Game 104, Mariners at Rangers
Mike Snow · August 1, 2009 at 5:03 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Happy Felix Day! Hernandez v. Hunter, 5:05.
RF-L Ichiro
1B-L Branyan
2B-R Lopez
DH-L Griffey
CF-R Gutierrez
3B-L Hannahan
SS-R Wilson
LF-L Langerhans
C-R Johnson
Minor changes in batting order don’t matter that much, but the one thing that does is you want your best hitters at the top (so they bat more often) and your worst hitters at the bottom. You could just rank your hitters that way, use it as your lineup order, and hardly go wrong.
With that in mind, this is the first time all year that Rob Johnson has batted ninth. He’s batted as high as sixth six times.
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Yeah very small thread. No one even noticed this:
Or this:
They were scrappy tonight. Good game.
Haha They showed the M’s bullpen participating in the wave on TV. That was awesome.
yeah, the bullpen looked like they were having so much fun tonight. The Wave, giving anyone sitting close an autograph, Aardsma giving the kids some bubblegum.
It’s about time we win an effing game in Texas. geeeeeeez. Snells Bells tomorrow and when i say snells bells i mean hells bells. Split the series! c’mon!
Probably due to a nice Saturday night in the middle of the summer.
Nevertheless, yeah, good win. Enjoyed this one from the bar…great D, lots of offense, and a gutty performance from Felix in a park that’s been bloody hell on these guys this year.
I know this comment was made a while ago, but I think Felix has constantly been at 91-94 mph this year, instead of the 96-98 of the last few years. Is this bad? No, not at all, the reason is that he is using his two seam and sinker which are typically slower than the 4 seams, but have more movement. This has worked great for Felix, and as a result, he is getting deeper into ball games and what pitching better than he ever has. Brandon Morrow should learn from this because his fastball is so straight that if someone guesses right and just flips the bat out, the ball will go a long ways. If he threw two seamers with more movement, it might be slightly slower, but I think it would make him a lot better as it has done for Felix.
Interestingly, one of the times that comment was made was back in May…when it seemed like his velocity was off a bit during another start in Arlington on a very warm day. Yet, he kept the M’s in that game (which Morrow wound up blowing in the ninth)…and only allowed four hits over seven innings.
There’s no doubt we’ve seen Felix mature as an ace-quality pitcher more and more this season. Go King!!
I know, I love seeing them like that. Good times, good times.
If this is a Felix Hernandez fluke game, man that’s not bad. I understand our defense was above stellar, but I mean look at A.J. Burnett’s fluke today. He gave up what, 7 runs? Felix, 2 runs and gets the win. He might have lucked out a bit but come on. I just hope the king can keep his “flukes” to games similar to today’s.
Good to see some hitting finally! Langerhans and Hanahan getting it done along with Lopey and Jr. I’ve noticed Hanahan’s BA is creeping up to respectability. Good stuff!
Felix was hitting 93 tonight. If you look back at some past starts, like his 2 hit complete game gem from June 16th in San Diego, that’s definitely down 2 or 3 MPH. I don’t entirely trust Pitch FX classifications, but it looks like his 2 seam sinker is the same speed, but his 4 seam (which he throws the most) has dropped some. As has his command. Could be the heat (which he apparently doesn’t like, regardless of his Venezuelan origins), could be he’s getting a bit tired, could be something is a bit off in the last start and this. Hard to say.
JHeino – May I clarify your explanation of what happened in the bottom of the seventh? Vizquel struck out with Salt on second and Andrus on 1st. At the time of the strikeout, then, Andrus was technically on 1st, meaning the base wasn’t open and Vizquel had nowhere to go. That made the strikeout the first out of the inning. Then, Andrus moved over to second, leaving Salt high and dry to be tagged out on the basepaths. Is that the correct order of events? (I admit, I was a little confuzzled when it happened as well.) Had Salt made it to third safely, would it have been scored a strikeout and a double-steal?
Writing from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it really wasn’t that hot here today. It was in the 70s during the game.
Felix hasn’t been in the top 5 in velocity according to Fangraphs for quite a while now. I’m sure we’ll all trade that for the results he’s been getting, even if he didn’t have his best stuff tonight.
Yes. A dropped third strike is still automatically an out if first base is occupied with less than two outs (for essentially the same reasons as the infield fly rule exists). Runners may still advance at their own risk but no force play exists as the batter-runner (ie Vizquel) is out.
Yes.
Also, had their been two outs or no runner on first it would still be scored a strikeout with the batter-runner reaching on a fielder’s choice due to the dropped third strike (unless an wild pitch or passed ball wa charged for that strike).
HTH.
Thanks very much for the expanded explanation of what happened in the seventh. “First base was occupied” seemed to be missing something, and I hadn’t seen this permutation before.
Going back to play were Omar struck out and ran to first on the dropped ball:
Do you think Omar wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realize the base was occupied.
OR do you think that he was trying to draw a throw down to first to let the other players reach safely?
It seems unlike him to make such an error, but I guess he is getting older.
I suspect Omar started out of the box purely on habit/instinct. Third strike, catcher drops the ball, you put your head down and run like hell and maybe you get lucky. He probably didn’t remember / notice first was still occupied until he’d taken a step or two. And you never know, the runner might have been trying to steal, or might have seen what was happening and taken off for second (a little tricky, granted, given that there already was a guy at second who had to be running too). Once you’re committed to running you might as well keep going and see what happens — if the catcher sails the ball past the 1B in the outfield, or hits you with it, or whatever, you could end up with everybody safe.
Note that because it’s not a force play, the fielders have to actually tag the runners to get the out (except Vizquel, of course).
Drayer has some nice anecdotes from / impressions of the the new pitchers.
I sure hope Snell has a good outing. Taking a guy with his history and penciling him into a game in Arlington his first start back in the bigs is a pretty big ask. You have to get back on the horse sometime, but it would be nice if it was a nag like the Royals instead of bucking bronc like the Rangers.
Joser, it doesn’t matter if the runner at first went on the pitch, or after the ball got by the catcher, or not at all- as soon as Omar struck out, he was out because there were less than two outs AND there was a runner on first base when the pitch was thrown. Where the runner actually was at that point is irrelevent. But I agree it never hurts to run things out!