Batista gets hit while down
22,816 showed up to see the M’s third game yesterday. This is slightly up from last year’s game three 21,394.
Larry Stone rocks. Check out this, from his game story.
In his first start since signing a three-year, $25 million free-agent contract in December, Batista entered the game laden with expectations that he will help solidify Seattle’s rotation.
He left in the fifth inning laden with a 15.43 earned-run average. In 4-2/3 innings, before giving way to the credible major-league debut of Sean White, Batista allowed the A’s 10 hits — four of them doubles of the booming variety — and eight runs.
Greg Johns in the PI offers:
Would the addition of Miguel Batista, Horacio Ramirez and Jeff Weaver signify a step forward for a team looking to erase its three-year residence in the American League West cellar?
First impressions can be misleading, but there’s no doubt early hopes of a Mariners resurgence received a cold slap of reality Wednesday when Batista — first of the new trio out of the box — got undressed by the Oakland A’s in a 9-0 loss at Safeco Field.
Notebook fun: Betancourt’s the lead in the Times, while the PI gives him his own story. The PI’s lead notebook piece is the potential for snow and cold, cold temperatures in Cleveland.
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A 12:47 AM post to break the monotony of graduate studies is a wonderful treat. Thank you, Dereck.
As a former Division I wannabe pitcher and a current 14/15 Babe Ruth coach, I bring somewhat of an informed perspective to scouting pitchers and hitters. And…..I think that good Bautista must be somewhere in there. I really don’t know his saber profile, but I would assume that if his profile quantifies a valid skill set, then we can also assume that he will gain command of whatever it is that has allowed him to compete over the years.
I’m hoping that Bautista’s location wildness was a symptom of a correctable problem that also affected his ability to control pitch spin. Meaning, if he has command of his pitches, both location and movement will be in control. Since one was off, the other was off.
I’m betting for Bautista to find his groove and make a nice run at some point this year. He sure as hell couldn’t make any adjustments tonight.
And forgive my typo of your name. Brain cramps.
im glad now i was not allowed by FSN to see that game. Not that I watched the Jail Blazers
Jail Blazers? C’mon. At least we’ll have one NBA team in the NW…
Yeah, Batista looks depressing. He was the one I had the highest hopes for amongst the four chunks of #2. Ramirez looks moderately interesting but I’m only saying that because I can’t bring myself to believe that the M’s “braintrust” would trade promising young talent for…. nevermind.
One on Monday, One today. Should have been two on Monday if Bobby Crosby didn’t need to be put on the disabled list with a partially torn defense.
Extreme groundballer and slow as snot. From now on, I’m calling him “Filibuster” Vidro.
He moves the way mountains do: through Vidrosion.
I am headed out to Cleveland tonight to catch the Friday and Saturday games. Hopefully the team doesn’t freeze to death with the snow and wind that is predicted this weekend.
I like post-game Batista with his “no excuses” attitude. That was good to see. I don’t want to write him off because of one bad start, so, I’ll just wait and see. Vidro is a major problem though, how can the Mariners get anywhere with him as the #3 batter? Doesn’t make any sense. Doyle would have been good in the spot. I’d switch Batencourt to 3 and put Turbo at 8, where he belongs.
Have to agree completely. Though it is too early to judge how well Vidro will perform this season, it is a fact that he is EXTREMELY slow, and there is also very little reason to believe he will hit well enough to make up for his lack of speed. Why not give Vidro some time at #7 or #8? I would put Ichi – Yuni – Beltre at the top of the lineup to maximize their speed, and let Ibanez / Sexson / Guillen bat them in.
I can’t help but be discouraged despite the series win. Granted the A’s starters we faced throw a lot of strikes, but 4 walks in 3 games is hardly encouraging. I don’t remember anyone really making Harden work in an at-bat last night (I think he was under 50 pitches through 5). He only started throwing more pitches as he began to tire in the 7th.
