Game 100, Mariners at White Sox
Hernandez vs Danks, 5:10 pm.
Happy Felix Day.
As has been pointed out in several different places recently, Felix is having essentially the same season he had last year. His numbers are almost identical across the board in every meaningful category. His walks are the same, strikeouts the same, home runs the same, runner stranding the same. Everything is about as identical as you could possibly get as a follow-up to last year’s performance, with one exception – last year, Felix won 19 games, and this year, he’s won 7.
The difference, of course, is the performance of his teammates. He hasn’t gotten support from his offense or his bullpen, so his wins are down. And this is why almost everyone is rejecting wins as any kind of useful statistic at this point. Well, everyone except the Arizona Diamondbacks, because if you haven’t heard, they shipped their ace Dan Haren to the Angels for Joe Saunders and some not-close-to-the-majors prospects. Dan Haren is really good, and Joe Saunders is pretty lousy, but over the last three years, Saunders has more wins (43 to 41).
The Angels took advantage of an Arizona franchise that’s a walking disaster right now, and by adding Haren for the next three years, they just made the AL West that much harder to win. With Weaver, Pineiro, Santana, and now Haren, the Angels actually have a good pitching rotation again, and all four of those guys will be back next year. Blech.
Yet another reason to build for 2012. The M’s are now staring at an even bigger mountain to climb for contention next year. Screw you, Jerry DiPoto.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Bradley, DH
Saunders, LF
Johnson, C
Jack Wilson, SS
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101 Responses to “Game 100, Mariners at White Sox”
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mhmm…but I think he is more a 3B than DH or OF type of guy. He is 32, yeah, but has only been in the majors for five years and other than a flukey partial 2006, his numbers seem to have gotten better every year.