastball. But, the fastball has always been Felix’s worst pitch, even when he used to throw 98 with regularity. His curve is very good. His slider is one of the best in the game. But his change-up… that’s the pitch that makes him King Felix.
Change-ups get a bad rap a lot of times, as people think it’s just a slow fastball that throws off a hitter’s timing by fooling them into swinging too early. That’s part of it, but the really good change-ups are so much more. They don’t just float up to the plate – they dive and fade, tailing down and away from opposite-handed hitters, which is why they’re such an effective weapon for RHPs against left-handed batters (and vice versa). They not only get a batter out in front because of the lower velocity, but the tailing, sinking movement causes hitters to swing over the top, so they can be lethal groundball/strikeout pitches.
And no one throws a better diving, tailing change-up than Felix. He doesn’t even bother with the whole deception part of the pitch. His change-up is 87-89, just a couple of ticks below the fastball he’s currently throwing at 90-93. It doesn’t matter. The pitch has so much movement that opposing hitters don’t have a chance, even when they know it’s coming.
And tonight, the Indians had to know it’s coming. Every time he needed a punch-out, he went to the change-up. And not just to left-handers – he was not shy about throwing it at righties either, letting it fall off the table and end up at their ankles. You generally don’t want to throw a pitch that breaks down and in towards a hitter, but his ability to start it in the strike zone and end it outside of the strike zone makes it a swing-and-miss pitch even against same handed batters.
From a quick perusal of the Pitch F/x data, I have him throwing 23 change-ups. Nine of them were swung at and missed, a ridiculous 39.1% swinging strike rate. Six others were fouled off, so 15 of the 23 he threw convinced the opposing batter to chase and yet failed to lead to any kind of quality contact. In fact, not one single change-up was put in play all night long – the other eight were taken for a ball. That’s absurd.
Never was the pitch more on display than in the eighth inning. After one clean single and two cheap infield hits, Felix had the bases loaded and only one out with a one run lead. Left-handed batter Jason Kipnis stepped in. Felix needed a strikeout or a double play, but given that a ground ball could score the run even without leaving the infield, a K was Felix’s best bet to preserve the lead.
Curveball, taken, strike one.
Change-up, swinging strike, strike two.
Fastball, taken, ball one.
Change-up, swinging strike, strike three.
Then, up stepped Shin-Soo Choo. He’d been watching Felix throw change-ups all night long. He just watched Felix put Kipnis down with two deadly change-ups. He had to know what was coming, especially if he got behind in the count.
Curveball, taken, ball one.
Fastball, foul, strike one.
Fastball, taken, strike two.
Change-up, swinging strike, strike three.
There was no doubt that Felix was going to throw Shin-Soo Choo a change-up on that 1-2 pitch. I knew it. Felix knew it. Choo knew it. He still couldn’t touch it.
Mariano Rivera’s cutter. Justin Verlander’s fastball. Clayton Kershaw’s slider. Felix’s change-up is right there with them, and in the discussion for the best pitch in baseball.
Yeah, he didn’t get a “win” tonight, but anyone watching the game saw Felix at his best. Even without his best velocity, it didn’t matter. His change-up is that good.
Game 14, Indians at Mariners
Hernandez vs Tomlin, 7:10 pm.
Happy Felix Day!
From Shannon Drayer’s blog:
“Miggy is our starting catcher, Jesus is going to get time as well, it is going to be tough to get Jaso back there,” he said. “Not that I am against it but right now I feel like I need to give the time to Miggy and Jesus. I still want to get Jaso’s bat in the lineup from time to time if I can so that is what we are trying to do.”
I asked Wedge going with Olivo was more about what he does behind the plate or getting his bat going.
“We’re trying to get it going,” he answered. “I have had conversations with him. I was really pleased with what he did this spring he’s working up the middle more, he is trying to go the other way which is against what you have seen from him in the past typically. He has done a nice job with it. I think he has been a little anxious here early on I think he has been pressing a little bit but his confidence hasn’t wavered and I feel he is going to hit but he just has to do some things in an adjustment period to make that happen.”
