We’re getting a lot of questions about the injuries to Chris Snelling and Rett Johnson. There is no official word as of yet, and the M’s are saying that they haven’t received the results from the MRI’s. From what I understand, Snelling’s injury isn’t expected to be serious, and the Rainiers have chosen not to put him on the disabled list. Johnson was placed on the 7 day DL and will miss at least one start. I’m more concerned about Johnson’s injury, but we should know more by tommorrow. If we hear anything, we’ll post it here.
The A’s designated 1B/OF Adam Piatt for assignment in order to send him to the minors, but he’ll have to clear waivers before they can do so. Piatt is no great shakes, but he’s got some pop, will take a walk and would be an immediate upgrade to the M’s bench — he’s certainly more useful than the likes of Chad Meyers or Pat Borders. Piatt’s minor league career isn’t too shabby either, so it’s not crazy to think he could hit fairly well given some regular at-bats. Heck, you might even luck into next season’s 4th outfielder if everything breaks the right way. In any event, I’m advocating a waiver claim (though the A’s would probably pull him back rather than let their division rival have him).
Fun game tonight, even if it was a bit on the longish side. I think the term “playoff atmosphere” tends to get overused, but it was certainly there tonight. Much of that comes from the large number of Red Sox fans in the crowd, which always makes for a fun time (especially when the home team wins).
Boston’s offense is scary good. I’ve talked about this with other people, but I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it here — in the past year, the Red Sox basically went out and acquired all the players about whom statheads have been saying for a few years, “You know, a smart organization would snatch this guy up on the cheap.” Check out the list of names (OPS): Kevin Millar (.859), Bill Mueller (.958), David Ortiz (.910), Todd Walker (.719, but career .775), and Gabe Kapler (.860). And remember, they added these guys to Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez. Throw in career years from Trot Nixon and Jason Varitek and you’re looking at one heck of an offensive machine. The P-I notes (scroll down) that the Sox are on pace to break MLB’s team marks for slugging percentage, doubles, extra-base hits and total bases.
Box Melvin misused the bullpen pretty badly tonight. I liked that he trusted Mateo to come in and bail out Moyer in the 6th, but why not let him pitch the 7th as well? He’s been too good this season to be wasted on a lone hitter (he threw all of two pitches in case you’re keeping track). Instead, Box went to Benitez in the 7th. That’s fine; you have to get him his work, and he retired the side in order. But why send him back out there for the 8th? This is a guy who for his entire career has worked one inning stints almost exclusively — heading into the game, he had worked 573 1/3 innings in 552 appearances. Like I said, he’s used to one-inning outings. Not surprisingly, Benitez faltered in the 8th, prompting Melvin to go to his closer, Hasegawa, with the bases loaded and five outs left in the game. Fortunately Shiggy was marvelous and picked up the save, but all this could have been avoided. Let Mateo work the 7th, go to Benitez in the 8th, then do what you like in the 9th, be it Hasegawa, Rhodes or the newest Mariner, Brian Sweeney.
I think what we saw from Melvin tonight was in direct reaction to how good Boston’s offense is, though. Even that four-run lead (Ichiro!) wasn’t safe, so he was trying to do whatever it took to hold them in check. This is probably also why he had Rey Sanchez bunting with runners on first and second with a three-run lead in the bottom of the 8th.
Looking forward to Saturday’s game: Pedro vs. Piniero. Ooooh boy, should be a good one. I’ll also be at the game Sunday, making this the first time in ~five years I’ve been to all three games of a weekend series. And that was vs. Kansas City in the Kingdome, so it hardly counts.
Overheard at the Ballpark, 7/14/2003:
Woman: “The Blue Jays have a catcher named Wilson, too!”
Man: “Is he as cute as ours?”
Woman: “Nope.”
Much is made of Dan Wilson’s defensive abilities, game calling, yadda yadda. I was curious, though, after seeing Meche get roughed up in a Dan Wilson start again: does Meche pitch better for Davis than Wilson?
Meche to Davis: 3.53 ERA, 82 IP, 82 H, 32 R, 13 HR, 26 BB, 58 K — 23% H rate, 7% BB rate, 16% K rate, 4% HR rate
Meche to Dan: 4.09 ERA, 66 IP, 56 H, 23 R, 9 HR, 21 BB, 48 K — 20% H rate, 8% BB rate, 17% K rate, 3% HR rate
There’s not a lot of difference there in what the pitcher has control over. I think the gap in ERAs is some luck, but also Davis’ superior arm picking off runners while Dan has, uh, not so much been picking off runners.
You would think that for all the praise heaped on Dan that there would be some kind of clear impact his veteran leadership might have on Meche… but there isn’t. Both catchers see the balls they call for put into play at almost exactly the same rate, and the rate those balls go for hits is low for both, but a 3% gap there isn’t enough to be significant, because that’s the defense at work once the ball’s in play.
If I had the time, I’d look at that and see if there were particular defensive alignments that affected this, but… enh. Dan isn’t any better than Ben at calling games, and he’s certainly no better at controlling the running game.
New Big Board… welcome back, Kaz Sasaki.
Sanchez, Mabry, Wilson, and Bloomquist in the same starting line-up? I’m predicting Kelvim Escobar to have the game of his life. Matt Stairs, please. I’d settle for John Vander Wal. Just please, no more John Mabry.
Of course, he’s now one for one, and will likely have a career night. And I’m sure people will send me nasty emails telling me how stupid I am. John Mabry could go 4-4 with 4 homers, and you know what, he’d still be having a bad year.
Ron Fairly on Carlos Delgado: “This guy doesn’t walk very much. Some teams will try to pitch around him, but he’s a free swinger up there.”
Uh, Ron? Assuming Delgado’s current pace continues the rest of the season, this will be the fourth straight year he’s walked at least 100 times, and he’s averaged 94 walks per 162 games over the course of his career.
This is only sort-of Mariner related, but I find it interesting, so here you go.
Eric Byrnes, Oakland outfielder, splits by month:
Month AB BA OBP SLG OPS
April 38 0.316 0.395 0.421 0.816
May 104 0.356 0.405 0.625 1.030
June 115 0.322 0.395 0.583 0.978
July 74 0.095 0.152 0.176 0.328
August 13 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.154
His dropoff from June to July has to be one of the biggest declines in history. And, amazingly, he’s followed that up by getting worse in August. Oh, and those August stats don’t include his start today, where he went 0-4. He’s now 8 for his last 91.
How does something like this happen? For the first 3 months of the year, he was an all-star, the A’s MVP, and the only reason they had any chace of scoring. Then, inexplicably, he turns impotent at the plate. This has to be more than a slump, doesn’t it? Can someone really be that good for three months and then, overnight, turn into the most horrendous player on the planet for no apparent reason?
Breaking news from Tacoma: rehabbing 3B Jeff Cirillo was a late scratch from this afternoon’s Rainiers game. Apparently he hurt himself in the batting cage this morning. And for those of you wondering, no, that’s not a joke.
Also: Chris Snelling was sent to Seattle today for an MRI on his knee. Rett Johnson will have an MRI tomorrow on his shoulder. Cross your fingers, folks. These are two players who could be pretty big contributors next season.
Baseball Prospectus has a cool new report, the “Postseason Odds Report” based on some cool stuff Nate Silver did. The Mariners right now are projected to win their division 86.5% of the time and the Wild Card another 6.8% of the time, for a total post-season chance of 93.3%
So as you consider whether to plunk down the money for the playoff tickets, which includes the non-refundable charge, remember that barring disaster, they’re a good bet.
Oakland wins the division: 13.5% Oakland wins the WC: 37.2%