Soriano’s line in Tacoma so far: 4 games started, 3.68 ERA, 90 TBF in 22 IP, 17h, 6bb, 24k, 1 hr, 4 hb. Small sample, but that’s a pretty low hit rate, the walks are 7%, the Ks are 24%, and the HR/HB.. probably too small to really tell much. I think Soriano should be used to relieve Garcia when Garcia gets chased out of the ballgame, providing an entirely different repetoire to batters: Garcia relies on his change, Soriano doesn’t have a change. Garcia gets his head all mixed up, Soriano suffers outrageous fortune as a true stoic might.
Be interesting to see how much faith Melvin puts in Soriano. If he takes over Mateo’s mop-up role, he may not get more than a few innings while up here, and that’d be a bit of a waste, I think.
109 pitches for Meche in a shutout is alright, once in a while. If it becomes common place, we’ll have issues. He’s shown that he thinks Freddy is fine in the 115 range, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Pineiro got there as well. Its a reason to be concerned.
THIS JUST IN! The M’s have recalled one Rafael Soriano to take Kazuhiro Sasaki’s roster spot. Very interesting indeed.
Soriano has been working as a starter and last pitched Sunday, so he should be ready to go right away.
Soooo Melvin and pitch counts. Cause for concern, maybe. From today’s PI:
“I wanted Gil to come out of there giving up no runs,” Melvin said. “His pitch count was low, but his health was a concern coming into the spring. He’s been building toward this kind of success every game.”
Meche threw 109 pitches. That’s not a low pitch count, especially for someone with Meche’s injury history. But then in the Times, on removing Meche:
“I know it wasn’t a real popular move,” Melvin said. “But 110 pitches was about as comfortable as I was looking to go with Gil. He was outstanding, as good a game as we’ve had pitched this year.”
So Meche is on a 110-length leash. But the issue then is this: does Melvin believe that in general a 110 count is ‘low’? Can we expect to see Joel run out there for 140?
Here’s some sweet, delicious numbers for your enjoyment.
Pitcher h% hr% bb% so%
Garcia 24% 4% 4% 13%
Moyer 23% 3% 9% 19%
Pineiro 20% 1% 10% 13%
Franklin 23% 5% 7% 10%
Meche 22% 5% 7% 24%
As a brief behind-the-scenes side note, it appears we have two choices: either have the ability to post in nearly-natural text, where we go and type, and blogger inserts a ton of break/paragraph tags behind the scenes, which *totally* screws up my attempts to insert cool HTML tables as I’d orginally intended, or we can write all the raw HTML we want but we’ll have to hand-tag our page breaks. I’m annoyed.
Minor League Highlights for Wednesday, April 23
Tacoma did not play, as there were no games scheduled in the Pacific Coast League yesterday. LHP Craig Anderson gets the start tonight as the Rainiers play in Tucson. Be on the lookout for which pitcher the M’s call up from Tacoma today. If they act quickly, he could be in uniform at Safeco tonight.
San Antonio 5, Wichita 1. RHP Clint Nageotte, who has struggled with his command this season and was shelled in his last start, turned in perhaps his best performance as a pro yesterday (7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K). The outing lowered his season ERA to 1.69 and he has now fanned 18 hitters in 21 1/3 innings, or 7.6 per 9 IP. C Jim Horner, just demoted from Tacoma, and RF Elpidio Guzman each had two hits for the Missions, who stole six bases in six attempts for the game. RHP Jared Hoerman got the final two outs (2/3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K) for his fourth save.
Inland Empire 13, High Desert 9. The 66ers finally won a high scoring affair by pounding out 15 hits and taking 10 walks. RF John Williamson led the way with three hits, including a triple and a homer, and also drove in four. Five other players — LF Shin-soo Choo, CF Greg Jacobs, DH Carlos Pagan, 1B Jason Van Meetren and C Luis Oliveros — had two hits each. Choo continued his hot hitting with a double, his third homer homer of the year and two walks. He also hit leadoff for the first time all season. RHP Jared Thomas worked five rough innings (6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 5 BB, 5 K) to get the win, and RHP Mike Steele closed things out (2/3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K) to pick up his fourth save.
Wisconsin was idle as the Midwest League played an extremely light schedule. LHP Bobby Livingston takes the mound today as the Timber Rattlers host South Bend.