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TO THE VICTOR GO THE SPOILS
First principles in generating clickthroughs, or at a bare minimum, good will: use photos of puppies, children, and Dae-Ho Lee's wife.
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With the M's down 12-4 Thursday and two runners on base, LHP Brad Hand worked the count to 3-2 on Dae-Ho Lee. Understanding that fastballs are the right and proper Coin Of The Realm, understanding that on a 3-2 count nobody wants to see a pitcher sneak an 88-MPH fastball by them, Hand crossed Lee up with a curve ball.
Lee crossed Hand up by expressing his own understanding of realm coinage, far into the left field bleachers. The score was 12-7.
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Next inning, Brandon Maurer decided to educate Lee as to the embarrassment that awaits those who try to pay for U.S. bases with pesos ... or is it yen, or maybe it's kruggerrands. Maurer worked the count to 3-2, and then stepped halfway to the plate and spiked a hellacious 96 MPH fastball onto Lee's shins, plate high.
Lee effortlessly swatted a line drive into right field for a single, bringing the score to 12-10.
Blowers shook his head along with Dr. D. "He just a good hitter" and that's all I got to say about that, sez Blowers. In RBI situations, Dae-Ho Lee alternatively chooses between hitting homers over left field or scorching line-drive singles into right field. Preferably in the same game. This PWR/HIT versatility was what had Blowers running the white flag up the pole.
It's a funny thing. After the second hit, the RBI single to right, Dr. D thought to himself "that was the moment. That at-bat right there was the end of all resistance, the moment at which DiPoto and Servais realized that Dae-Ho Lee is going to be here for 162 games."
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Lee has now hit 8 homers in 83 at-bats (.590 SLG) with, interestingly, no doubles. And obviously he will retire with no triples :-D but the point is, what is the record for most homers to start a major league career without any other extra-base hits?
Hmmmm, let's check last year's leaderboards ... at Fangraphs > Batting > Standard you can sort by HR leaders and scan down the doubles column to the left. Everybody who hits home runs hits a lot of doubles. Even the real big guys, like David Ortiz, have 37 homers and 37 doubles. Prince Fielder is no enemy of the postgame buffet, as Dae-Ho and Dr. Detecto are not, and Fielder legs out his doubles. He has 314 career homers against 316 doubles. The only time Lee ever attempted to advance to second on a wall shot, he had to back up and try to swim back to first through the infield dirt ripples. He didn't make land.
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First point is just a little bemusing: Dae-Ho has the twin skills of (1) take 'em high to left or (2) take 'em on a line to right. As Nelson Cruz has. Blengino made a point of Cruz being an outlier in his apparent "choosing" when to pull the ball in the air ... SSI is adding the concept of choosing when to keep it low to the off-field.
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Second point: there is one guy on the 2015 HR leaderboard who DOES have a low number of doubles to homers (50%). That being Nelson Cruz. Dae-Ho Lee, as a hitter, is our junior Cruz.
Doesn't matter that Lee's slugging percentage is .590. Doesn't matter that he's on pace to create 2.7 WAR from the part-time DH position. Matters that he can hit a mortal ton. Guy's quite a character, too, ain't he?
Enjoy,
Dr D
He needs to play. Any time Cruz is in the field he should play 1st or DH. And he should take the occasional day from Lind when Cruz is DHing. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=leeda02&year=2016&t=b Do his Japan stats indicate he should be platooned?
I gotta agree with you. With Lind starting to hit some the M's have an embarrassment of riches at first base. But you've GOT to get a .600 slug bat in the lineup any way you can.
Belafonte is my 2016 cult hero.
With Gutierrez now hitting the M's have an amazing ability, shown in last night's comeback, to replace their lefty platoon bats EARLIER IN THE GAME than normal, and PAY LITTLE OR NO PRICE when their opponent counters with an RHP.
I suppose he is a DEVISTATING bat off the bench though. For whats thats worth.
He had me at the leg kick, way back when we dug up some youtube stuff.
Will give some props to Romero and O'Malley for going the other way (mostly up the middle) for the tying rip and the go ahead soft-liner. This Romero is a different Romero, he will hit, given the PT.
"The only time Lee ever attempted to advance to second on a wall shot, he had to back up and try to swim back to first through the infield dirt ripples. He didn't make land."
It described that surreal moment so well. With Dae Ho in my roto team, I'm yelling, "Home run! No, a double - maybe - get back to first! Oh $&@€!! - a single! And he's out at first!"
How does that work with his playing time? ... super deep league, using him for rate stats? or ....
The picture of Lee wearing the "swelmut" is hilarious - it looks like a little kid's helmut on him. He's a really big dude.
Face and body of a schlub, hand-eye coordination and stones of a monster; my world is worse for not having had Dae-Ho Lee in the MLB 10 years ago.
The edges in the picture that Dae-Ho is painting this season is sharply defined by its having happened in the latter part of his career.
He joins my short list of Seattle role-players that will live forever in my heart:
Edgar Martinez
Detlef Schrempf
John. L. Williams
Munenori Kawasaki
Mack Strong
Dae-Ho Lee
Owen Schmitt
This post is an absolute gem Nathan! Dae-Ho has given us one of Seattle sports history's most charming bit players. For me he's a big part of the color and pageantry of the year ...
I think he's establishing himself as MORE that a bit player. Lind's surging bat makes it a tough thing to find Lee a bunch more starts, unless you play Cruz in RF fulltime and sit Aoki a lot more, when Martin comes back. Aoki, however, is hitting better than his career #'s vs. RHP, with a .356 OBP.
The land of Milk and Honey isn't very far from Mariner bats right now.