Game Twelve Recap
Yay, 6-6.
This will be shorter than normal, because its late on a Saturday night and this thread will be seen by about 12 people before tomorrow’s game thread goes up. So, brief thoughts.
Hyphen faced 25 hitters tonight, and every single one of them stepped into the right-handed batters box. No, he wasn’t dominating, but he faced an entire line-up of RHBs, and a lot of pitchers would simply fold in that situation. Breaking balls generally aren’t as effective against opposite handed hitters, so RRS went to the change-up, and used it early and often. He pitched better than the final stat line will show, because the degree of difficulty on this one was ridiculous.
The M’s did a great job of making Verlander work in the first inning, running his pitch count up to 28 at the end of the first frame. And then, the bottom of the line-up came up and pretended like they didn’t just see the plan. Kotchman swung at the first pitch he saw, flying out to center. Jack Wilson hacked at the second pitch he saw, and while it resulted in a base hit, he then got thrown out trying to steal second base – and he was out by 10 feet. Just like that, the inning was over, and Verlander had his pitch count back under control. He ended up getting through the last six innings on 75 pitches. One good inning of hitting was followed by six bad innings, as the Mariners totally let Verlander off the hook. Kotchman, Moore, and Wilson combined to make nine outs (two on the bases) and do it in just 31 pitches. It can’t just be Figgins, Gutierrez, and Bradley making pitchers work. The bottom three guys aren’t good enough hitters to get away with swinging early in the count against a guy like Verlander. Talk to them, Wak.
In the ninth inning, Ramon Santiago hit a slicing line drive down the left field line that looked like an easy double off the bat. Milton Bradley caught it without breaking a sweat. There was some seriously great positioning in that at-bat, and whichever coach Lee Tinsley (per Divish) told Milton where to stand, saving the M’s from a potentially miserable situation. If Santiago gets on, the tying run comes to the plate with the top of the Tigers order due up. Instead, there were two outs and Austin Jackson represented the final hurdle for Aardsma. That was a huge out, and it was made possible by someone doing some really good advanced scouting, and the coaching staff taking advantage of it.
Thanks Dave. Pleasantly surprised by this one. Got home and I see a 4-2 win over Verlander and the Tigers. I didn’t get to see the game, but how was Hyphen’s change-up? I mean, was it on tonight or did the Tigers hitters have a bad night against it?
Dave –
Don’t sell yourself short. Since you’ve started doing these recaps I constantly sit here refreshing my RSS feed (assuming I’m at home) after the game is over waiting for your analysis to come in. I do this after a win so that I can relive some of the good feeling from the winand make sure that the good feeling I have is justified. I do this after a loss to ease my fears and see why I shouldn’t be freaking out about the loss.
Maybe I’m the only one (I doubt it), but I look forward to your recaps.
Nice write-up. I was at the game, RR-S looked really good, and Aardsma is ridiculous. I also enjoyed the fans booing when Coke walked Ichiro, rather than give him a chance to hit for the cycle.
Any win over Verlander is impressive! Well done, guys. Now just show a little patience at the plate and common sense on the basepaths and I think we’re on to something.
.500??? I didn’t think we would get to this point against Verlander. There are points in life in which I am happy I am wrong… This was one of them. What a great win. Go M’s
You’re definitely not. I do the exact thing waiting for these recaps.
R-S pitched a great game with Verlander on the mound for the Tigers. It’s got to be a little intimidating. Four quality starts in a row, three by a pitcher not named Felix. Hope we get the good Snell tomorrow….
I do the same thing. My F5 key gets a workout after the game is over.
Let’s not hold our breath.
Hold your breath. I just finished writing up the game thread, and in it, I explain why Snell may just have his best start as a Mariner tomorrow.
I’d say there’s a pretty good chance the M’s pull off the sweep.
Can’t wait to read it Dave! I’m excited!
8th viewer of your comments. You’re selling yourself short.
It’s nice to see the M’s have a fighting chance to make it through April.
Also, count me in the “Casey Kotchman is Mike Carp with a better glove” camp. I’m just not sold on him. It worries me that realistically, out of LF, 1B, DH, and 3B, we have MAYBE one plus player out of that whole combination (figuring Lopez is ~average), and it’s a guy who has tons of injury history and should be a DH. This is just not going to work, long term.
About the Jack Wilson caught stealing in the second….
I see how it’s easy to criticize Jack Wilson for this, as it fits exactly with the ‘confirmation bias’ mentioned in an earlier piece. We already don’t like him, so lets attack him whenever he makes a mistake.
But I question whether it really was that dumb. We had 2 outs already, and Ichiro had 2 strikes on him. Nothing is likely to come of the inning. We have a chance of getting something out of the inning if he’s on second, and if he doesn’t make it, we start the next inning with the top of the line up (and Ichiro with a fresh count).
I can’t really fault him, because he didn’t sacrifice much of a scoring opportunity.
Thoughts?
You’re assuming we don’t like Jack Wilson. That’s not true. He’s just been frustrating as hell on offense this year, essentially playing exactly like Betancourt did while he drove us all insane.
