Adventures in gnoming
Please enjoy this fine tale of mischief.
Man… Conor… do we know anyone named Conor?
(Also MSNBC, many other places)
Game 10, Mariners at White Sox
If you think Mike Hargrove has made some questionable managerial decisions to start the season, I’ve got just one sentence for you. Think of Michael Buffer when I say:
Are. You. Ready. For. Oooooooooozzzzzie Guuuuuuuillen?
Thrill as Ozzie pinch-hits Willie Harris for Juan Uribe! Marvel as he removes Paul Konerko in favor of Scott Podsednik! Wonder at the White Sox’ early winning record! Become nauseous at the head-swim-inducing moves!
Joel Pineiro vs. John Garland, 5:05 p.m., PDT. The M’s return to TV on KSTW.
As a sidenote: does it say more about me or about Alex Rodriguez that, when I see the headline “A-Rod yanks 8-year-old-boy from path of truck,” I think “P.R. set-up.”
Don’t answer that.
Game 9, Mariners at Royals
Moyer v Bautista, 11:10 am, no TV, KOMO radio only.
Also in minor league action, you can listen to the Rainiers in Sacramento against the Rivercats at 12:35. Curtoooooooooo!! Baek’s getting the start.
This is the M’s chance to get over .500 for the first time in a year-and-then-some (which does not count their opening 1-0 record). I know it’s pointless this early in the season, but that’d be pretty cool. Still, the real test of the team’s going to be the brutal mid-late April/mid-May schedule (Angels, Indians, Rangers, A’s, Angels, Red Sox, Yankees, Red Sox, Yankees — ugh).
Incidentally, it looks like Friday is Pineiro, Saturday is Franklin, and Sunday is Meche, who’s having his elbow inflammation “honored” by moving his start back.
Felix Start #2
Okay, so I missed the M’s game this afternoon, but I’m around for Felix going in Sacramento tonight, so I’m going to do a running game diary, at least for a few innings.
Also, for anyone headed to Tacoma for the home opener on Friday night, you get a happy surprise: Chris Snelling should be in the lineup on Friday, barring any other freak accidents in the next 48 hours.
7:10 PM PDT The feed isn’t doing that hot tonight. Hopefully I can actually pull this off.
7:14 According to Mike Curto on the broadcast, there’s a “modest crowd” in Sacramento tonight. He should have seen the crowd in Winston-Salem last night.
Also, Curto informs us that Jamal Strong and Wiki Gonzalez are on a play-play-day off schedule, where they never play three games in a row. Both are coming off knee surgeries.
7:19 He’s “King Felix” on the broadcasts too. That nickname’s not going away. Nice job, Jason.
7:22 Bobby Smith just stared at strikes one, two, and three. Didn’t move his bat the entire trip to the plate.
7:24 Scoreless first for Felix. 12 pitches, 10 strikes. Since he’s on an 80 pitch limit, its great to see him firing strikes.
7:34 Rainiers take a lead on a base hit by Dustin Delucchi, scoring Shin-Soo Choo.
7:40 Curto rules. He just called Jack Cust a Three True Outcomes hitter, and then explianed what the TTO are.
7:48 Felix with another strikeout to end the inning, stranding two runners. Quoting Curto: “That was nasty.”
8:06 Felix is starting to cruise. 96 MPH fastball blows away Freddie Bynum.
8:12 Shin-Soo Choo with his first home run of the season. Rainiers up by two.
8:23 I’m wearing down, so this is probably my last inning. We don’t have anyone warming up in the USSM bullpen, though.
8:28 Felix gives up a triple but gets out of it scoreless. Four more shutout innings. He’s kinda good.
Night all.
.500! Woooo!
Last time the Mariners were a .500 — April 2nd. Last time the team was over .500 — September 28th, 2003.
Really.
Game 8, Mariners at Royals
Mariners (3-4) in another afternoon game against the Royals (3-4).
Sele v Greinke
11:10am game time, no television, KOMO radio. This road series is bizarre, both in scheduling (game, off, game game), in time of scheduling, and in that there’s no TV coverage at all.
Pineiro’s exepected to come off the DL on Friday to pitch in Chicago. This is a little earlier than we’d previously heard, but with Meche down for who knows how long, it makes sense. Who else is there, really, Campillo?
If something serious is wrong with Meche — and despite the team’s statements (see previous fine post by another USSM author) we’re all justified in being scared that it’s going to turn out to be more than mere discomfort — we’re still down to Pineiro-Moyer-Sele-Franklin-? with ? probably being Baek or Campillo for a while and, given rumblings that Madritsch is “out long-term,” possibly much longer.
