Cactus League Game 13, M’s at Indians
This barely looks like a lineup. Perhaps it will still be on the radio unlike the last few times they have said it would be on the radio.
SS Josh Wilson
3B L. Rodriguez
1B Kennedy
DH Cust
LF Tui
CF Saunders
2B Ackley
C Gimenez
RF Chavez
P Pineda
The earthquake in Japan is all over the news at this point. I spent a good amount of time last night watching the footage already, like that oil refinery fire in Ichihara, Chiba. Everyone is waiting for Ichiro to say something, but he’s yet to hear anything with the phone infrastructure damaged in a lot of places. I hope that his family’s safe, along with everyone else’s. In the meantime, the M’s have released a statement, which doesn’t say quite as much as I thought it would given the team’s ties to the country.
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9 Responses to “Cactus League Game 13, M’s at Indians”
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I think Kaz Sasaki may have retired back to Sendai. I hope he and his family are safe as well.
The Dustin Ackley Experience… Walk, steal second, move to third on a comebacker to the pitcher. Sac Fly to plate him.
Those are the type of runs we could have used last year. An entire aspect of offense we lacked. A walk and two outs equals a run.
Nice work young man.
(Seeing the live video of that Tsunami is absolutely humbling. A wall of water washing over roads, taking cars and buildings with it… Looks like something Hollywood would dream up… My heart goes out to everyone over there!)
Not to detract MrZDevotee,
but it seems like we’ve already had a gentleman with that particular skill-set for the last 10 years or so.
Not that another Ichiro is a bad thing, I just don’t want to see the same brand of baseball that I’ve witnessed since the Mariners forgot what a middle-order hitter looked like.
Who knows? Maybe if Ichiro and Ackley score themselves we’ll break 3 runs a game!
dammit Choo! leave my pitcher alone!
I’ve got nothing against classic middle-of-the-order hitters, but the problem last year had a lot more to do with the guys not named Ichiro making lots of outs whenever we did manage to get a guy on base – an almost team-wide low on-base percentage, in other words.
Adam-
I totally understand, I’m just happy to see someone who can get on base (first and foremost) and then can score with or without the big boomers. Hopefully that ATTRACTS boomers… Imagine the sales pitch we get to make next year: “So, you’ll bat 4th, behind Ichiro, Figgins, and Ackley… Smoak’s up after you, so just go ahead and hit it hard somehwere. Oh, and you’ll wanna keep tabs on the all-time RBI record, when you’re here… Maybe we’ll keep it posted in the dugout for you.”
And after we sign him… The next guy…
“So you’ll bat 5th, right behind (stud boomer) and right before Smoak… Ichiro, Figgins and Ackley will be up before you guys… So yeah, bang away! Hit it hard somewhere…”
No matter how you slice it, Ackley has more power, gap power, speed, hitting ability, OBP upside, than Brendan Ryan, Jack Wilson, Lopez, even Figgins…
Different guy than what we were throwing out there last year.
He’ll afford us a chance to move Chone Figgins this year too, assuming he can get back to his career norms (Ackley’s the same guy offensively, with better bat skills), and go after a bigger bat 3B for 2012… That way, next year, 3B and DH are all traditional places we can add a #3, #4, or #5 (or 6 behind Smoak) hitter…
We’ll have a real lineup at that point:
Ichiro
Ackley
(younger Beltre type)
(a Prince Fielder type, DH/relief 1B)
Smoak
Saunders/Bradley
Guty
Olivo
Brendan Ryan
bench:
Bradley/Saunders
Nick Franklin
Adam Moore
maybe Jack Wilson? (He might be amenable at this point to the role Adam Kennedy is playing this year)
With solid pitching that’s a competitive lineup.
Suddenly you’re not asking guys to play above their abilities… Guty doens’t have to bat 3rd… Bradley doesn’t have to bat 4th… Smoak doesn’t have to be THE guy for RBI’s… Performance expectations are not “best case scenario” like they’ve been the past two years (one resounding success, one absolute failure season)… No one’s pressing.
Guys get to see the ball and hit it. Hard.
Expectations can REALISTICALLY go up at that point.
Being a fan should be less stressful.
So when are the first round of cuts? I want to see more playing time for the regulars and the guys that could be in Seattle at some point this year.
Liddi’s lighting it up, is “Liddi” the Italian word for “Tuiasosopo?” (Both words loosely translate to “Ty Cobb of Spring Training”)
I’d forgotten the Sasaki angle. Yikes! Plus Ichiro! And I have a good friend on Hawaii’s Big Island. ‘sigh’ The Internet’s shrinking of the world can be a royal bitch sometimes.