Jack Wilson has 37 career stolen bases, and has now been caught 29 times. Its tempting to assume he’s fast because he’s a good defensive middle infielder, but he’s not. He’s slow, and he has no real ability to steal bases.
He gave up an out for no real chance of gain. Laird throws him out 9 times out of 10. It was a terrible idea to run.
Even with Ichiro getting a fresh count and leading off?
I look at the glass as being half-full. None of those guys were on the 2008 Mariners and only one on last year’s team. Neither Beltre nor the potpourri in left field last year were exactly patient at the plate, so we’re ahead of the game. Johnson is certainly seeing more pitches so far, as you’ve noted, as is Lopez. Between our pitchers deciding they can throw strikes with impunity at Safeco (Exhibit A: Fister on Tuesday) and the new, more patient guys in the lineup, the M’s aren’t seeing as many examples of games where our pitcher is at 80 when the other team’s pitcher is at 35. Now if we can do something on the road . . . .
Gutierrez with another nice night at the plate. It got me to looking at his Fangraphs page. It also got me to looking at his Cot’s page. Interesting thing, even if we exclude his defense (UZR isn’t out and +/- has him with 0 BIZ, not sure what the reason for that is; also SSS), through the first eleven games of this season, Franklin earned his entire 2010 salary and then some. That doesn’t include tonight. The M’s could put a replacement level CF out there the rest of the way and they would’ve more than gotten their money’s worth for 2010 before accounting for his defense. If we assume 5 or so runs saved on defense(+/- credits him with two for the HR save in Texas alone) he has been worth somewhere between $4M-$6M through the first eleven games. Eleven games. They only pay him $2M in 2010 (+ a $1.25M signing bonus if you want to include that). That’s crazy and great.
Gutierrez will be an Allstar this season.
To quote some guy I overheard on the golf course, “that’s why we traded for him.” I sure hope Guti can keep up the offense – he may get some well-deserved recognition.
RRS impresses me. Damn I wish he could’ve gotten the W tonight.
I’m not assuming we don’t like Jack Wilson. I’m assuming we’re all tired of seeing him hack at the plate. And we never want to see him try to steal a base. So when he does, we scold him for it.
But I’d like to look at the percentages (I know the ESPN gamecast says “Chances of scoring a run this inning…” with a guy on first, 2 outs and 2 strikes on the hitter, vs. a guy on second. I’m sure they’re significantly better for the latter.
Now, you say he gets caught 9 times out of 10. Which I don’t doubt. But now consider the improved chances of scoring in the next inning with ichiro leading off.
It had a low chance of success, but no real harm was done.
The moral of the story this week:
In a 162 game season, there are going to be many peaks and valleys, deal with it.
Aside from that, even though I wish the Adam Jones trade had never happened, Guti is certainly slowly but surely becoming a star in the Seattle if last season + the first 12 games of this year is any indication.
What a brilliant trade by Z last year that just keeps on giving (and conversely, how the Mets didn’t fire either Jerry Manuel or Omar Minaya after last year’s miserable season highlighted by that trade along with the Tony Tavares blow-up, I have no idea).
At the very least, Adam Jones should give his Gold Glove from last year back to its rightful owner.
W
You’ve got two confounding assumptions going on. You assume that there’s a decent chance Ichiro gets a hit if Wilson is safe, but you also simultaneously assume that Ichiro is not likely to get a hit, so the out doesn’t matter. You can’t assume both. Pick one.
Either there was little chance of Ichiro getting a hit, so the stolen base wouldn’t matter, and he wasted an out for no reward, or there was a chance Ichiro would get a hit, and he ran them out of a rally.
It’s the latter.
*Ignore the last W, Bush 43 is NOT the rightful owner of a Gold Glove from last year, lol.
It’s just a typo I can’t fix.
Kenji Johjima 2007. Clearly superior to every ML catcher in his first half, didn’t get voted on and wasn’t a substitution appointment. Never underestimate the stupidity of the average fan or the name recognition of old school coaches.
I’d managed to forget that Adam Jones won that Gold Glove. Bavasi (sigh).
Though as is often pointed out, changing situations on the bases change the pitches the batter sees. Still, none of that is needed to figure out whether it was a solid play. Look at win expectancy. The value of that base in that situation turns out be zero (WE .667 to WE .667). Getting thrown out it drops to 0.652. No matter how likely the stolen base, it’s not a good play.
You also managed to forget that Guti outfielded him the entire season and got gypped.
Dave, I very much enjoy your recaps as well. I look for them exclusively if I can’t catch the game, and most times when I do see the game.
Great thoughts/work. Thank you.
Kotchman, Moore, and Wilson combined to make nine outs (two on the bases) and do it in just 31 pitches. It can’t just be Figgins, Gutierrez, and Bradley making pitchers work. The bottom three guys aren’t good enough hitters to get away with swinging early in the count against a guy like Verlander. Talk to them, Wak.
But they’re not good hitters. So can’t we assume that’s why they’re going up there swinging early against a guy like Verlander? It’d be nice to think that Wak could give them a talking to and they could execute the plan, but I don’t think they have the ability to do that. That’s why they’re hitting at the bottom of a not all that great lineup.
