Tacoma Rainiers Doubleheader Game Thread
With the M’s on a travel day, check out the Rainiers double header tonight against the Nashville Sounds. Blake Beavan starts game 1 for Tacoma against Brewers fringe prospect Amaury Rivas. As usual, you can catch Mike Curto’s call on AM 850 in the south sound or streaming on-line here. Nashville’s mired in last place in their division, and so their manager decided to send in for some reinforcements. Here’s the line-up card he submitted to Tacoma for Game 1 (hat tip Mike Curto).
Game 2 features the M’s system debut of knuckle-baller Charlie Haeger. Haeger was signed as a minor league free agent late last year, but a back injury limited him to a single spring training inning. You may remember Haeger from his Dodger debut last year, when he struck out 12 Florida Marlins in 6 innings. Just 6 appearances later, he was DFA’d.
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Let’s see Ackley get like six hits tonight and then come up I-5 for the Yanks.
Are they serious about that line-up? Cuz thats the Brewers whole MLB team (Braun, Fielder etc.).
It’s raining quite hard at the moment… We’ll see if they’re able to get this in. Perfect timing; it was sunny an hour ago.
The tarp is coming off… Looks good, at least for a while.
First pitch is now at 6:20.
Double Header starting at 6 PM…brutal!
Marc: Do you think Triunfel will be with the Rainiers this year?
Even on a AAA team, Yuniesky bats ninth….
Ackley works a full count, gets a hit.
So by the end of the second game — around midnight or later in damp, frigid Cheney — how many fans will be left? Wish we had a way to run a poll. I’d bet less than 50 (though a few might be sitting out in the parking lot listening to Curto while they run the heaters in their cars).
Are there supposed to be fireworks tonight? Between the two games, maybe? No way the neighbors would appreciate that after the second game (assuming the wind even allowed it).
A triple, the player gets hit by the throw to third and decides to break for home (over the audible objections of his 3rd base coach), and Beavan backs up the play and makes the throw to get him out. Nice. You don’t see (or in this case, hear) that every day.
That’s a safe bet, Joser. Nota ton of people here now. Brutal weather and the odd start time aren’t going to be good for attendance.
Beavan’s velo is better than the last few times I saw him, but he’s given up a long HR and a triple off the wall in RF (but Beavan threw him out at third after backing up the throw).
Curto just said something about these being seven inning games (I wasn’t listening closely, but it was something about strategy mattering earlier because of that).
Yep, minor league double headers are all 7 inning games.
Beavan hitting 92 with some regularity here in the 5th. Not bad. Spotting it well. He’s still yielding some hard hit balls, but this isn’t bad. Not great, but not actively bad, which is progress.
It’s actually turned into a pleasant evening.
And Danny Herrera is on for Nashville… Fans of old school screwballs rejoice. He’s quickly given up two inherited runs in his Brewers system debut.
In 2 batters faced and a blizzard of high 50s/low 70s pitches, Royce Ring seems to have more swinging strikes than either starter.
Was that “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd that I heard as Ackley’s walk-up music? I like your style, Dustin.
I’m also at the game tonight. I was in the middle of talking crap on Tui when he goes and hammers a triple. You’re welcome! 🙂
Jimmie
They’re showing the Bugs Bunny baseball cartoon now! w00t!
That’s so awesome. Too bad he was banned. Love to have seen what his career stats would’ve been.
So far, the knuckler isn’t knuckling… 🙁
Still quite a bit more people than I would’ve guessed, though to be fair, that guess occurred when it was still raining. The whole dollar beer night thing always throws me as well, as there are as many people in the beer garden (way out above the ‘party decks’ on the 3b side) as there are in the stadium. After last call, apparent attendance jumps way up.
We interrupt this Rainiers game thread to note that Taijuan Walker went 5 scoreless with 7Ks, 3BBs, 6 ground outs and only two balls hit in the air at all (one IF pop-up and one single to RF). Not great command tonight, but how can you NOT be excited by Walker’s 2011? This extreme GB thing is a very welcome surprise.
Charlie Haeger really struggling with his command, or whatever the equivalent to ‘command’ is for knuckleballers.
Ackley with his 4th hit of the day… zeroing in on Carson’s request (which is pretty tough to do in two 7 inning games).
He’s had two bloop hits, but he’s just not making many outs right now.
And it’s raining again pretty hard.
Is it enough to cause a delay?
On the off chance that Ackley feels he can take it easy, or not work at getting better, it’s sort of nice that he can come face to face with an object lesson in the importance of attitude/dedication.
Dustin, look upon your worst-case-scenario comparable player: Jeremy Reed.
He may wash out, but I don’t really see the parallel between Ackley and Jeremy Reed.
I bailed as soon as the rain started again. 😐 I don’t know what’s sadder – the fact that it’s May 26th and I still have the winter liners in my motorcycle gear, or the fact that I left said gear on at the game tonight and needed all that warmth.
I also took a picture of Mr. Reed tonight and sent it to a co-worker. He was a big fan of Reed when Reed was with the M’s, so I figured he might get a kick out of that.
They’re both about 6′, maybe a touch below, under 200lbs, both had good patience and good contact skills through age 23, a bit of speed, up the middle defenders, etc.
It’s not perfect, as no comp ever is, but it’s solid (at least to me). Reed was a bit better in AA at age 22 than Ackley, and had >10% walk rates at each stop before he got to Tacoma. In the M’s system, the walks dropped a bit, but he still had more walks than Ks.
Okay, I can sorta squint and see it.
One run game. Runner on first with no outs. Ackley comes up against an RHP.
And bunts.
Please, for the love of God won’t managers learn at least one damn thing from the statheads?
No, obviously. 🙁
I just read the game 2 recap on the News Tribune site. Was there a game delay? It was raining pretty hard when I left. I am also shocked that the score was as low as it was, becasue Haeger was walking the world.
probably my favorite thing about that lineup card is that Yuni’s name is misspelled.
I had such high hopes for Reed. He was my first prospect crush. Sad.