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Believe it or don't :- ) as Logan Morrison stepped up to the plate, something weird ate at the edge of Dr. D's consciousness like an invisible monster chewing on his Dungeons & Dragons paladin.
The "something weird" wiggled around and finally congealed into an odd morphic resonance within Dr. D's slimy but agile mind: "there are three guys who could get us this 'Hard RBI'. Those being Ackley, Seager, or Logan Morrison. Wow, this guy is the guy we want up there. Wait, what?"
You don't believe it? Don't blame you. ... Waitaminnit: this is SSI. You all had the same feeling, naturally.
You might have heard about "the biggest hit of my life." What was even more wacky-and-wonderful, were the quotes from him postgame, courtesy the TNT:
.......
So…was it nerve-wracking?
Morrison swatted that question nearly as hard as he hit his homer.
“Nerve-wracking?” he said. “Are you kidding me? This is awesome. This is what you dream about as a kid. Why are you going to be nervous? It’s exciting. Now, keep it going. Let’s just keep it going.”
....
Anybody buying the shtick that he's peddling?
Is that bravado, or is Morrison one of the few M's who is enjoying the experience of standing in the batter's box with the planet at stake? In my mind, Morrison's body language corroborates his self-declaration.
And, of course, if that's accurate, that Morrison wants the ball, then ... LHP or RHP, he's in there for me. Every single game the rest of the way, including and especially in the postseason.
Another quote:
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"I don't think anybody was letting off," Morrison said of facing the Angels' reserves. "If anything, we were pushing too hard. We just have to relax a little bit and let the game come to us and we'll be fine.
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For those who just joined us, "Let the game come to you" has reference to aggressiveness that --- > is calibrated to the opportunity. An NBA player might decide, before the play, that he needs to score to lift his team. Then he forces a terrible shot against double-team defense... or, Justin Smoak loads up hoping for a mistake pitch he can drive 425 feet. The curve freezes him easily.
Or, an NBA player might be alert to gaps in the defense -- if and only if one appears, he hits the hole with all he's got. Dustin Ackley gets a low 92 MPH fastball down the middle and serves it into left-center.
It's not a banal cliche; it's a profound and simple Zen-like difference between relaxed winners and uptight losers. Let the game come to you. Keep a 30,000-foot view, as to the game flow. Attack when the opportunity arises, not before.
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Do the stats bear out Morrison's bravado? They do, yes. Over the last month, here are the M's hitters who have a 100+ hitting index, among those with 53 or more :- ) at bats:
| Hitter | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS+ | Remark |
| Morrison | .277 | .329 | .477 | 130 | Only 7% swinging strikes! Is stalking pitches |
| Robby | .274 | .337 | .432 | 114 | Probably will get hot later |
| Seager | .261 | .327 | .402 | 111 | Seager is who he is |
The above stats are before Morrison's single and homer Thursday.
Anyway: suppose the oft-injured, age-27 Logan Morrison jelled during the 2014 stretch drive. Wouldn't that be somethin'?
You remember that as a rook, he hit .287/.390/.447. At ages 22 and 23 he was a minor star, but never had 300 AB's since.
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With fewer AB's, there are two part-timers with great stats last 30 days. Endy Chavez and Brad Miller.
As it sits today, those are the 5 guys I want shouldering the pressure, them and Dustin Ackley. There seems to be zero deer-in-headlights effect with those six players.
Enjoy,
Dr D
All the other blogs, and even some of us, have been questioning the difference between Morrison and Smoak, but those quotes totally encapsulate why I preferred Morrison all season long.
Morrison had (some) previous results AND an attitude that could be directed towards good things in the right clubhouse.
I think this is one of those places we can tip the cap to Cano as well.
Sometimes to his detriment with his management. But if we can allow for a guy with a different beat (and we've done okay with Rodney, y'know) then Logan is definitely someone I want on this team. I don't know that he'll ever go back to his rookie heights... but there are always Jose Bautistas and Jayson Werths, guys with good eyes and iffy early contact rates (and therefore mediocre power because they aren't hitting the ball on the screws). You get them into their late 20s and all of a sudden then become crushers.
In the Old Days of the 90s, many times that meant roiding. Does that mean HGH now, or something else? We still dunno, but it's easier to believe these guys are simply getting enough ABs to build their databases and enough repetition to master their swings. Logan has a good swing. He has a good approach. I would like to see him get the Justin Smoak advice to go for 40 doubles and 25 homers... and more than that is a bonus.
In the end, maybe it's as simple as boys growing into men. When they first get their Man Strength they're trying to do too much with it. If you try to muscle an axe when chopping wood you'll cut your own foot off (as Jack Del Rio once discovered as a head coach when doing a stupid motivational example). If you trust the swing and the tool, you can split wood pretty easily. Once these strong men grow confident in their strength it's possible for them to settle in and relax. Once they trust their swings, the power jump happens naturally.
I don't believe it will happen for Smoak without a smaller park. He doesn't make good enough contact, and has shown basically no improvement in that area. 83 mph meatballs popped up for easy outs or "crushed" to the warning track just give me the confidence that he can turn into a late-20s masher for us.
Logan is younger (by a year, but still), presses less, and had some of the worst luck I can think of to start the season, both in an injury and a BABIP sense. The last month, as a healthy guy with a normal .300ish BABIP in a pennant race, he's been a .280/ .330/ .525 hitter.
We really, REALLY need that. He may only be a part-time player, giving you 300-400 ABs a year. 400 ABs from Buster Posey won the Giants a title. I would love for Trader Jack to finally have added a bat to help us in a serious way. I'd love another month of this from Logan. He's having fun! Remember, he came from the toxic wasteland known as the Marlins - he has no experience with this either. But he seems suited to handle it.
We need as many of those guys as we can get. Play on, players...
~G
@ProspectInsider: Logan Morrison since August 1: 302/360/462 with 5 HR, 10-2B. That's 39 games.
I questioned why GMZ even traded for him with our glut of 1B/DH types. If he could solidify 1B for us that would be big and I'm starting to believe he might.
LoMo's recent play has got us forgetting about first base. This 1b issue has been a sore subject since Russ Branyan retired. It seems like LoMo is starting to heal the wounds left by Kotchman and Smoak.
Just so those of us who are trying to keep track of whether a Jack trade is a win or not....
This is a WIN, correct???... just like that little under the radar trade for Jaso when that trade went down as a WIN when nobody was asking for...