Game 110, Athletics at Mariners
12:40pm, Charlie Furbush vs. Gio Gonzalez
Yes, the last game thread was game 108, and this is game 110. The Mariners 2011 season no longer moves in a linear, martial fashion, and is now an avant garde performance art piece. Games are played almost immediately after one another in short, staccato bursts of activity, then, just as quickly, the empty drone of airliner engines. Nothing more until the evening of August 5th. The Mariners play with these negative spaces with a riotous jumble of their roster – who is this Charlie Furbush? Did Aaron Laffey ever really leave? Kyle Seager is simultaneously here and there.
Furbush makes his first start for the M’s and his third start overall this season. As we saw in his M’s debut, he’s beset by command issues that have led to a home run problem and a high walk rate. These same issues used to plague Gio Gonzalez, the A’s starter today. Gonzalez was a highly-rated pitcher in the White Sox system (he was a top 100 prospect after a stellar 2005), but his HRs spiked after he moved to AA (and the Phillies organization). He also struggled with free passes, which pushed his RA higher than his K rate would predict.
Gonzalez always had the reputation of a “real” prospect following his 2005 breakout season, and his velocity and breaking balls (curve/slider) were seen as MLB quality. Furbush….wasn’t. He had average velocity and got K’s with a deceptive motion and not actual stuff. But while Gonzalez clearly has better velocity (and well above average velo from the left side), the gap isn’t huge. Furbush averaged about 91mph in his starts for Detroit, and Gonzalez averages about 93. While Gonzalez’s velocity increased since his first call-up, the real difference has been a drop in his HR rate, at least in part driven by an increase in his ground-ball rate. That’s something Furbush should focus on in the off-season.
Justin Smoak’s off tonight after he hurt his thumb/hand fielding a grounder in last night’s game, but the M’s aren’t going with Adam Kennedy at first. Instead, they’re using Mike Carp. Here’s to Wedge for making hitting ability a priority.
1: Ichiro (DH)
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Carp (1B)
5: Wells (RF)
6: Gutierrez
7: Bard
8: Wilson (3B)
9: Halman (LF
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100 Responses to “Game 110, Athletics at Mariners”
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I’m glad he’s producing – but it probably doesn’t make sense to evaluate him based on two games worth of at bats.
You know? Casper Wells has not only an old-time ballplayer’s name, he has an old-time ballplayer’s face,too.
You could take a B & W pic of him, Photoshop it to seem like it’s from the 1930s, stick it into a shot of ballplayers from that era…and you wouldn’t be able to tell from a precursory glance he’s from this era.
Not bad, Furbush, not bad.
His range on defense is really good along with a good arm. The fact he has been getting hits is really encouraging.
I guess I get used to guys coming up and not producing so you come to expect it.
So allow me to be happy to see some production form him. Not saying he is going to hit three hundred but he is showing he is capable of hitting which is something we haven’t seen a lot of lately
Am I the only one that finds the name Furbush unbelievably hilarious? It’s up there with Rusty Kuntz.
Anyone else wondering if Bard should be in there a lot more?
He is definitely a solid back up. I do wish Bard would get a little more time.
Whatever Halman had found… He seems to have lost it again.
Lueke looks really terrible. Can only throw fastball for strikes. No movement. 50% strikes. Only 1 missed bat.
When he first came up, Halman had an absurdly high BABIP. Unfortunately he’s now falling back to earth.
But fortunately we now have a metric ton of outfielders! If Wedge throws a bunch of them at the wall, a few might stick…
Which is exactly why JZ made those trades.
What was Halman’s problem on that first hit, anyway? He should have backed up all the way to the wall, then he would have had it easily. Maybe the sun was involved?
Well, yeah, but at least Halman was able to put balls in play! His BABIP’s has gone from lucky to hypothetical.
No, there’s that 5th grader who kept saying “Uranus” over and over when we were doing an astronomy lesson.
You’d get along well, I think.
9 hits, all singles?
My comment wasn’t meant as a criticism of Halman. I just think that, given his hot start, many of us developed unreasonable expectations regarding his long-term performance.
I think that’s right, all singles.
Now 10. I wonder what the record is.
Whoa, pitch fx algorithm is missing one of Furbush’s pitch types. It’s lumped two groups of pitches together, most likely his change up and his two-seamer. Thus, you’ve got a group of “two seamers” at 83-86 MPH and a group at 91-92 MPH. That means his average fastball velocity looks quite low, at 88.9 MPH, but he was actually in the low 90s. Just in case you hear anyone say that he’s 91 in relief, but only 89 MPH as a starter….
Casper continues to produce!
Someone is going to have to get to Casper and let him know he definitely is NOT playing Mariners baseball. We needed him to kill the rally and he screwed it up.
If only we could play Oakland and Detroit all the time, and never play Texas or Boston.
Ken Levine just did a USSM shout out with “get well” wishes for Dave.
Oakland continues to struggle defensively.
Hey, a mention from Ken Levine!
Is anybody else already developing a man crush on Casper? Loving the style of play as well as the name
I really like that Ken Levine guy (he’s perfectly fine when I’m listening to the TV broadcast!).
Get well, Dave. We miss you. (I consulted the baseball Gods on your behalf, and fortunately there’s a little known rule that a fan can only lose one baseball media type they like, named Dave, per any 5 year span– so bottom line, you’re absolutely gonna kick this, Dave!).
Does anyone else think it’s patently unfair that the Mariners don’t get to play any games against the Mariners during the season? Seems like everybody else has an unfair advantage in that regard!? (I’ll take all the Oakland games we can get, however.)
There’s a fan behind me asking very seriously who Larry Bernandez is. I’d laugh if it weren’t so sad
“I really like that Ken Levine guy ”
yeah, I liked him in his first stint with the M’s and I like him a lot now, even before the classy gesture today.
I really hope Dave heard that, and that it helped.
Carp is on fire!!!
This team sure is a lot more fun to watch with the young guys playing!
Man, that would have been quite the capper for a great day for Casper. Just foul too bad.
Especially with good young players instead of bad young players.
I actually saw someone use this as support for voting Felix for Cy Young last year, saying it inflated other pitchers’ numbers and unfairly hurt Felix’s numbers in comparison. Good point.
Can we go ahead and qualify Gray as the latter of those?
Wedge finally puts League in…what was he waiting for?
Agreed – and even when they make a mistake, we know it’s a learning process and they’ll figure it out. With a losing team made up of old vets, there’s just no upside.
Congrats Mr. Furbush!
Both Casper and Wells have performed well beyond my initial expectations. Furbush was certainly helped by some outstanding defense today.
Both Casper and Wells?
Well I guess our new outfielder has got a split personality…like Jeckyll and Hyde
Furbush, guess I was a little stuck on our new outfielder. 🙂
It looks like Seager has been pretty bad against lefties, but if they want him to be part of the future here, isn’t this the perfect season to get him out there and learn?
from twitter
Alas that the Ms are not in a super position.
I think Gray is neither young nor good.
Dustin Ackley is terrible, just absolutely horrendous. .942 OPS? That is pathetic.
Congrats to Doug Fister as well tonight… actually got a win for once.
He is also on pace for 8.6 WAR over a full season (He has 2 WAR through 38 games). Josh Hamilton lead the league last year with a 8.5 WAR.
Plus, the Mariners are in our division, so we should get to play against them a lot!