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GUILLERMO HEREDIA
Most amusing for the Dungeon Master that just as he declared Heredia the Billy Beane Wandering Monster off the 1d8 behind his Mainframe screen ... that Heredia promptly tore the Boston delver party to shreds with his bare claws. And cleats. His sting attack into the short LF porch took out 70% of the Boston hit points in the first round and then --- > Heredia finished them with his gaze weapon in the 13th:
√ Gamel on 1B two out
√ Fister quickly worked an 0-2 or 1-2 count; you could hear the resignation in the booth
√ Heredia stared at the mound and ticked pitches away from the strike zone for 30-40 minutes
√ Finally he waited long, lonnnnggg ere he took a fliner the other way into right central. Somewhere Derek Jeter sobbed quietly for joy
Then the Sox' pitching coach came out to comfort Fister, who looked as needful of comfort as Mo' Dawg on a practice putting green with a half piece of chewing gum in his front teeth. Fister, impressively calm, tossed the ball to the backstop scoring Gamel ... and Heredia took third. I mean he took it epically. He jetted down to 2B, slowed to a glide around the bag and assessed the catcher with precision -- before hitting the turbojets into a 1B-to-3B critical hit on the Sox' master cleric.
Which was the ballgame, since Heredia could then score on Jean-Jean's infield hit. Not since Willie Mays' 1954 World Series catch has such an on-field miracle come at such an important time. Well, we don't think.
....
Beane wants "young outfielders" and these clubs most definitely send augury scouts to the combat sites. Heredia couldn't possibly have wow'ed them any more than he did, on any more levels than he did.
It's what, maybe a 5% or 10% chance that we finish first in the Gray sweepstakes, that only due to Jerry Dipoto's 18 charisma. Roll 19-20 on 1d20, delvers. The DM is fine with Guillermo Heredia right where he is, if that's what it comes to. Why are low minor leaguers so much more important than a 6-year player who is rocking it in the big leagues?
... um, no offense to minor leaguers that the local sage has forecast as future Aragorns. ... if a miracle occurs and Dr. D's suggestion occurs and Heredia does exit, here's a vote for signing Jarrod "4 WAR" Dyson back up. Then you could get back to 4 OF's relatively quickly.
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MIKE ZUNINO
Rick had just waxed ecstatic -- okay, waxed moderately pleased -- about Zuumball's progress. His HR was a semi-front arm sweep of a low cutter ... into the singles patio. Slap me silly the man has PWR.
We don't imagine that his OBP is going to hit 400 any time soon but he's got 41 RBI in 72 games off a .463 season SLG. In that 2010 season, Adam Moore led Mariners' catchers with 15 RBI. That was 15 RBI in October, rather than 41 in July, despite time off for mental health days. We could post algebraic formulae to the effect that Zunino is helping the club, or we could simply post a DVR of the July 25 Red Sox game. Without Zunino we don't get the big win there.
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KING FELIX
Threw the ball like a TOR. They got to him late, in the 6th, but that was more to the Red Sox' credit. They've got a rather long lineup, too, you know.
Actually in this game, Dr. D gave Felix the season's highest marks for Fister-type weaponization of his fastball into various locations. As Geoff Baker pointed out, the fastball becomes sort of like three different pitches if you are actually hitting spots in Iwakuma fashion. Since it's his 3rd pitch now (the fastball) when it's weaponized he's reminiscent of the Cy Young version.
The box score wasn't quite there this time but the Yankee line certainly was (3-hitter with a 9:0 CTL). That's now 4 games in a row for him at Opening Day levels of performance, 24 IP only 15 H and a 26:7:2 fip line.
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BULLPEN
If your eyes are blurry, in this game it looked like the M's have 7 closers.
Tie* game, Servais was able to bring in one single-inning relief ace* after another. They all performed great. David Phelps, Tony Vincent, Edwin Diaz ... whoop! Almost forgot they even have Tony Zych and he was dominant, about 97% back to rookie form. Steve Cishek, who used to close games for the Cardinals or somebody is wayyyy down the totem pole but throwing his game. The two lefties, one an MLB(TM) specialist and the other a firebrand.
