Crazy
We deal in probabilities a lot here on the blog. Sometimes, a game could care less about probability. Jarrod Washburn walks 5 guys in 6 innings and only gives up 2 runs, he he gets an RBI single. Ryan Theriot and Felix Pie destroy pitches for 300 foot flyouts. Carloz Zambrano pinch-hits. Jose Vidro almost goes yard, then Turbo actually scores from second on a single by Willie Bloomquist while not running hard all the way or sliding into home plate. Alfonso Soriano draws a four pitch walk.
This game was a middle-finger to probability. It was crazy, it made no sense, and it was awesome.
To borrow from Lookout Landing, Putz wooooooooooo.
Game 61, Mariners at Cubs
Washburn vs Hill, 5:05 pm.
M’s go with their standard non-DH line-up, which includes Lopez hitting 2nd and Turbo banished to the bench.
Hill’s a good arm, but he’s not as good as his ERA would have you believe. Plus, he’s a lefty. And the wind is blowing out. Expect run scoring.
One Run Games
The Mariners just finished up winning their fourth game in a row, all over quality opponents, on the road. They’ve made up some ground in both the division and wild card races, and have pushed themselves to eight games over .500. They’ve done it with the awesomeness of J.J. Putz, a resurgence from Raul Ibanez, and a bunch of clutch hits.
If you hadn’t noticed, all four wins have come by one run: 6-5, 6-5, 4-3, and 8-7. The Mariners are now 10-7 in one run games after going 20-24 in such contests last year. That kind of swing will make a big difference on the team’s final record.
Because one run games are often decided by a good bounce here or a bad call there, one run W/L records are often disconnected from the actual ability of a team. The Washington Nationals are probably the worst team in baseball this year, getting outscored by over a run per game, but they’re 12-9 in one run games. The Indians, Angels, and Red Sox look like the three best teams in the AL to date, and as a group, they’re a combined 27-21 in one run games. Last year, the Yankees won 97 games, but were just 24-22 in one run affairs.
Basically, winning one run games is awesome, and doing so over teams like San Diego and Cleveland is even better. Any win against those teams is a good thing, and there’s no end-of-season adjustment for run differential when they’re handing out playoff spots. So, yea, there are all kinds of reasons to have enjoyed this four game stretch, with some weaker opponents coming up, this has the potential to turn into a nice long winning streak.
But, if you see somebody writing about how these last four games have proven the character, heart, and guts of this team, just ignore them. Just like last year’s team wasn’t a bunch of selfish jerks for struggling in one run games, this team isn’t a bunch of heroic lionhearts for winning them. I’m all for winning as many one run games as possible, but I’m not interested in assigning character representations to these guys based on how they do in games that are decided by such small margins.
I’d rather deal with the reality of on the field performance and leave the clubhouse leadership/chemistry ramblings to others. And, the reality is, this team is mashing the ball lately. After last night’s game, the team is now hitting .318/.374/.443 in June, averaging 6.5 runs per game, and getting production up and down the order. As mentioned, Ibanez has given those of us who thought he was done the finger, hitting .364/.417/.682 in the last 10 games, while Jose Lopez and Kenji Johjima continue to make a push for inclusion in the all-star game. Yuniesky Betancourt is on another one of his singles-fest hot streaks, while Jose Guillen just keeps being a solid hitter and Ichiro continues to be Ichiro! Sexson and Vidro continue to struggle, but that’s not new, and the rest of the team is making up for their out-making ways.
When the M’s built this line-up, they pointed to the depth of the offense being a key point, and in that sense, it’s paid off. The M’s have gotten more production from their 7-8-9 guys than any other team in baseball, and it’s helped offset the fact that their 2-3-4 guys have been pretty horrible.
The M’s still have the kind of offense that goes in streaks, and I’m sure we’ll be railing about their frustrating approach as some no name A-ball pitcher shuts them down with an 83 MPH fastball later this year, but for now, it’s fun rooting for a team that can score runs in bunches.
Jamie Burke on Weekend America
Game 60, Mariners at Indians
Baek v Byrd. 4:05, FSN.
This makeup schedule is just crazy. There’s no good way they were going to re-schedule those games, but I can’t imagine there wasn’t a less-bad way. And to think that this was a compromise! Ugh.
Anyway, the Indians are 37-24 and the M’s are 33-26. The M’s are on a ridiculous tear, and the Indians are playing well, but not as well. Go team.
The ESPN player rankings
If you look at ESPN.com’s front page right now, there’s a story about a player ranking formula that they’ve created.
