Game 45, Padres at Mariners
Chan Ho Park vs Felix Hernandez at 1:05 pm.
Don’t look now, but Chan Ho Park is having a hell of a year. He’s throwing strikes, missing bats, and keeping the ball in the yard, all leading to a 3.27 ERA in 52 1/3 innings. While he’s seemingly been around forever, he’s only 32 years old, and pitching in PETCO may be just what the doctor ordered to revive his career.
Of course, Chan Ho Park will have only a minimal impact on who wins the game today. The victor will essentially be crowned by the King. If we get Good Felix, the one who is mixing pitches, throwing strikes, and getting ground balls, the Padres aren’t going to muster any offense. If we get Bad Felix, who misses high in the strike zone, works slowly, and throws predictable pitch sequences, they’ll jump on him early.
Let’s hope for Good Felix.
Game 44, Padres at Mariners
RHP Clay Hensley v RHP Gil Meche.
Meche so far this year: 44.2 IP, 6 HR, 23 BB, 32 K. I’m not excited about heading out to this particular game, though I’ll be happy to hang out at Safeco with good company, in the specific sense and in the more general:
It’s Little League Weekend at the park, so free caps for the kiddies. It looks like the crowds are back for summer: there are 15,000 tickets up for tonight and 12,000 tomorrow (for Felix v Chan Ho Park), which means the team’s going to cruise to 35k crowds every night.
To be a little more of a downer and preserve our reputation as being overly negative —
2004 Mariners: 13-25 on May 18, 18-30 on May 29th.
2005 Mariners: 18-25 on May 22nd.
Friday cat blogging
Nearly the last picture my Minolta DiMage 7 took before it died. It was a good camera in the rare times it was working.
Game 43, Padres at Mariners
Dave Valle. Joy.
The Friday rumor mill
In general: moves afoot. The powers that be are angry after seeing the A’s somewhat methodically pick the team apart over three games.
Bavasi gone? Seems unlikely, especially ahead of the draft. Hargrove? Could happen. Some roster changes? More likely. Armstrong and Lincoln stepping down in an unexpected moment of self-awareness? Not going to happen.
PI on Hargrove’s team meeting (and the Times has a version). Theil on Mike Cameron. The Go 2 Guy returns to form with a column on Hargrove.
Times notes: Beltre could sit more
Game 42, Mariners at Athletics
A 12:35 start, and no television!
RHP Joel Pineiro v RHP Kirk Saarloos. Two “a”s, two “o”s there.
Gee, you think
Now, I’m really not trying to criticize Jeff Pentland here. I’m sure he knows far more about hitting than I ever will. But, well, just read this comment about Beltre’s problems:
“I was looking at the tapes of the last four or five games, and it seemed to me he needed to cover more of the outside of the plate,” Pentland said. “I talked to him about it, and he said he’d move closer to the plate.”
The fact that the M’s hitting coach just noticed that Beltre’s not covering the outside of the plate well is just jaw dropping. We’ve been complaining about/making fun of Beltre’s inability to hit the outside pitch for the better part of 13 months now. And we’re just fans.
Game 41, Mariners at Athletics
WILLIE TIME!! OH YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
Moyer v Zito, 7:05.
Charting Felix
So, last night, I decided to chart King Felix’s pitches. We’ve heard a lot of scuttlebutt over pitch selection, location, mechanics, velocity, and what have you, so I busted out the ultimate geekery and tracked each pitch. Well, until mlb.TV died after it was 8-1, anyways. But, I got the first 73 pitches and the bulk of his suckitude, so here’s what I saw.
First Inning
Felix was clearly looking to establish the fastball. He threw first pitch fastballs to five of the six hitters he faced, and all three baserunners reached on fastballs. He wasn’t missing his spots, and his stuff looked fine, but he wasn’t mixing his pitches at all. My comment in the game thread after that inning: “Throw more offspeed stuff, Felix”.
