Game 60, Mariners at Indians
DMZ · June 11, 2007 at 3:05 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Baek v Byrd. 4:05, FSN.
This makeup schedule is just crazy. There’s no good way they were going to re-schedule those games, but I can’t imagine there wasn’t a less-bad way. And to think that this was a compromise! Ugh.
Anyway, the Indians are 37-24 and the M’s are 33-26. The M’s are on a ridiculous tear, and the Indians are playing well, but not as well. Go team.
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Rau(x13)l with a .591 WPA (!)
Baek helped immensely by the touchdown, .013 WPA
Morrow, -.040 WPA, which is actually pretty kind considering he walked 4 and gave up 3 hits (7 baserunners!) in 2 innings yet somehow only gave up 1 run.
(watching replay)
Wow, Raul’s swing on the double looked good. His head didn’t flail around or anything.
Yah, maybe he really was hurt. Perhaps Weaver was injured, also, in a way that made his fastballs inevitably straight and his other pitches equally meatbally.
Another sweet win with the M’s yet again pulling it out like Jim Morrison in Florida. It’s almost like the 2001 feeling–they’re bound to win all close games in the late innings.
And Raul Ibañez, you are the man today. What a game!
I will be at Wrigley tomorrow. Z pitched a great game tonight + hit a HR. The M’s are lucky to miss him. The Cubs pen are also burnt out a bit, after Lilly’s ejection on Sunday. It should be a good series. I hope the Cubs take 2 out of 3 at the very least, and then the M’s can go on and beat up the Astros.
394 – their best pitcher is probably the guy going tomorrow night
planB
Is that damning with faint praise or what?
I have missed much of the live action the last week due to traveling and think I should maybe stay away (given the likely correlation between my viewing and the M’s success, this is necessary). The thing that really troubles me is that the starting staff is all smoke and mirrors, and the run differential does not warrant being eight games over .500, and I’m sure their pythagoran record doesn’t warrant it, either. So, assuming they’re vastly outperforming expectations, who gets credit? Hargrove or Bavasi? My head is going to explode. If the M’s go to the playoffs, what’s next? I get raped by Jessica Alba? We win the war in Iraq? Eddie Murphy gets another chance at Oscar? I don’t know if it’s too early to say this is 1995-ish, it probably is, but the one thing that is reminiscent is my total lack of confidence thru this point in the season. Lowered expectations will do that. But here we go.
Well, one reason for the run differential being so bad is that Weaver had 6 horrid starts to open the season. He gave up 36 runs in the 7 games he has pitched in (26 innings), and that includes the 1 run he gave up in his last (4 inning start). So the M’s have had a number of blowouts (including Ramirez’s starts) which skew the pythag record quite a bit, in my opinion. I personally think that Weaver and Ramirez deserve the credit for making the RS/RA ratio as bad as it is. Since those two have been out of the lineup, and I’m assuming that Weaver has a very short leash since he has come back, the numbers don’t quite work out. Obviously, you can’t take the games away, but by limiting the appearances by the players in question, the expected results should differ from the pythag record.
If I am making poor assumptions about the data, please let me know.
We’ll know whether this team is for real by the All-Star break. Everything before that is just speculation. But I ain’t gonna complain at where we are right now.
I’m having too much fun to complain.
Although, it would be kind of nice if we could hold down a lead occasionally.
Theres no denying that Ibanez’s bat had slowed significantly in April and May, this was proved by A.) Visual evidence B.) Huge crash in .slug% and C.) Ibanez changing his approach at the plate. It seemed reasonable to attribute this to age, since Ibanez (just turned) 35.
And granted, tonights performance gave a herculean boost to Ibanez’s OPS, but looking at the stats page, he’s been better than I thought he was. He’s on pace to hit 41-42 doubles, which is almost 10 doubles over the consistent 31-33 doubles he hit from 2003 to 2006, and if he gets there would beat his career best 37 (2002). His batting average is higher than its ever been other than 2004 (and it was only that high because he hit close to .450 in Aug and Sept that year). He’s even on pace for 9 triples, which I highly doubt he’ll get, but that would be a new career high too. His current OBP is .350, which is right in line with the .346-.355 OBP he’s maintained since breaking out in 2001.
His only glaring weakness has been HR. He’s not going to hit another 33 this year, but if he gets back on track and manages 16-20, while maintaining his 2b and 3b rates, thats a .500 slug and an .850 OPS from a badly needed left-handed bat.
Like many of you, I had assumed that Ibanez’s power stroke was history, that age had taken too much off his swing. But these last few games have given me hope. After all (considering that Ibanez doesn’t appear to be on HGH or steroids, like up and down Brett Boone (allegedly) was), doesn’t it seem odd that he would collapse this hard 7 months after completing a career year, and after he raked the ball like none other in Spring Training? Obviously, ST stats are not useful, but it seems odd that Raul had plenty of bat speed and power in Spring, but lost it suddenly to “age” the next month. The shoulder injury angle seems much more believable than aging 3 years in 30 days (or at most, 200 days).