It’s horrible, it’s useless, and you shouldn’t care. It’s based on bad premises, produces bad results, and is a collossal waste of time. ESPN is horrible at this kind of stuff – a few years ago, they shoved Productive Outs down our throats and tried to convince everyone that they’d created some fantastic new statistic.
ESPN does some things well, but besides a select few guys they’ve hired (John Hollinger, for one), they are a disaster when it comes to any kind of serious analysis. Just ignore the player rater, because it isn’t worth your time, unless you want to learn why Sean White is better than Jarrod Washburn.
Best Ichiro Quote Yet
The Mariners were clearly not thrilled with the detour before opening a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday.
“To tell the truth, I’m not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to,” Ichiro said through an interpreter. “If I ever saw myself saying I’m excited going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’m lying.”
Felix, Pitch Selection, Part 843
The M’s just completed a sweep of a pretty good baseball team. Hooray. They’re now only 4 1/2 games out, and with some lousy NL Central teams coming up after today’s distraction in Cleveland, they have a chance to keep the winning going.
But, you know me, I’m generally a lot more interested in the process than the result. I like to find out why things happen, rather than just settling for accepting that they did. And, one of my obvious obsessions over the past 18 months has been the pitch selection of Felix Hernandez. It all started with the Charting Felix series last year, and in the last few days, I’ve spent some time talking with Dan Fox, who is doing great work plotting velocity and break data from MLB.com’s enhanced gameday, which basically turns game charting into an automated process and makes my life a lot easier.
So, to help Dan be able to translate the velocity/data numbers from gameday into understanding pitch types, I watched yesterday’s game with Gameday open simultaneously, so I could quickly associate the pitch that he threw with how gameday described it. He’s going to use the pitch descriptions and his data to do some cool stuff pretty soon. But, since I have the information from yesterday’s game now, and I find this stuff remarkably interesting, here’s a look at Felix’s pitch selection against the Padres.
Since he threw 93 pitches, I’ve broken them out into 15 pitch segments, which allows us to view his start in 1/6th chunks and watch the transformation as the game goes on. To the charting – by request, the italicized pitches in the sequence charts are the first pitch of an at-bat.
Pitch 1-15
Sequence: FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, CH, FB, SL, CB, FB, FB, SL, FB
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 80%
CB: 0%
SL: 13%
CH: 7%
Results: Walk (fastball), Groundout (curveball), Strikeout (slider).
It’s the same gameplan he takes to the hill every single time. He begins the game by just throwing fastball after fastball, to the great surprise of no one. Because it’s his worst pitch and the one he has the least command over, he falls behind hitters, gets in more fastball counts, and generally struggles. We’ve pointed this out for over a year now, and it’s blindingly obvious – Felix’s struggles in the first inning are completely related to his pitch selection. Yes, if he had pinpoint command of his fastball, it wouldn’t be a problem, but he doesn’t. So when he goes all fastballs, all the time, he struggles.
Pitch 16-30
Sequence: FB, FB, SL, FB, FB, SL, FB, FB, SL, FB, CH, FB, CH, SL, CB
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 53%
CB: 7%
SL: 27%
CH: 13%
Results: Groundout (fastball), Single (fastball), Strikeout (slider), Single (fastball)
After feeling that the fastball was significantly established, Felix converts to using his entire arsenal. Of course, it’s still a pretty predictable two-fastballs-then-a-slider pattern to start off, but when he works in the change-up and curve at the end, he’s good. Both hits came off badly located fastballs up in the zone early in the count, but when he threw anything that moved, the Padres were helpless.
Pitch 31-45
Sequence: SL, CH, FB, FB, CB, CB, FB, FB, FB, CH, FB, FB, FB, SL, SL
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 53%
CB: 13%
SL: 20%
CH: 13%
Results: Strikeout (change), Groundout (fastball), Groundout (fastball), Single (fastball), Double Play (change), groundout (fastball)
This was Felix at his best. He threw a couple of nasty change-ups, including a first-pitch change to Adrian Gonzalez that produced an inning ending double play directly after throwing another badly located high fastball that got hit for a single. Even when he threw the fastballs, he was keeping hitters off balance, getting Marcus Giles to groundout on a sinker after starting him with back to back curveballs.
Pitch 46-60
Sequence: SL, CH, SL, FB, FB, FB, FB, CH, FB, FB, SL, CB, FB, CH, CH?
