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He may not be our ace, but he's still the King. That's as should be... he can trip gracefully into his dotage. =)
Monday Afternoon Machiatto, 6.12.17
Not pictured: the services we will be receiving tonight
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M's 0, BLUE JAYS 4
A shame that we got back to .500, had our Spahn and Sain going, and things didn't work out. Thass' OK. MLB is a hunnerd games long; you gotta let the odds work in your favor over a long run. You can't "force" a victory as in the NFL.
James Paxton is throwing 93% fastballs when behind in the count. That means on his off days, great lineups can stalk the 2-0 counts and try to put good swings on a challenge fastball. Donaldson managed an off-field HR doing that on Sunday. Of course this doesn't work when Paxton is throwing 40 of 50 pitches for strikes, LOL.
Also, it took Zunino about 50 pitches to figure out that Paxton's foshball was the change speed he could throw for a strike that day. I put a lot of the problem on Zunino's slow adaptation. But, yeah, if the hitters get a "perfect storm" against Zeus they might get three or four runs that day. It ain't real easy to finish with a 1.99 ERA in the modern American League.
Dr. D's confidence in Zeus: absolutely unchanged. But it frosts him to see a team nick him for a paper cut on his destined 15-4 record. :- )
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M's 2, BLUE JAYS 4
In Saturday's game the Jays only got 4 base hits (to the M's 8) and somehow won.
Ariel Miranda had a terrible game by his new standards -- 5 walks and 2 K's -- but still threw up a Quality Start, six plus innings and only 2 runs. As Zoom would put it, he is showing "control" of his game, an overall management of his start. For a kid with 23 career starts he looks great; sometimes it is on the off days that you gain the most respeck.
Huge asset, Ariel Miranda. And I really enjoy the weird armside repertoire. As he develops the gloveside cut more ("pull down on that middle finger" as Krueger puts it) it gives him that much more upside. Miranda with a true slider could dominate.
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PTYHAG
M's projected record: 32-32, since they have +294 runs scored, -294 runs allowed. A while back they were 6 games under Pythag IIRC. It's a long season, and ...
... the bullpen has ricocheted back in our favor. In fact it won the Bullpen of the Week award just now, #1 among 30 teams, and there are some ridiculous $$$$ 'pens around baseball the last few years. The M's have a 1.29 ERA over the last THREE weeks. The fact that James Pazos has harnessed his stuff is ominous for the M's enemies. That was the dangerous situation for them going into April and Pazos is looking like the "untouchable" the Yankee$ used to regard him.
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MANIGRRR
Just for what it's worth, Mitch Haniger LOOKED like he hadn't lost a beat on Sunday. Saw the pitches great, looked quick, swung vigourously without flinching. ... his WAR is at 1.3 according to Fangraphs; since he has only played 22 games to others' 50-60, he has fallen to #40 on the leaderboard. He's still ahead of Machado, Bradley Jr, Pillar, and Kyle Seager, though. In three weeks' games vs. their two months'.
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MISCELLANY
Servais sez 1 more rehab for Felix and then he's back in there. He threw a 5-and-dive perfect game* and then exulted walking off the mound. *well, perfect through 4.2 before a BB and 2B allowed a run. His velo was in the low 90's. He's not the old Felix, but he's still rocking a 7.4 K, 1.0 BB line in the majors (albeit with a lot of hits) and the Mainframe groks him as a weak #2 / excellent #3 MLB starter going forward. With upside. That's better than having a Rainier.
Dr. D is kinda rooting for HWMNBN to get rocked in a 9-7 Mariners win and for our two Rainiers to throw lockdowns. Is that wrong?
;- ) Not that we're rooting for bad things to happen to people. We're rooting for people to come to grips with reality. If that means Dr. D coming to grips with Gallardo's impending 8-for-12 QS run, that's great too.
....
Divish sez that Jean Segura is going to test his ankle running TOMORROW?
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Lance McCullers going on the DL too?! Who all is on the Stros disabled list? Not that anybody's going to catch them. But slap me silly.
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BABVA,
jemanji