Beats another Meche start, for sure.
It was weird to watch Nageotte, because if you watch with eyes open you see everything people laud and caution about him. His breaking stuff is great, and fastball has life. But his location is all over the place, which is cool but also a little scary. You can see how he makes some teams drool, and also why some say he’s got a long ways to go before he’s going to be an effective major league starter.
I hope they keep him in the rotation — the team’s already made some comments about trying to figure out the rotation* — because at least Nageotte’s interesting.
Did it seem to anyone else like tonight’s game just draaaaaaaaaaagged?
Cliiiiiiiiiint! Not a bad showing against a pretty good offense, what with their four hitters over an .850 OPS. Given his off-and-on control problems, three walks in six innings is a nice start, and of course those eight strikeouts are none too shabby.
We didn’t draft ten tall left-handed high school pitchers? What the heck is going on?
I fully admit to knowing nothing about the players the M’s have taken so far, but it is interesting to note how many college players they’ve taken already — 9 of 13, and they’ve only taken one HS pitcher (they generally love HS lefties). They’ve also focused on position players rather than pitchers, which is good given the thin hitting talent currently in the farm system.
Readers continue to disagree with my post on the double steal. Says tede:
You missed the plot. Stealing off of Koch/Alomar was inspired and may
mean that the M’s actually have an advance scout.
The two WTF moves were made by Guillen. In the 7th with Loiaza at 110
pitches allowing him to pitch to Randy Winn who already had two hits off
of him and a career average of about .500. No way should Guillen
expect a HR off of the Cafe by Winn, but a base hit or walk to bring up
the tying run to the plate was likely.
The other WTF move was after the double steal of second and third in the
9th with Edgar at the plate. Edgar has a 1-2 count after the steal.
Guillen (and Koch) badly need a strikeout for the second out of the
inning. Instead Guillen gives Edgar a free pass. Since Guillen is
asking a fragile Koch for a strikeout, it is easier to strike out an
aged Edgar with a 1-2 count (and with a recent habit of taking called
strike threes particularly slow curve balls) than starting over with
Cabrera with no empty bases to work with. It looked like Guillen fell
into the common manager’s habit of respecting his contemporaries too
much and not reading the scouting reports.
I still disagree. I think if Koch goes to low curves, he’s going to walk Edgar anyway, plus there’s a good chance he screws up and leaves something out there.
That said… I’m going to open this up to our esteemed readers: what’s the scoop with Edgar? Has his vision gotten significantly worse from even last year?
The Mariners used their first selection, 93rd overall, on Matt Tuiasasopo out of Woodinville High School. Yes, he’s the younger brother former Huskies QB Marques, and he’s also the 9th rated QB prospect in the country. Scouts are torn on whether he’d be more successful at baseball or football, but regardless, the leverage he has with his football skills are going to make him a very high priced sign. This is a classic Mariners pick, blending in a tools player from the local area with the need to overpay to get him signed. I’ll stop short of calling it a bad pick, but it’s certainly not a great value pick, and there’s a pretty good chance that Tui never plays a day in the M’s system.
I want to point out something weird in last night’s game that I still don’t understand.
Koch comes in and can’t throw strikes. Bocachica grounds out, Ichiro gets a single, Winn doubles, Olerud walks, Boone singles.
The Mariners are beating up on Koch. Bloomquist’s running for Olerud at second, Boone’s at first. Team’s down by one, only one out.
Now Edgar hasn’t been hitting like Edgar, but Edgar still walks, he still hits. He’s got many years of fine hitting experience, and is willing to work deep in counts, which is exactly what Koch doesn’t want.
Behind him sits Jolbert Cabrera. Now, believe what you may about Cabrera, but given the choice, any manager wants to see Cabrera over Edgar with a shaky closer showing bad control.
Melvin double-steals. This opens up first, and the White Sox take him up on his offer and walk Edgar to pitch to Jolbert.
One out. Edgar’s now on first and Boone on second, Slowest and Sorta Slow on the basepaths. Jolbert Cabrera over his career’s been a ground-ball hitter, this year more so than ever (1.5 G/F). He strikes out, but almost never walks, so you’re almost guaranteed that Cabrera’s going to hack at Koch’s pitches and put something in play, and most of the time with Edgar on first you’ll be able to turn two. Or even two nailing Boone-Edgar.
Now, Koch still sucked enough to blow the game, and Cabrera took a walk for once. These things happen. But instead of having Edgar up facing Koch in a game-winning situation with a reasonable chance of a double-play, Melvin handed the White Sox an easy way out. I don’t get it.