And I agree with moving Vidro down to #8 and moving Yuni up. Neither are going to walk a ton, so might as well have a little more speed after Ichiro.
I still can’t believe we inked Batista for 3 years.
Snowed in Chicago yesterday, snowing in NYC today, we could definitely see some non baseball like weather this weekend.
DMZ…you left the best part of Larry’s quote out! After he started by saying this…
He finished it with the following…
Classic!
Re Vidro batting 3rd –
Its painful to see him there, but I wouldn’t want him hitting in front of anyone with any kind of footspeed (eg Lopez, Betancourt, Ichiro). My guess is he’s 3rd because that puts him in front of two guys who are both relatively slow and can drive the ball hard enough that speed isn’t as much an issue. Just a guess.
Let me get this straight: Vidro can’t run. He’s injury prone…especially to his legs. Can ONLY DH now. Who does this sound like? Snelling?
Isn’t the main reason we traded Snelling…not because we didn’t think he could hit…but because he is injury prone (especially to his legs) and could probably only DH now? I NEVER heard anyone say he didn’t have the ability; that he couldn’t hit.
So, why do the trade AND give Vidro the extension?!?!?!
Vidro doesn’t strike out. Seriously, that’s their reason.
All that for only $7,500,000. What was Bavasi thinking?
I’m another who’s not real optimistic despite the series win. The M’s stand dead last in MLB in team OPS. Except for a couple of Sexson homers and Ichiro, the O has been painful to watch. Cold weather, sample size, playing all games at Safeco notwithstanding, I’m not sold on their ability to score. I’ll hold off on the panic until month-end, though.
Tom Verducci over at SI.com is on theAntonetti for GM bandwagon.
We’ve gone “mainstream,” folks!
Also – Rob Neyer mentioned Derek’s book and his observation of K-Rod’s cheating in his blog today.
As for Vidro – I know three games does not make a season, but his bat looks as slow as his legs. I chuckle at the apologists for this trade who say “anything is better than their 2006 DH production.” So far, that is not the case.
I know this isn’t lost on anyone, but Batista just looked bad. I mean to distinguish between that and a pitcher that struggles during an outing against a great team, knowing he’ll bounce back.
Despite Blowers’ attempt to blame it on “too much movement” on his pitches and trying to get “too fine,” Batista did very little to make me feel there was a good pitcher in there waiting to get out.
He fell behind to nearly everyone, was sweating profusely beginning in the second inning, looked demoralized early in the game, and acted as if real competition wasn’t worth the effort.
Maybe others can correct me by elaborating on the “good” that we saw from him last night, but my only hope is that bad teams convert fewer of his constant problems into big innings. He was plain ugly, in my view, and didn’t even seem to want to overcome his lack of skill by attitude. During. His. First. Start. 3 years, how much? Here’s hoping that Ramirez and Weaver will at least bring some fire to their outings.
So you’d feel better if he slammed his glove when he got back to the dugout?
Batista will be fine. He’s hardly the only guy to get rocked in his opening day start. A.J. Burnett, Jose Contreras, Carlos Zambrano, Erik Bedard, Jake Westbrook, and Vicente Padilla all got torched in their first start of the year.
It’s just not that big a deal. Batista will be fine.
Kirby Arnold has a note about Lowe long-tossing:
“Everything is feeling really, really good”
and Schilling ….
Yeah, a lot of legit Opening Day starters got lit up themselves. I would know, because 4 of them were on my fantasy team >X0
Batista is by no means a star, but keep in mind that he is a very cerebral guy, and this was his 1st start after signing a 3 year, big money contract that many skeptics validly argue he didn’t deserve. I can’t imagine there wasn’t a lot of stress and nerves in Batista during that dreadful start.
Vidro doesn’t strike out. Seriously, that’s their reason.
Neither does Willie McScrappy, and he’s making what, 1/9th what Vidro is?