Should be. But people who decide honors and awards are sometimes stat-o-phobes.
See glove, gold.
One factor that is ignored in that win expectency, though, is the count on the batter.
I don’t know where to look to find Ichiro’s splits by count. Although he may be a really good two strike hitter (?) he may be a much better hitter with no strikes.
If win expectancy does not go up for the batter in a no-ball, no-strike count, win expectancy will not go up when he’s in a no-ball, two-strike count. Batters become worse when they are down in the count, not better.
One thing to offer in defense of the bottom of the line up’s hacking (and it is only a tepid teaspoonful of defense) is that Verlander sure seemed to be getting the benefit of the doubt on close calls. When that’s going on, you can hack or you can stand there and let an ump suffering from ‘gosh, I’m watching an ace pitch’ disease call you out, but the result’s the same.
That said, they’ve been doing the same thing all week. So shape up, guys — being bad doesn’t mean you also have to be stupid.
Pitch FX tells a different story argh. As you can see, several pitches on the edge strikezone were called balls.
That shows a different picture than we were getting on the in game pitch tracker last night — which was showing a fairly expansive strike zone (high and inside in particular by my memory).
I thought Ichiro was a .300+ hitter with 2 strikes on him.
(expansive for Verlander, I should have said)
Run-damentals…
I was really impressed with Hyphen. I was expecting A beat down from the tigers. What would have been even more beautiful, is an even slower change alla Moyer. A nice 74mph pitch to back up that 80mph he has. I am curious, we watched 2 Oakland pitchers “leftys” Anderson,and Gonalez both through sliders to opposite handed batters. It was very effective against the M’s. Does Hyphen’s lack of mph on his FB make this approach harder for him?
The roof was also closed for the game, which makes the stadium not quite as difficult for right-handed hitters. Which adds to the impressiveness of R-S’s performance last night.
Dave I also play the refresh game. Thanks for the recaps.
If Gutierrez is still hitting .417 at the All-Star break, he’ll be an All-Star… (pardon the use of batting average) but it may be a LITTLE early to crown him.
Quality start #1. RRS for President!
With two strikes Ichiro is a lifetime .267 hitter (B-R has all the details — he’s .261 after going 0-2, .251 after going 1-2, .289 after going 2-2, .318 in a full count).
But I don’t think anybody is a .300+ hitter in two-strike situations (at least, not anybody with enough PAs to make the sample worthy of drawing a conclusion). If there is, it’s extremely rare. Pujols is .268, Mauer is .262… unfortunately we don’t have data for legendary hitters like Ted Williams. If a pitcher is good enough to get two strikes on a good hitter, he’s probably going to retire him more than seven times out of ten.
Ichiro is .350 with 2 outs and RISP — but that’s when he stands in, not after he has two strikes against him. (Williams was just .291 in that “clutch” situation, BTW)
So, there’s something like a 2.7% chance of the M’s scoring with Wilson going in that situation. (Assuming Wilson had a 10% chance of making it, and Ichiro’s a .267 hitter with 2 strikes.)
What’s the chances of the M’s scoring with Ichiro with two-strikes and Wilson staying on first? Is this number higher?
If so, is the differential higher than the added benefit of Ichiro leading off the next inning (with a fresh count) vs. Figgins?
Sounds like Markov chain analysis…
I was in a bar sort of watching the game while catching up with an old friend and I managed to see Bradley’s catch down the left field line in the 9th. I was _quite_ surprised to see him so close to the line and thought I had just missed something about the flight of the ball.
Seconding the motion for major kudos on the scouting/coaching there.
Was the Wilson play a straight steal or was it more like a hit and run. If it was a straight steal wouldn’t he have gone earlier in the count?Doesn’t sending the runner improve Ichiro’s chance of getting a hit if Verlander throws a strike. It also makes it harder on the defense if Ichiro hits a GB.
I don’t think I have 2 conflicting assumptions. I’m asssuming it’s likely Ichiro will get a hit. But an Ichiro hit doesn’t score a run (if Wilson is on first), and it would take 2 hits to drive in a run. Therefore, I think what I’m arguing is…
There likelihood of scoring a run with Wilson on first and 2 strikes on Ichiro is less than the likelihood of scoring a run with Wilson on second x .1* + the increased percentage chance of scoring a run in the 3rd inning based on Ichiro leading off instead of Figgins.
* .1 is the rate at which Wilson gets to second safily. I used this because you said 9 times out of 10 he gets caught. In reality I would assume it to be much higher. Career wise he’s about a 56% base-stealer, so really you should be using something closer to .44, but then discount it based on Laird’s ability to throw out runners.
I was at the game last night and couldn’t tell from my seats and the wasn’t a replay…
Did Carlos drop that fly ball on purpose so that Ichiro couldn’t tag and score?
Also I mixed feeling about the digital scoreboard. I do like all the info it has, but miss the old school look…
Did Wilson try to swipe the base of his own accord, or are the coaches at fault here for sending him?
I love Jack Wilson, even though he has been somewhat frustrating at the plate so far.