I guess my kudos towards Wedge were premature. He really has no idea that Miguel Olivo is a terrible baseball player, or that John Jaso would give the Mariners a better chance of winning. Fantastic.
By and large, managers don’t really matter much. They really only need to be able to do a few things decently well – correctly identify the guys on the team who should play the most often, keep order in the clubhouse, and don’t be a total tool to the media. Wedge seems to be just fine at the last two, but he’s awful at the first one. He’s not the only problem with this team, obviously, but just pretending that he isn’t one isn’t useful either.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Seager, 3B
Saunders, CF
Olivo, C
Jaso, DH
Ryan, SS
Game 13, Indians at Mariners
Vargas vs Lowe, 7:10 pm.
I’m going to assume that there’s something wrong with Justin Smoak that hasn’t been made public yet, because he’s not in the line-up a night after going 4 for 5, which isn’t generally how you reward a guy for his first ever four hit performance. In Smoak’s absence, Dustin Ackley is shifting over to first base while Munenori Kawasaki replaces him at second base.
Oh, and Olivo is back behind the plate, so John Jaso is getting another night on the bench, despite Derek Lowe’s career 100 point platoon split. He’s not as drastically anti-RHB as Masterson, but as a sinker/slider right-hander, he’s the kind of guy who will likely eat Olivo alive but Jaso would have had a fighting chance again. But, hey, what do we know, we’re not Big League Managers (TM). We must never question their decisions. They know stuff.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 1B
Ichiro, RF
Montero, DH
Seager, 3B
Saunders, CF
Olivo, C
Kawasaki, 2B
Ryan, SS
Game 12, Indians at Mariners
Millwood vs Masterson, 7:05 pm.
So, we’re apparently not the only ones who have discerned that Miguel Olivo shouldn’t be playing against right-handed pitching. After week one’s all-Olivo-all-the-time line-ups, Wedge has inserted John Jaso into the DH spot tonight and put Jesus Montero behind the plate for the third time. This is likely in part a response to Justin Masterson’s career platoon splits (.601 OPS against RHBs, .787 against LHBs), but kudos to Wedge for being willing to end the Olivo-as-everyday-catcher thing in mid-April. I’m guessing he’s still going to play more than he should, but at least he’s not the de facto catcher at the moment, and Wedge is showing that he will put non-Olivo line-ups on the field.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Seager, 3B
Montero, C
Saunders, CF
Ryan, SS
Jaso, DH
Comparing Mariner Fastball Speeds: April 2012 versus (mostly) April 2011
The loss of a few ticks on Felix Hernandez’s fastball’s the talk of the town these days, and a similar drop landed George Sherrill on the disabled list. What about the rest of the staff – is everyone similarly affected? Who’s thrown harder?
I’ll be honest: I don’t have much of a point here; I don’t know what question I want to attempt to answer with the following data. In part, I wanted to get this out there to refer to later; Felix may decide to throw 94 again in May, and we’ll all look back at this in laugh. Maybe Hector Noesi will throw as hard as he was reported to have thrown in the Dominican (or in his very first Cactus League start). Maybe Kevin Millwood’s velocity will fade back to 2010 levels. This is a starting point. (To be fair, I was also inspired by a post by the great Jeff Zimmerman at Royals Review).