I’m finally starting to understand Bavasi’s M.O. with trades — he loves reclamation projects and is willing to give up better talent for them, because maybe, just once, he’ll get a guy who suddenly blossoms. I mean, if his trades had worked out, Jesse Foppert would have started last night and been better than Batista, Vidro would have been 2-4 with a couple of RBI, Bazardo would have pitched the ninth on Tuesday instead of Morrow….
But it seems like he doesn’t exactly understand the value within trades. Fontaine has been Fontaine, loading this team up with a nice crop of prospects. At least Bavasi hasn’t turned his attention to trading those guys yet.
(I’m giving Bavasi a pass on Reed, BTW, mainly because Reed’s biggest problem has been Reed, and we didn’t know that would be a problem at the time of the trade.)
From CNNSI – Tom Verducci – Great Job guys on the being the first!
Unfortunately, if you root for the Mariners, the proliferation of information in this era has had no effect on [GM Bill] Bavasi. He’s put together a lineup of limited power. And the lineup is better than the rotation. When he gets canned, who is likely to replace him?
— Chris Wheatley, Shelton, Wash.
I still can’t figure out the Jose Vidro and Horacio Ramirez trades. Well, they better show huge improvement this year. It’s hard to think of another team that spends as much as Seattle, with a payroll well over $100 million, without being considered a strong contender. I will tell you this: People in baseball regard the Mariners, given their money and fan base, as a sleeping giant; that’s how much they are regarded as an underachiever. I think it’s a great GM job, so maybe they could attract someone such as Chris Antonetti from Cleveland, who has been smart enough to wait for the best job to come along, not the first one. But hey, if King Felix busts loose this season, Bavasi might not be going anywhere.
I can’t imagine there wasn’t a lot of stress and nerves in Batista during that dreadful start.
There didn’t seem to be anything mechanically wrong with him; he was just missing his spots. Seems weird a guy with this much experience in the majors would be that nervous. I wonder historically if this is normal for him. (Someone else with free time can check Retrosheet.)
In the end, it’s one start. He sure reminded me of Loaiza and Weaver last April, both of whom were on my AL-only fantasy team the first month of last year. Sigh. (This year I have Felix, Dice-K, Johan, and Haren. And no hitters worth even half a crap.)
Aren’t we all glad that Harden started Game 3 and not Game 1? We might have lost Game 1 as well.
It’s not like Batista is the staff ace, or even a quality no. 2 guy. There will be times this year where he will get rocked — hard, like last night. But there will also be times when he can pitch six quality innings, and those times, hopefully, will out number the rocked times. If he can get under a 5.00 era, he’ll be a good pick up.
#19 the last line in that blurb bothers me.
But hey, if King Felix busts loose this season, Bavasi might not be going anywhere.
I didn’t see any of those starts, Dave, though Burnett and Contreras seem to have had a rougher time of it than Zambrano, Bedard, Westbrook and Padilla just looking at the stats. They certainly all seemed to have bad first starts with similar results to Batista or worse. I also don’t know anything about Batista’s personality, so if he isn’t the slamming glove type, then no, that’s probably not what I would expect.
But I am not focusing exclusively on statistical results from the first outing. I’m talking about what he showed me on the mound. He was sluggish, didn’t adjust to the A’s’ approach, basically sulked after the 2nd got tough, and had troulble putting together any kind of coherent strategy to minimize damage after the big inning.
Maybe he was just “off” yesterday, or felt under the weather. But if you saw some things he did right to make you feel good about him for this year, let me know. Past performance is no guaranteee of future results, as my investment disclaimers like to say (though it is obviously all we have to go by at this stage).
I don’t think he had a game quite this bad last year (though his Sept. 28 outing vs. the Padres is probably a contender), so I am interested in what trained eyes might have seen as positives. He relieved 2 years ago, right, then started in the NL last year? Though you are right to caution against freaking out, you won’t allow that he may have further declined since last starting in the AL? I won’t be as optimistic as you until I see the results, though happy to eat a little crow if he turns into a wonderful third starter for us this year. You and I probably agree on a wait and see attitude before calling him a lost cause – my rhetoric may have been a bit over the top in my original comment, result of falling so far from the 2-game high — but I just have different feelings about what we expect to see.
