.
Reuben Fine was a truly great chess grandmaster, and he was American, which is kind of like saying that the U.S. Soccer team had an artist like Lionel Messi or Mesut Ozil. Doesn't happen in North America. Anyway, the distinctive element in Fine's chess style was "precision." His mistake rate was impossibly low; they say that playing against him was like trying to win Ping-Pong against a playback with the table folded up. That was the feeling they described.
So this one time he crushed a lesser opponent like a pop can. The junior master stared at the last ten moves, over the course of an hour or so, and then stopped the clocks -- you don't really tip your King over; that would be childish -- and said something that may have only been heard one time in the history of man.
He said, "You play better than I do."
....
Last night's Royals game seemed full of plays in which the Royals chased down balls in the gaps to sno-cone them beautifully, or swatted clean line shots off decent Felix pitches, and Mariner plays that were ... um ... not characterized by precision. And when the M's were down 3-1, it suddenly hit you that the Kansas City Royals have a Reuben Fine bullpen. The whole game felt like playing a master rated 400 points above you.
From the Shout Box:
DADDY-O: Bad fundamental baseball. A-Jack overthrows the cutoff man and it ends up costing the M's a second run.
G-MONEY: Jackson throwing home cost us a run. Just ridiculous. He didn't overthrow him, he just wanted to throw home and air it out for no reason. It wasn't gonna be close. Throw it to second and the game is still tied. Stupid baseball play. Think out there. Sheesh.
BROWNS8625: And those are the mistakes being made weekly if not daily, which will end up sending mcclendon to the unemployment line
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Dr. D was going to make a big deal out of this play, but he keeps forgetting about the nature of the SSI audience. :- ) Anyway, if you forgot the details: (1) there were TWO OUT, so Perez was running on contact. The ball was (2) a slow roller up the middle and (2a) not directly at Jackson. When Jackson LET THE BALL GO I said ..... whaaaaaaaaaa? That wouldn't happen in A+ ball, would it?!
But the real kicker was (3) HOW high the ball was. The batter, with the ball 30 feet in the air, had absolutely no processing to perform before he gleefully rounded 1B and headed to 2B.
(4) This turned out to be the winning run, as you definitely remember.
From a saber standpoint, many baseball plays are luck (like LoMo's and Trumbo's first AB's not being HR's) but there are a few like Jackson's, where it's simply up to you whether you wish to give the other team a run or don't. That is why managers work so hard on those marginal plays.
Is it unfair to say that the Royals have been playing crisply, brightly, with the expectation of "forcing" a victory? And that the Mariners have not? Unfair, my little toe. There isn't an SSI reader who would say otherwise.
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I agree with Browns8625. The Jackson play was a damning one for McClendon.
.
PEPPER
Could somebody explain how the Royals all have four million extra votes apiece? Or is that known? And has it been discussed, how many Royals will be replaced by the commissioner? Probably first in line is Nelson Cruz over Kendrys Morales, right. Cruz has a huge lead over every non-Royal.
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In an early-game play, with 2 out and a runner on 1B, the Royal hit a crisp grounder to Robinson Cano. Who backhand-flipped it to Miller (?!), who went halfway through a throw for the 4th out. Then he held up the throw, put his head down, and trotted off the field happily. I've seen the Mariners forget the number of outs this year six times, minimum. This time, TWO Mariners forgot the number of outs TOGETHER.
Life is great, isn't it :- )
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It came up on the TV screen last night that Mike Zunino was hitting .158. I had no idea, did you? His strikeouts do not support that, no way no how. 82 strikeouts in 62 player games is not a remarkable number. It's very high but Mark Reynolds struck out at least that much and hit .230-.240.
Zunino's BABIP is a miniscule .218. For the more casual reader ... when any player bats the ball into fair territory it will turn out to be a hit 30% of the time. The 9 fielders simply cannot cover more than 70% of a baseball field. It's like a law of physics.
Another oddity is that Zunino can't possibly be replaced in the lineup, even if he hits .099. So this whole situation is part of the larger Mariner first half tragedy.
:- )
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Hisashi Iwakuma threw 50-60 good pitches in a rehab start the other day. The Mariners growled in response, "We're not putting him in there." That is baseball code for "We want to see more of Mike Montgomery."
Dr. D honestly does not process the reluctance to see more of Mike Montgomery (and Erasmo Ramirez and their ilk) out of the bullpen, like Earl Weaver would have done with a scowl on his face and pure joy in his heart. Earl's Sixth Law: the place for a rookie starter is in long relief. But Montgomery is our NUMBER FOUR rookie starter this year (counting Elias).
Even your #4 rookie is going to crowd Iwakuma? Iwakuma has like the #8 ERA in the league since becoming a starter, right? It's not that a couple of starts are a huge deal, although Dr. D has heard of teams that missed the playoffs by one game.
...
Just last month, they asked Arnold how he kept himself motivated to lift weights (to muscle failure and lots of pain) for four or five hours every single day. He said, "I'm not mining coal for a dollar a day." Neither are we, or the Mariners.
There's a baseball game on tonight and Mike Montgomery is fun to watch. Maybe tonight it won't look like the Royals simply play better than the Mariners do. I'm gonna re-boot and hope for long Mariner AB's against Guthrie. ;- )
Cheers,
Jeff