Wow.
I mean, it ain't Miller-Chapman-and co. but in a nervy, playoff atmosphere that entire bullpen crew went face-up against a championship team and --- > in that game anyway, they looked the part and then some. They looked the part of two (2) contending bullpens, actually. Kudos to Skip who matched them up all night and came away with Re. Sults.
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BABVA,
Dr D
I always kinda wondered what it felt like to go against the 90's M's when they had Randy Johnson. 20 years on, we finally find out. Have you seen Chris Sale's K/BB ratio?!
You've won 86, Chris. Only a few hundred more W's in this fashion and you're right there.
Both of their catchers played so hopefully the quick turnaround will negatively affect the Sox catcher's game-calling.
Because MLB is stuck with an old model of television revenue generation, I was stuck watching the Red Sox broadcast staff.
The groks were interesting about 20% of the time and hilariously ignorant the other 80% when it came to the Mariners.
I had the same impression as you, Doc, re: King Felix. They thought he never looked comfortable the entire game and that his front shoulder was flying open every time he tried to throw his best velocity. They thought Jean Segura was overrated because he has trouble with high and inside pitches. They thought most of the Mariner relievers were sub-par except Diaz and, oddly, Rzepczynski. They liked Zych's slider but thought his mechanics would never translate into reliable command. They HATED Pazos (I kind of agree on that one...I don't trust him at all anymore...wild every single time he pitches). And they were stupidly obsessed with Nick Vincent's lack of a power fastball while their hitters were looking stupid against him.
Their color guy, right now, is Mike Timlin. Nice guy I'm sure, but a complete moron. Wow...some of the absolute worst color commentary I've ever heard. At least it was an entertaining kind of stupid.
I thought Servais managed an excellent game. Great to see.
While we're not talking stats, here's something for the grist mill. The bullpen has been excellent since the All-Star break, which, coincidentally is when Mike Hampton rode off into the sunset and Nasusel Cabrera took over. I have no idea whatsoever the kind of impact that may have and it's obviously a ridiculously small sample size to draw any conclusions from. But kind of interesting, too :)
Where the heck was Jarrod Dyson? We probably would have won the game earlier if he had been used as a pinch runner. :)
The result of his recent run-in with the CF wall.
Haniger needs to figure stuff out in Tacoma. Maybe Leonidas can take Dyson's bench role while Dyson plays center and Heredia mans a corner.
And yes, leave Gamel at the two spot.
Haniger looks well and truly fouled up at the plate right now. He needs some side days with Edgar at the very least.
Every one of our key rivals is making moves while we sit on a middle reliever and a mediocre #7 SP as our big additions.
Rays get Lucas Duda and Dan Jennings
Royals got Jaime Garcia and working on others
Yankees got the White Sox and working on Gray/Alonso
Red Sox got Eduardo Nunez
We got Phelps...ooooh...I'm thrilled by that. :(
Starting tomorrow, there are 59 games left / 19 series's left in the season... with 25 games at home where 17 of those games are against our division.
Other than the Mets, Braves and 3 sets with the A's, everyone else on the schedule is in the same position we are in... which is start winning or start packing.
Moreover, for as many injuries as this team has had... they are not healthy even now. I mean, Cano / Cruz / Segura / Dyson / Zunino can not sprint today and probably can not sprint any time soon. Add in Haniger's finger, Valencia's throwing up, and several guys heads or mental state... so at best, this team is not firing on all cylinders by a long shot.
Luckily, many other teams are going through some of the same injuries and many teams the M's will play will probably be giving up in the next couple weeks... so there is a chance, and as an athlete, most of the time all you can hope for is for a chance to win in the end.
This is definitely not the position we want to be in, but the team IS in position to where even a couple small runs gets them into the playoffs - which is probably all anyone of us was asking for in March. Hopefully these guys want it more than the other tweeners they will be playing against.