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Just a quick stub, in case denizens wish to wallow in the M's division lead for a day and a half. :- ) The Astros are down 6-1 in the second as we type.
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LEONYS MARTIN
1. No, four base hits do not cause Dr. D to overhaul his evaluation of Leonydas. Admittedly, maybe it should be Dr. D's evaluation of Leonydas to go into dry dock, rather than Leonydas' swing. But that Martin would get four hits this year, Dr. D knew already.
2. That said, you gotta like the pitches that Martin hit, and the way he hit them.
His first three hits were on soft stuff away, and it takes really nice timing to collect three of those in two games. Then the slap double in the 9th on Tuesday showed some contact ability. I even thought that in two of the at-bats he controlled his swing a little better. And, without a doubt, these have been "hard" RBI he has delivered. Tip o' the cap.
Right now, all I take out of it is a brief alert that maybe Martin won't be quite as helpless at the plate this year. No, I'm not getting my hopes up yet, not in the least. You want to spend tonight and tomorrow envisaging a .280 AVG with 15 homers?, who is Dr. D to stop you. He'd be delighted to be proven wrong. Hey, this curmudgeon thing is win-win ... for the curmudgeon :- )
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KETEL MARTE
Servais watched the first two games and promptly flushed Marte to the bottom of the order. But in his first AB, I thought he'd dialed back his swing a good bit. Then in his second, he bunted his way on. Here's the attitude he brought up to the bigs last year.
Could be imagining the whole 'dizzy with ST success' deal :: shrug :: but if not, it looks like he adjusted pretty quick.
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WADE MILEY
He is who he is: an average-solid pitcher who is kinda fun to watch. An average-solid pitcher is liable to give up 5 runs in Texas' ballpark. He'll be okay. ... problem is, 'okay' may block the kids with 3.16 ERAs.
Woo Hoo! Friday and Saturday we get the bottom of the rotation! amirite?
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BULLPEN
That's what, 7 different pitching changes and not a sniff of a run from the Rangers in Arlington.
This doesn't mean that Mike Montgomery and Vidal Nuno are going to run 1+ ERA's on the season. It does mean, with 1.9% of precincts reporting, that you're now fairly justified to bet the OVER on this pen if you're so inclined. It's a systemic approach and the system came through an acid test with no difficulties at all. The "gruesome train wreck with body parts thrown a quarter mile away" scenario already looks unlikely.
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NUMBERS
After their first, epic, road series the Mariners have seven batters with OPS > 1000. Control the zone, baby.
Robinson Cano was red-hot to end Spring Training and ... slap me silly, just picked up where he left off. How often do you say that of Mariner players in early April? But Cano is followed in that by Seth Smith, Chris Iannetta and Luis Sardinas.
With 1.9% of precincts reporting, and Franklin Gutierrez with 0 homers in 4 full at-bats, Dr. D is also considering a bet on the OVR on Smith's time in RF this year. LH Lind and LH Smith following the Big Three? Niiiiiice.
7 of the 9 pitchers who got into the games have WHIPs you could win a rotisserie league with - despite facing Texas on the road. The two exceptions: Hisashi Iwakuma and Joaquin Benoit. Who are the two guys guaranteed to have low WHIPs later.
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Enjoy,
Dr D
A solid baseball team is fun....add the capacity to be exciting at times and 162 games might not be the usual summer torture.
I watched Seth Smith come up in Colorado as the next Todd Helton....but he never lived up to the QB billing....maybe this is the year?????
. . .was scary. Threw to the wrong base twice leading to two runs early. And I'm the guy who says every shortstop can play average solid CF?
Outfield looks like it's an injury away from incompetent. Of course, if Martin and Smith OPS north of 1.000, who cares?
When you make in-game changes that require such sacrifices, you're prepared to pay the piper ... when making the starting lineups, though, have to have a good sense of how much the defensive weirdness is costing you ...
Went over to Lone Star Ball to lurk and gloat and learned some interesting stats:
1. Mariners outscored Rangers 21-10 in the series.
2. Mariners scored 9 homeruns, the Rangers scored 1.
3. LHB's scored two homeruns against Hamels all last year, and two in game 1.
4. The consensus is that the Texas bullpen has the yips but will probably be fine because of the many power arms, but the Texas hitting has been terribad. The Rangers have two highly regarded relief pitchers in reserve in AAA.
5. Rangers got off to an atrocious slow start last year as well.
6. The Mariners played them very tough last year, despite the Mariners' shortcomings against other teams.
7. Colby Lewis' outing was par for his course.
had nothing to do with a home run (IMO).
The 3-2 pitch he took just off the plate yesterday in an extreme high leverage situation is what I believe C the Z is all about.
Hat tip.