Game 20, A’s At Mariners
Hernandez vs McCarthy, 7:10 pm.
Happy Felix Day.
I touched on this briefly in my article for Brock and Salk today, but you don’t need to worry about Felix. His xFIP last year was 3.14 – this year, it’s 3.11. His early season BABIP of .338 won’t continue, and when the balls stop finding holes, he’ll strand more runners than he has so far. His 54.2% LOB% is ridiculously low for any pitcher, especially one as good as Felix. He’s fine.
On the other hand, the M’s face Brandon McCarthy, who has made some significant mechanical adjustments (hat tip to Jeff Sullivan and is pitching quite well for the A’s. Without Justin Smoak around, this offense is still pretty miserable, and they’re going to have to face a guy who is pitching as well as he ever has.
Don’t expect a high scoring game tonight.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Bradley, LF
Cust, DH
Kennedy, 1B
Olivo, C
Saunders, CF
Ryan, SS
Wilson, 2B
Good jon Kennedy
The corpse of Matsui?
Good job Brandon
Talk bad about Brandon League all you want, but he has blown exactly 0 games this year.
(exhale)
Wow, less painful than expected… Nice job, guys.
WIN
WIN
Woo Felix!! Woo Kennedy!
Tonight’s game thread world cloud reveals that MrZDevotee doesn’t just bring his game during day games.
MrZ, OK I get your point.
I just wish there were another way. (Since they sometimes look too painfully inept out there). But I think Wedge is putting more of a stress on fundamentals in practice, having early practice, etc.
Hope it starts to pay off.
Yes, there have been some terrible components of the bullpen but League has not been one of them. Seems a big improvement over last year.
Nice win. A win is a win, but God we need a 3B. Figgins was better at 2B – and he was terrible over there. How does UZR rate balls that go through guy, hit a guy or hit a guys glove repeatedly without being caught or slowed down. A 5’6 1/2″ chasm at 3B who can’t hit for average or for power. Awful.
I am trying some Westside revers mojo in the hopes that it … ah hell, never mind. It won’t work on Figgins. He’s just stinking up the joint.
On the other hand – I am liking Brendan Ryan on defense more and more with every game. The kid is gold. But yeah, Mike, I’m thinking Rendon is sounding pretty good right now. I’ll be bummed if the Pirates don’t grab that pitcher after all…
Sorry I missed the conversation – I got home late, and didn’t get caught up to “real time” until after the game was over. I thought M’s games were contractually required to last a minimum of 3.5 hours?!
LOVED Peguero’s first hit though!!
Nice one, Dave.
We were there in a suite and were about the last to leave Safeco. Never been there before when the lights were turned off.
By the way, great performance from Felix.
As someone wrote, I think we can also thank Pineda for firing Felix up.
I noticed last year that having Cliff Lee on the team (who was a superior pitcher to Felix while he was here) seemed to have a good effect on Felix even after he left.
(It’s complete speculation but) I’m thinking that Felix may not be at his best if he’s the only “bully” or rather “stud” (pitcher) on the team. Maybe he gets sloppy or something. There are really competitive guys who get super-fired up when there’s another stud in the pasture, and I think Felix looks like that guy (or bull).
In any case, I’m also appreciating Pineda more and more. Not just for his performance but for his presence also.
I think, as Dave pointed out with his xFIP and BABIP comparisons, Felix has been the same pitcher this year as he was last year. He’s just been relatively unlucky.
I suspect when we don’t see the results we expect, we look for some explanation we can wrap our brain around – but it’s simply been bad luck.
If you want to support the idea that Felix has been sub-Felix up until last night, you need to explain how he’s managed to produce a slightly better xFIP this season while not being at his best.
I think Wedge should tandem Bedard and Pauley. Or at least try it in an effort to keep Bedard healthy and keep him rested. Plus, Pauley has earned it.
Also, I am not a fan of Wedge constantly bumping Felix up a day when we come up on an off day. Let the man rest every now and then. That is the point of off days.
Westside, does BABIP take into account how hard the ball is hit? Or FB/LD versus GB?
And he’s only pitched four games, do the statistics really give you information on games No. 2 and 3 versus 4?
I’m just saying visual indicators showed that he looked fired up on the mound yesterday, compared to what he looked like during games 2 and 3.
That visual difference seems obvious. Whether it does translate to results is probably not clear, but I think nobody can claim he wasn’t great yesterday giving the A’s little chance.
Samregens, I don’t have an answer for you (re BABIP). And I certainly can’t argue that Felix certainly looked the most dominant AND the most fired up I’ve seen him so far this season. It was awesome to watch.
“Don’t expect a high scoring game tonight.”
Dave, you can just cut and paste that to every M’s game this season.
sciacca, maybe that should be the new byline here on USSMariner.com. 😀
n/t