Game 44, Mariners at Orioles
RHP Pineiro v LHP Chen. 4:05, KSTW. We get to see the original, and possibly greatest, of the new wave of baseball stadiums. Oriole Park at Camden Yards also manages to be distinctively part of Baltimore in a way Safeco Field is not (what unique feature of Safeco Field would not be possible in any other city?).
Interesting pitching matchup — Pineiro’s coming off his “minor league assignment” (cough) so we’ll all be watching closely to see if he’s made the improvements in his mechanics that the time off was supposed to get him. And we’ll be watching Bruce Chen, who for once may evade the second of his twice-a-year trades by being too effective to trade. Dave mentioned that D’Angelo Jiminez has left two teams under strained circumstances, but if you want bridge-burning goodness, check out Chen’s career. Team after team bites on the promise and spits out on taste.
I predict that the Ricoh scouting report will be as generic as ever. Both pitchers need to get ahead in the count early and avoid (the big inning and/or the home run), which can come if both keep the ball down in the strike zone.
How hard would it be to put together a couple of interesting, short tidbits on pitchers to make the game more interesting? Here’s the USSM scouting report:
Pineiro: Watch for a more fluid, consistent delivery and release. He’s been working on moving the ball around the plate, so look for him to throw a lot of strikes. If he’s succesful, we should see some strikeouts and also a lot of balls in play.
Chen: He’s been mixing his curve and his fastball when he’s effective. He’s supposedly paying attention to scouting reports now, so watch him try and work Mariner hitters by the book.
Mike Cameron
Not sure if anyone noticed this or not, but Cameron has been hitting like crazy since missing the entire month of April: .367/.472/.700 in 60 at-bats with 10 walks and nearly half (10 of 22) his hits going for extra bases. He’s even getting to play a bit of center lately with Carlos Beltran banged up. Go Mike go.
Ichiro! the anti-celebrity
May be nothing you don’t know as an Ichiro! fan, but one fact jumped out at me — an indirect quote from his agent:
Attanasio figures the 31-year-old Ichiro turns down close to $30 million to $35 million in endorsements each year.
This article also seems to go to the heart of something we’ve written about before — that Ichiro! isn’t interested at all in celebrity, which is a strange and ugly thing (the better you are at your craft, or at least better-known, the more trouble you’ll have eating dinner in public). It’s not so much that he’s image-conscious as that he wishes to have no image beyond his on-field actions, and he’s dedicated to the perfection of his on-field actions.
The one thing that I caught that I don’t at all agree with is this, on Ichiro’s particular interview style, where he always uses his interpreter and thinks about each question:
But when his responses are interpreted back moments later, they are disappointingly devoid of any great insight.
That’s not really true. They’re like zen koans. Take for instance the two paired in the article:
“I think there is another level,” Ichiro says. “Where there’s a possibility, I just can’t see it right now. I think that’s the fun of baseball. You just don’t know if there’s a next level, you can’t see it. You just have to go and work at it.”
Does that mean there is a pressure to be perfect? Again Ichiro pauses.
“You know, I don’t think I know what a perfect player is,” he says. “You don’t know really what to do to get there. But you want to be that perfect player. I sometimes think you know you can’t be perfect as a baseball player. But I think there is always pressure on players to have confidence in themselves, who go out and try to play well. Of course, there is not going to be pressure on those who don’t have confidence. But there is always pressure.”
That’s not devoid of insight. If anything, compared to the easy cliches of a post-game Boone interview, they’re the path to enlightenment. I could write a whole other post on what Ichiro might mean here — and sometimes, I think what’s overlooked is that Ichiro gives the questions the answers they deserve. Talk to Ichiro about a single, and he’ll tell you he swung at a slider and ran it out, or something equally simple. Ask him about the relationship between a player and their equipment, and you might get a treatise (and your time extended).
Anyway, check it out. Ichiro! rules.
New Ichiro feature
Ol’ Les Carpenter sure is mining familiar ground in his new gig at the Washington Post. First, Lou Piniella; now a feature on Ichiro. And it’s a good one, covering familiar ground well and opening up some new windows into the world around him.
But only the world around him.
Colleagues know how little Ichiro likes to reveal personal details about himself, so they just don’t. That, in itself, is revealing. They won’t even talk about the stuff that would make for great public relations.
“I can’t say anything about this because Ichiro wouldn’t want me to, but he does extraordinary things, extraordinarily private things philanthropically,” [Howard] Schultz says.