That was the worst game I have ever been to. A balk. A hit batsmen. Athletics running all over the place. Another balk that scores a run. No home runs. No flashy leather. Nothing. I guess the only thing for the night was seeing Crosby commit another error.
But I am not focusing exclusively on statistical results from the first outing. I’m talking about what he showed me on the mound. He was sluggish, didn’t adjust to the A’s’ approach, basically sulked after the 2nd got tough, and had troulble putting together any kind of coherent strategy to minimize damage after the big inning.
It’s impossible to look decent while giving up 8 runs in 4 innings. You’ll never hear a fan leave a game where a guy posts an ERA of 15.43 and say “he got rocked, but he showed me something.” You are talking about his performance, because that’s what’s causing you to infer the beliefs about his sluggishness, apathy, and general suckiness. If the A’s had missed a few of his mistakes or hit into a well timed double play, you’d probably have been more impressed by his ability to work out of a jam, even if what he did actually didn’t change at all.
This isn’t a criticism of you personally – it’s just a fact of how results color our interpretations of what we see. The results yesterday were horrible, but the A’s hitters were a big part of that, sitting on every mistake he made.
His stuff is the same as it was last year, but his command was off yesterday. We knew when we signed him that he didn’t have great control of his fastball, and there will be times when he’s leaving his fastball up and getting hit. As a pitch-to-contact guy, this kind of start is inevitable. So is the one where the hitters aren’t timing him well, he’s keeping the ball down, and he goes 8 innings on 90 pitcheswhile only giving up a couple of hits. It’s just the facts of life with this skillset.
If Batista was throwing 85-88, I’d be concerned. But he wasn’t. He just didn’t have command of his fastball last night, and the A’s whacked every pitch he left up in the zone. It happens, but it’s not predictive of anything.
Fair points, Dave. I do think you can see something of the pitcher’s attitude that is not colored completely by the results – it was one of the larger frustrations I had with Freddy Garcia – but if some things had swung Miguel’s way, I would have cautious optimism rather than pessimism today, you are right.
The A’s were also held down for 2 games, so naturally some hitters were going to start doing something. A bad convergence of circumstances, I suppose. But it’s helpful for me to hear you felt his stuff is still there, and I’ll hope the next one is an 8 inning 2 hitter.
I’m not saying we can’t learn anything from a pitcher’s body language. I just don’t think Batista’s lack of anger in one start is enough to tell us that he’s a Garcia-like flake. As noted, he’s a pretty smart fellow, an author, and a 54 year major league veteran. I’m not surprised that a bad inning here or there doesn’t phase him at this point in his career.
That was the worst game I have ever been to.
Should have gone with me in 2003. I was at an event for my wife’s work in a group suite. When Freddy’s wheels fell off, half the place cleared out.
If no one has yet, someone alert Derek that he has hit the jackpot.
If no one has yet, someone alert Derek that he has hit the jackpot.
It was on Deadspin yesterday as well.
The worst game I ever saw in person was Aaron Sele’s last start in 2005, where he threw batting practice to the Indians for 4 innings, and I left before Shiggy plunked somebody and set off that beanball war. Sele’s performance was about as pathetic as Batista’s was today, though to Sele’s credit, he didn’t balk anybody in.
I’ll give Batista a mulligan for now.
This is great – Derek joining the growing fraternity of Halo-haters (or at least guys that the Angels think hate them), along with Jeff Sullivan and Jose Guillen. Good company.
I’m sure Derek will point out that he doesn’t hate the Angels, thinks their championship in 2002 was built on solid play everywhere and backed up by the numbers, and in fact admires the strength of their pitching staff. But don’t believe him.
dw; I was at that same game with my wife and her work group. LF high up. That day marked the beginning of the end for Freddy in Seattle.
If Franny is found guilty, the publicity will be a “jackpot” of true value..