And if my mood seems a little dark… my tax bill this year is depressingly unreal. The asset tag on my computer at work is a smaller number than what they want out of me.
Go M’s.
Do the Mariners have a pitching problem?
Larry Stone looks at the previous week’s pitching stats and concludes that the arms have actually performed relatively well.
Stone admits that injuries are a serious concern, but cites some traditional performance numbers like ERA to make his case. Interesting to see WHIP listed as an indicator for the “stat-geeky.”
But one part of the article, unrelated to its main premise, actually shocked me.
Now the team is trying to figure out what to make of [Gil Meche’s] elbow problems, which he says have been contributory to his erratic start  twice unable to make it through five innings, and a 7.88 ERA.
While pitching coach Bryan Price said the Mariners will “honor” the fact he has tenderness, it is clear they believe he needs to learn to pitch through such discomfort.
“I’d hate for anybody to have to go through the year with any type of a chronic problem, soreness,” Price said. “Even if it wasn’t career-threatening, it’s still tedious, and it works people over mentally. You feel like you’re not going out there with your best stuff.
“But experienced pitchers understand they’re not going to go out there every time with their best stuff, and they still have to compete and give us a chance to win.”
There is a difference between ‘not going out with your best stuff’ and having an injury, though certainly the latter can lead to the former. After all the arm trouble Meche has had, I can’t believe they are still questioning his toughness in public like this.
When Meche told them he was hurt in 2001, they effectively told him to rub some dirt on it, suck it up, and so on. By the time the doctor found his rotator cuff problem, he was actually relieved that he had an injury, so he knew he wasn’t crazy.
I’m not a doctor, and even if I was, I haven’t examined Meche’s arm, so I don’t know whether there is anything structurally wrong with his elbow or not. But calling a guy out like that — especially after you’ve sniffed at his concerns once, with disastrous results — just seems to me uncalled for.
Signing off
I’m packing up the computer and we’re leaving tomorrow morning. I want everyone to place nice while I’m gone (which’ll be at least a week). Go M’s.
— Jason
Minor League Stuff
I took in a game tonight between the Winston-Salem Warthogs and the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. Good ol’ Carolina League baseball. MB was sending Jake Stevens, a highly touted left-handed pitching prospect to the hill, and I wanted to get a look at him. So, despite being about 40 degrees and raining, I joined the other eight fans at the park. I’m not kidding. You’ve never seen a professional game with less people.
Tonight was one of those nights that remind me why its wise to discount second hand information. Here’s an excerpt from the Baseball America Prospect Handbook on Jake Stevens:
Scouts drool over Stevens’ projectable body. He’s a good athlete and shows excellent stamina. He has terrific command of three pitches, beginning with an 89-91 mph fastball that has registered as high as 94. He displays excellent feel for an overhand curveball that could become a plus power pitch. Stevens’ changeup could give him a third above-average pitch.
Now, I’ve said enough good things about BA and the work they do that I think anyone who knows me probably realizes that I’m a big fan of their stuff. They’re the reason every other prospect analyst alive has any information to go off of, and if they disappeared, so would every other “independant” minor league expert who is really just repackaging BA’s words and putting their personal spin on his stats.
But that scouting report for Stevens was completely, utterly wrong. It felt like I was reading the wrong bio. Here’s a brief sample of my notes from the game:
Listed at 6’3. Probably 6’0. Maybe not even that. 6’3 is a total joke.
Fastballs early in the count, curve when he gets ahead. 84-86, only
hit 88 once on a FB up in the zone. Never got near reported velocity.
Not much movement on FB. Short armer. Curve 69-72, not a ton of
bite. Very hittable pitch if its in the strike zone. Change is okay,
but nothing special. Had decent command, but no stuff.
Honestly, the closest thing I could compare him to was Craig Anderson. Or maybe if you combined Jamie Moyer’s fastball with Shigetoshi Hasegawa’s curve and Matt Thornton’s changeup, you’d have a decent idea of what I saw tonight. The Jake Stevens that I saw had the stuff of a Double-A reliever.
Now, maybe it was just an off night. Or maybe it was the weather. Maybe he’s hurt. I’m not trying to attack Bill Ballew, the guy who wrote the Braves chapter for BA, but it was a reminder to me just how sketchy some second hand information can be. Even reputable second hand information can be completely off base. It was like the report was written while gathering radar readings from the stadium scoreboard (don’t get me started on that thing…) or something, because the pitcher I saw tonight couldn’t possibly be the guy that Baseball America ranked as the 92nd best prospect in baseball.
Jetta update
Thanks to everyone who expressed interest or offered advice; I agreed to a sale this evening with a USSM reader. You guys rock.