Indeed, Bob Melvin comes off like he’s worried about finding an ahi tuna head in his bed if he says the wrong word:
After discussing Ichiro a few weeks ago in the visitor’s office at RFK Stadium, his former manager in Seattle, Bob Melvin, grows quiet. “I don’t think I said anything that he wouldn’t like, but if you think I did could you please make sure to leave it out,” he says.
Personally, I think that not touting one’s charitable giving is a very classy thing to do. Plus, how about foregoing the near-total salary of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in pander funds every year? According to Carpenter, “Ichiro’s agent, Tony Attanasio … figures the 31-year-old Ichiro turns down close to $30 million to $35 million in endorsements each year.”
This doesn’t surprise me. In a climate where many choose ducats over dignity, Ichiro’s never been like that. Even if western stars take advantage of the Japanese market to make decorum-impaired advertising, it’s not something to expect from baseball’s most private superstar.
When I think of Ichiro, I think of Joe DiMaggio, and not because of the hitting streak. I think of all the mystique surrounding the Yankee Clipper, a man focused on playing the game precisely — also a man who wouldn’t let himself be embarassed by wild tales in the media, guarding his privacy jealously even after he married Marilyn Monroe.
The analogy isn’t perfect at all: the Clipper wasn’t playing in a foreign country, after all. But there’s a common undercurrent there. Common to them, rare to us.
Felix watching
The Mariners have the day off, it’s supposed to be a nice day, and King Felix is taking the hill in Cheney Stadium tonight.
Seriously, you have no excuses. Get thee to Tacoma tonight. 6:05 pm Pacific time first pitch.
Lookout Landing
I’ve plugged Jeff Sullivan’s blog several times before, but it bears repeating: if you’re not reading his stuff, you’re really missing out. He used mlb.TV and screen captures to break down Aaron Sele’s release point change from his starts against the Yankees and the Padres, and he’s doing great work all around over there.
Seriously, go check it out. It’s good stuff.
Doyle update
After being drilled in the hand by Andy Pratt yesterday, X-rays came back and he’s okay. He’ll be “day-to-day” for a bit, but the important thing is nothing broke.
Doyle’s line so far: .404/.484/.635. 2 doubles, 5 HR, 16 walks, 19 strikouts. No steals.
Game 43, Padres at Mariners
My turn to just get home and toss up a game thread. I’m exhausted, though, so I’m going to bed. Be nice to eath other in the thread.
Game 42, Padres at Mariners
Just got back from giving a speech at my hometown university — just in time to free the mind from creeping ivy coverage — and it’s time for the game. Brian Lawrence goes for the Padres, Gil Meche for the M’s.
Lawrence has been had on the road and Meche has been bad on the road, so the runs could flow. Stay out of the big inning, Gil.
TV FSN, Radio KOMO.
Game 41, Padres at Mariners
RHP Peavy v RHP Franklin, 7:05, FSN. Tonight is “Mariners Collector Train Night — Moose Caboose” which reminds me of an off-color Mariner Moose story.
Ahh, the historic rivalry of the Mariners and Padres (btw, note that this exact matchup, Peavy v Franklin, is a repeat of a game I preview in that two-year old post).
Even the teams that looked like they were going to be easier in this May schedule turned out to be tough: Baltimore, the Padres are both playing well, and only Tampa Bay remains as an opponent we can look down on.
The M’s moved LHP Bobby Madritsch to the 60-day DL to make room on the 40-man roster for C Pat Borders, sending C Rene Rivera down.
I saw the new Star Wars movie today, and I bring this up not to spark a long off-topic thread (Has Mr. Corcoran seen the movie? Does he have anything to say about movie theaters in Idaho?). Instead, I felt something familiar today. I enjoyed the first trilogy in my younger years, and saw Lucas loot and pillage his own work pointlessly, disappointing with poor decisions and two deeply flawed movies.
Today I didn’t expect to like the movie. And yet I was swayed. It is flawed, as any good review will tell you, but I liked it a lot and for the first time, felt like I’d seen something at least up to Return of the Jedi standards.
This is a lot like I think Mariner fandom is like for us right now. Success and enjoyment of the boom years, even as we might not have been wholly satisfied with what we got from so much potential. After that, tremendous disappointment (Phantom Menace as 2004 season) and now, bafflement (can they be this bad twice in a row?). But even as we contemplate things like “is this season salvagable or should the team punt?” we can enjoy a well-played game that the Mariners come out on top.
Normally, I’d play this into a Doyle reference, but instead — is Borders a Vader character? Is there any other way to explain his ability to play catcher this long than to suppose that every season he has a knee, or an elbow, or a shin, replaced with a cybernetic replacement?