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 47%
CB: 7%
SL: 20%
CH: 27%
Results: Home Run (fastball), Groundout (slider), Single (fastball), Home Run (change-up? I’m not sure, honestly)
The crappy fourth inning. Generally, you’d expect some rant from me here about bad pitch selection causing the home runs, but really, it wasn’t. The 3-2 fastball to Cameron was another badly located high fastball, but it came after five consecutive offspeed pitches to start the at-bat. It was the only fastball Cameron saw the whole at-bat, as they clearly had a gameplan off attacking him with stuff that moved. On a 3-2 count, throwing a guy a fastball after seeing a lot of breaking stuff isn’t a bad idea. It was just put in a bad spot, and Cameron jumped on it. It happens.
The Sledge homer, though, is the one that just makes you shake your head. After giving up a single on a fastball, Felix threw a first pitch change-up to Sledge, and again, there’s nothing to complain about there. He was still mixing his pitches and staying away from first-pitch fastballs to every hitter. But, the second pich… I honestly don’t know what it was. 88 MPH, no movement whatsoever, belt high, and just a Weaveresque meatball. I’m guessing it was a change-up that he just overthrew, or maybe he took an awful lot off a fastball, but either way, the result was horrible. It was a mistake pitch, a marshmellow soft meatball with no movement. It’s not something you ever see Felix throw, so we certainly can’t call it predictable. Something just went wrong with that pitch and Sledge made him pay for it.
Pitch 61-75
Sequence: FB, FB, FB, SL, CB, FB, FB, SL, SL, CB, CB, CH, CB, FB, CH
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 40%
CB: 27%
SL: 20%
CH: 13%
Results: Strikeout (slider), Popout (curve), Strikeout (slider), Groundout (fastball)
Here, again, is Good Felix. If there’s a pattern to his pitches, I can’t see it, and he kept throwing offspeed pitches on the first pitch of an-bat with great success. By keeping the hitters off balance so they couldn’t look for a fastball early in the at-bat, he got ahead and put them away with the nasty breaking balls.
Pitch 76-93
Sequence: SL, FB, CB, CB, SL, CB, CH, SL, FB, CB, FB, SL, FB, SL, FB, FB, CB, CB
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 33%
CB: 33%
SL: 28%
CH: 6%
Results: Strikeout (curve), Flyout (slider), Single (fastball), Flyout (curve)
The last segment is 18 pitches, but again, we see the continuing de-evolution of Felix from his establish-the-fastball start to him practically overthrowing his breaking balls as he gets near the end of the game. But, as we continue to see, it works – the soft stuff gets outs, and the hard stuff gets hit.
Total
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 49%
CB: 16%
SL: 22%
CH: 13%
Results By Type:
Fastball: 6 for 12, walk, home run
Curveball: 0 for 4
Slider: 0 for 6, 4 strikeouts
Change: 1 for 3, strikeout, double play, home run
The evolution of Felix during a game is fascinating to watch, at least, when it’s not aggravatingly frustrating. For whatever reason (be it organizational philosophy or just stubbornness of youth), he will begin every single game exactly the same way, despite the fact that it’s never done anything other than dig him a hole and run up his pitch count, before he settles into a pattern of varying his pitches and getting outs with breaking balls.
We all know that Felix’s fastball is his worst pitch. Yesterday, he threw it less than half the time, and with the exception of two swings, he mostly had success.
All I’m asking is that one of these days, the Mariners send him to the hill with a gameplan other than nothing-but-fastballs early. It’s not good for Felix, it’s not good for the team, and it’s frustrating as hell to watch.
Game 59, Mariners at Padres
Happy Felix Day! 1:05.
I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but this (and Felix’s next start against the even weaker Astros lineup including the shell of Biggio) are a fine time for him to put up some great numbers. Mix pitches early! Seriously! It’s the key to life!
Faces Chris Young, so I’m looking forward to a great pitching matchup, though looking through past game threads, it looks like hoping for great pitching matchups rarely results in them. Still, I always enjoy looking forward to seeing Felix.
Game 58, Mariners at Padres
The Return of Jeff Weaver! Yes! Has his time off doing exercises and throwing simulated games against Jason Ellison and Willie Bloomquist turned him back into a legitimate major league pitcher? Because that would be nice.
7:05, FSNW, we’ll find out.
Hargrove’s still too chicken to try Vidro in the field. I’m taking this as a sign he doesn’t want to intentionally sabotage Weaver’s first outing back.
I can’t believe we have get to see Weaver back in the rotation. Hopefully, we get different results.