| Pitcher | Velo 2011 | Velo 2012 | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| George Sherrill | 89.7 | 86.6 | -3.1 |
| Felix Hernandez | 94.1 | 91.2 | -2.9 |
| Brandon League | 96.6 | 95.6 | -1 |
| Charlie Furbush | 91.6 | 91 | -0.6 |
| Hector Noesi | 93.5 | 93 | -0.5 |
| Blake Beavan | 91.5 | 91.2 | -0.3 |
| Jason Vargas | 88.1 | 88.1 | 0 |
| Steve Delabar | 94.8 | 94.8 | 0 |
| Tom Wilhelmsen | 95.6 | 95.7 | 0.1 |
| Kevin Millwood | 89.8 | 90.5 | 0.7 |
This table includes each pitcher’s average fastball velocity thus far in April compared to their fastball velocity in April of 2011. Now, many of these guys didn’t pitch in April of ’11, so I just took the first month they appeared. That’s not a great comparison, as it means Steve Delabar’s April of ’12 is being compared to his September of ’11. Charlie Furbush and Hector Noesi didn’t appear until May of 2011, Blake Beavan until July, and Kevin Millwood didn’t make the Rockies until August last year. Like I said – not ideal, but it’s what we’ve got and we’ll console ourselves with the fact that velocity stabilizes fairly quickly.
The other issue which I’ll get to below is pitch mix. I’ve used each pitcher’s most common fastball for the table; if someone throws a four-seamer but occasionally mixes in a cutter, I’ve reported the four-seamer. If they mix a four- and two-seamer, I’ve used whichever they throw most. But the FB a pitcher uses most isn’t necessarily the same across seasons. The data all come from Brooksbaseball, so the pitch IDs are done manually, not by the pitch fx algorithm. This is important in the case of Felix or even Furbush where the algorithm has had some difficulty distinguishing fastballs from change-ups.
George Sherrill tops the list as the guy with the biggest velocity drop, and it appears that the cause is a physical one. This isn’t something that came on this spring, however. In fact, it appears that Sherrill’s big velocity drop occurred mid way through 2011; his FB velocity in April of 2011 was fine (about 90), but dropped below 88MPH by June and never recovered. It dropped again at some point, as his average FB from his single April appearance was under 87, but the larger change occurred some time last May. It’ll be interesting to see if rest/physical therapy’s able to get him back to 90, or if he’s going to have to learn to live in the 87.5-88.5 range.
Thus far, Felix hasn’t suffered too much from his lack of velocity – his K rate’s not terribly different from last year’s rate, and the slight drop’s been accompanied by fewer walks, too. Obviously, it’s much too early to say a whole lot – he’s only faced one (awful) team, but he’s faced them three times. I’d rather face the A’s three times than just about anyone else in baseball, but three games against the same team – even the A’s – in a couple of weeks is difficult for a pitcher. If you’re wondering if it takes Felix a few months to hit his top velocity, well, no, it hasn’t in previous years. April was his best month of 2011 for FB velocity, and was one of his best months in 2009 and 2010. As many have pointed out, however, he may struggle in hitters counts in crucial situations if he’s not able to hit 95 on occasion. Justin Verlander’s velocity’s been fairly modest thus far compared to previous years, but he’s been able to add a few MPH in big at-bats. If Felix is able to do that, he should be fine.
Brandon League appears to be someone who needs time to reach his peak velocity. As such, I’m not too worried about his apparent velocity drop thus far. It’s exactly where he was in April of 2010, and he was hitting 97+ later in the summer. He started a bit higher last year, but got to the same peak around the same time. Hopefully, this year’s no different. It’s not like he’s struggled thus far anyway.
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MLB.com Profiles My Last Year
I feel a little weird linking to a story about myself, but since so many of you were so supportive over the last nine months or so, I think you may enjoy this story about how I got diagnosed with leukemia mixed in with a bit of the backstory behind my life. Doug Miller spent a lot of time talking with my parents, my brother, my wife, and some friends of mine to get their perspective on my situation and to share stories and pictures that I never planned on making public.
But, I’m hopeful that the story will help others. Amy and I decided to publicly live through our fight, not really knowing where it would take us, because we wanted to try and be an example of how you can have hope in situations that don’t offer a lot of it. If you get anything from this story, I’d like it to be that – regardless of what kind of circumstance you find yourself in, there’s always a reason for hope.