PROPS TO PROPS. Not going to pour iodized salt into the 13th-inning wound. After that game, let's just do props.
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PROPS TO STARS & SCRUBS. The Mariners are the same thing right now that they would have been --- > if Jack Cust's 12th-inning double would have gone 5 more feet, become a cheap home run, and won the game.
That "same thing" is this: a team with intense strengths and intense weaknesses.
Which is a great thing. You can replace six terrible players with six mediocre ones. You can't replace 25 below-average players with 25 good ones.
You can find a player to replace a 50-OPS+ second baseman who is mortified to put his glove on, and take the field. But it would be a little harder to find a new rotation to replace five Silvas and Batistas and Washburns, to each of whom you owe $10m per season.
You can't get there from here...
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PROPS TO MICHAEL PINEDA's SLIDER. He threw it 40 times, threw 33 strikes with it (!!), and saved 1.1 runs with only 40 pitches.
Got an article coming up that compares Pineda's slider to the best in baseball -- those thrown by Greinke, Latos, Scherzer, Wainwright, Felix, Colby Lewis, CC Sabathia, Clayton Kershaw, etc.
In terms of velocity delta off his fastball, in terms of vertical drop, in terms of arm action and in terms of its results against RH vs LH, Pineda's slider is as good as anybody's.
Michael Pineda has one of MLB's great sliders. Read about it elsewhere, end of the year. Read about it here, in May.
;- )
..... sudden thought. Who, in baseball, ever throws his breaking pitch 40 times and gets 33 of them in the strike zone? Does Felix? Halladay? Lester?
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They ran some stat tonight that showed Halladay and Pineda way ahead of the MLB pack in first-pitch strikes. Tonight, Pineda was again like 19-2 at one point.
He's leading the field by a mile in velocity, and he's also leading it in control. He's got the best slider in the American League. He goes into a rage every time the airplanes fly by and happen to land a few rounds. He doesn't think that Vlad Guerrero should ever make contact on him.
Pineda is freakazoid squared, man. Like Ichiro, I've never seen anybody quite like him.
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PROPS TO GENERAL PRINCIPLES such as "the taller candidate wins the POTUS election" and "NBA players have to be able to dribble with their left hands."
The general principle "RH sliders shouldn't be thrown to LH batters" is, um, generally valid. There are specific cases in which general principles do not apply.
Four real solid LHB's on Tuesday - Markakis, Scott, Roberts and Weiters - and they couldn't touch Pineda's slider with a paddle.
40 different sliders this kid threw -- and they couldn't touch any of them. Erik Bedard wishes that he could put that kind of pressure on his breaking pitch.
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PROPS TO MICHAEL WILSON's DEBUT. He was surrealistically cool about it, off and on the field. Stayed within himself all night, and he hit that GWRBI on an 0-2 count.
Wedge spoke in terms of a LH/RH platoon with Peguero. We certainly hope that Wedge is flexible about that. Wilson hits RHP's better than Peguero does.
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PROPS TO THE FELIX 40-GAME PLAN. Felix starts on Wednesday, his 9th start coming in game 37, and is now on pace for 39.4 starts.
After tomorrow, here will be the games started by each Mariner:
- 9 - Felix
- 7 - Vargas
- 7 - Fister
- 7 - Bedard
- 7 - Pineda
So their Accelerated Felix trick has already moved Felix through the line one complete time already.
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PROPS TO JACK CUST who hit a ball to the warning track in left-center and, of course, hit one off the RF fence, right down the line.
Coinciding precisely with our Release Cust Now post, he became an effective part of the lineup.
Am still not sold, but will cheerfully concede that he's looked much better.
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PROPS TO ANY AL TEAM THAT CAN COMPETE, HITTING TWO HOME RUNS IN 10 DAYS.
Every game the Mariners play is excruciating, because they play 1-run-at-a-time offense and the other team always feels a few pitches away from launching a rout.
Oh, okay, Adam Kennedy did go yard tonight... the second baseman hit a ball +1 (or -1) feet over the fence. My bad.
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The M's two callups are both hurkin', scary 240-lb. HR hitters. Props to that.
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PROPS TO HAVING [SMOAK #2] IN AAA.
You never cut a guy for making physical mistakes when he's giving you all he's got.
But Dr. D wishes there were some way to deal Jack Wilson for one of those $2 Safeco cocktail-weenie "hot dogs" --- > so that our suffering would not drag on.
For the following reasons:
- We knew how suicidal he'd be after the game, and
- Because the M's have three good alternatives to this dog-and-pony show at 2B, and
- Because of the 13-inning war that preceded it ...
....that blown DP and loss was one of my most painful moments watching baseball. Am only typing out of sheer altruism, to raise Dear Reader's psych-health rating from -9 to -7.
How's that for bubbly? :- )
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PROPS TO ROLLING YAHTZEE. Felix tomorrow. Bedard and Pineda again just a few days later.
Whattaya know, boys, they rolled Yahtzee on Pineda and Bedard in 2011 and here they sit with the best rotation in the league.
But! Sometimes success brings pressure with it. And that Yahtzee means that they now have the responsibility to find us a 97 offense.
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Git R Done,
Dr D