Second Inning
This is where you see the A’s approach made plainly obvious; see fastball and swing. Felix got through the inning with just 9 pitches thrown, 8 of them fastballs, but the A’s were jumping on the first straight pitch they saw. They swung at 6 of the 9 pitches he threw. It made for a quick three-up, three-down second inning, but the tone was clear; they were all looking dead-red every at-bat, and they were going to jump on the first fastball they saw.
Third Inning
Ellis leads off the third by hitting the first pitch of the inning into left field. It was, naturally, a fastball. At this point, I’m openly pleading for offspeed stuff. Swisher fouls out after fighting off a bunch of fastballs, and then Felix has his best pitch sequence of the game to Eric Chavez. Change-up, Curve, Curve, Change, Change, Curve. Strikeout. All three strikes were looking. Chavez was clearly looking to hit the first fastball he saw 450 feet, but he never saw one. And he walked back to the dugout with a wimper. Then the floodgates opened.
Crosby reached on Beltre’s error, swinging at the second pitch he saw (shockingly, a fastball). Payton got an infield single on a curve that was just a lucky high hop. Then, the Melhuse at-bat. Melhuse fouls off a fastball, Felix misses with two pitches, and then, on a 2-1 count, bases loaded, where everyone and their mother knows he’s throwing a fastball, Melhuse gets one at the belt and launches it. Just a terrible pitch in so many ways. Melhuse has been swinging at every fastball he sees, and he’s a terrible breaking ball hitter. Compound that by leaving it up, and well, that’s recipe for disaster.
Kendall ended the inning by looping out to short on a change-up. Two pitches too late.
By then, the damage was done – Felix just went out there throwing frisbees in the fourth, and they continued to tee off on the fastball.
The A’s had a painfully obvious plan; hit fastballs, don’t swing at curves or change-ups. And Felix pitched directly into that plan. Of the first 73 pitches that I charted before mlb.TV got cut off, 68 percent were fastballs, 20 percent were curves, and 12 percent were change-ups. He threw first pitch fastballs to 20 of the 26 batters he faced.
His problem last night wasn’t command, mechanics, or stuff. He had the normal 2006 Felix package working. He just had a bad gameplan. The pitch selection was brutal. When I can call the next pitch coming with almost 90 percent accuracy sitting at home, you have to know the A’s were as dialed in to what was coming as I was.
I don’t know who is responsible. Felix has had this problem with both Johjima and Rivera, so I don’t think its the catchers. He didn’t shake off many pitches, but it might be time to start. My guess is that its a coaching philosophy to establish the fastball and work the breaking balls in for strikeouts. Personally, I think that philosophy is wrong.
Felix’s 95 MPH fastball is his worst pitch. If he figures out how to dial it back up to 98 like he had last year, great, feature the fastball. But right now, he can’t get it by hitters when they know its coming, so he needs to mix his pitches better. He needs to exploit hitter’s flaws. Chavez is a fastball hitter, and he got nothing but breaking balls. It was brilliant. The rest of the line-up, though, saw fastballs all day long.
How do you fix it? Felix has to learn how to pitch. I don’t know how to teach that. I’m a blogger – thats not my job. Hopefully, Rafael Chaves can instill some words of wisdom about gameplan and approach into the King’s ear. Because, when he’s throwing fastballs that often, he’s hardly royalty.
Game 40, Mariners at Oakland
RHP Felix Hernandez v RHP Joe Blanton. 7:05, FSN.
Heyyy, you know how Hargrove wanted 40 games before drawing any conclusions about the team? This is game 40. And the team’s getting smacked around the league. Oh, we can say things may turn around, or they’re no worse than team X or better than team Y, but 90 wins? 80 wins requires them to play a little better than .500 ball the rest of the year, and that’s certainly possible, but playoff contention? Probably not.
Unless… unless they turn it around now, and Felix has fixed his mechanics and they build a little momentum and they could be right back in this. Right? Right?