Comments on: Ichiro is awesome

By: marinerfan

marinerfan — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:55:46 +0000

Pichiro.

By: joser

joser — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:12:58 +0000

The photos in Baker’s blog are absolutely classic. Somebody was asking about his shades — the question has been answered: apparently he can pitch at 90+ mph with the shades tucked above his cap brim and they don’t shake loose. Who am I kidding? Of course he can. He’s Ichiro. They remain affixed to his head by the sheer force of cool.

By: eday

eday — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:23:11 +0000

G.B. here to rain on the parade. Silly fans, always getting revved up.

By: DMZ

DMZ — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:03:08 +0000

You can’t move a position player from the field to pitcher w/o losing the DH

By: joser

joser — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:36:42 +0000

Somebody remind me how the substitution rules work? Suppose Ichiro starts in the outfield, and in the 8th inning they have him come in and take the mound. You run Wlad out in the outfield in place of Ichiro. Technically, Wlad has been substituted for the pitcher, so he doesn’t bat because the DH bats for him, and Ichiro gets to keep his place in the batting order (right? Or does the DH rule require that the DH bat in place of the pitcher, always?) Now, the inning ends and we go to the 9th, and the closer comes in to pitch. Can Ichiro move back to the outfield (since the closer now technically is being substituted for Wlad?) That doesn’t sound right, but I’m drawing a blank… and I really don’t want to go dig through the official rules if someone can explain it in a couple of sentences.

By: rmac1973

rmac1973 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:24:14 +0000

Anyone who played little league baseball knows how it goes…

You’re playing centerfield. the pitcher is stinking it up. I mean, seriously bad. The coach visits the mound and gives you a wave, motioning for you to come take thye ball, which elicits your fast-paced trot from the outfield. You throw a few warmup pitches to shake out the cobwebs, and after a good two dozen tosses you cut a real one loose, resulting in that glorious “pop!” sound form the catcher’s mitt. You nod to the coach that you’re ready, get the ball back from the catcher, and bear down on your first hitter…

I don’t know if they do the same sort of thing in Japanese little league baseball (although, I must admit, I see no reason they wouldn’t), so perhaps bringing Itchy in to pitch in relief would be really interesting to see.

Then again, so would a six-armed monkey, but neither one is apt to help you win baseball games, in all reality.

By: Osfan

Osfan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:49:10 +0000

Better yet, let Ichiro! be the DH when Felix is pitching. Bring him in in relief and let Felix hit. He had an OPS of five last year making him nearly as awesome as Ichiro. The sample size may have been a little small, but since when does anyone care about that?

By: F-Rod

F-Rod — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:18:37 +0000

The man is a specimen. I have little doubt he could be a decent/effective reliever. Then again I don’t know how helpful it would really be.

The team would lose a great defender, but if we had a good enough defensive sub it could help out. Boy would it be fun though. I would love it if we let him pitch 15 games a year in relief. I suppose you could DH him in games you wanted him to pitch and then let him come in relief.

By: pinball1973

pinball1973 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:42:53 +0000

Since no one else has said it, I’ll put in that Ichiro has talked about wanting to pitch in relief pretty much since day one. Maybe some here don’t know about Ohgi calling him into pitch (for fun, with the game sewed up) in the Nippon All Star game. Against Hideki Matsui. (Bummer note: Matsui bowed out and the Central League broght in a pitcher to pinch hit.) There’s a card of the event in the All Star set of that year.
Also, according to (I’m working on memory here) Egawa, who wrote excellent pre-season scouting reports while Ichiro was still in Kobe, a big reason he was drafted so low was that other teams were only looking at him being a Yamada-style submarine pitcher instead of noticing he was among the best hitters at Koshien as well.

Ichiro is likely very serious about this, if he thinks he really can do it. He joked exactly the same way about going to the majors years before he did.

Oh, and Ichiro makes me happy.

By: z4ec

z4ec — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:56:21 +0000

DMZ on February 9th, 2009 8:53 pm Cite please? That’s an incredibly high number of pitches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbY_uVs9pPw