March 2009

Two homers today.  Off a lefty.  Who's in the Indians' rotation.  One of them came down with frost on it, according to Neihaus.

.314 / .360 / .714.

Paying closer attention to Branyan on TV this March, I was struck by how non-TTO his swing is.  He's balanced, controlled, gets homers more by nice torque than by a Dunn-, Deer-type lumberjack swing.

More to the point, Branyan doesn't seem to merely "stalk" tater pitches the way that Adam Dunn will do.  A guy like Dunn walks so much, more because he's simply WAITING.  For the pitch he can drive.  Branyan, by contrast, is working the strike zone like a contact hitter, and then has the ability to drive the ball from different locations and speeds.

Jack Cust is similar to this:  Cust's swing is relatively controlled, and he's relatively less of a guess hitter than other TTO guys.

Along with this, have been impressed by Branyan's ability to get on top of the ball and line it hard.  He does pull the ball extremely, which Read more

The muscled young toughs of the barrio protest that Russell Branyan maybe CAN hit lefties.  Good stuff, amigos.  :- )  Even while spray-painting my warnings about bringing RB into the LHP house, we were laughing wondering whether half the local monstas would argue that maybe he can hit lefties.

Maybe he can.  Wouldn't that be cool, to pull a .380 OBP, 35-homer, 110-RBI star off the shelf at Branyan's salary... If Oakland can do it with Jack Cust, why not us with Russell Branyan?

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1.  If a thoughtful analyst, let's say Don Wakamatsu or one of you amigos, believes that Branyan could do fine vs LHP given a fair chance... Read more

=== Ken Griffey Jr, Sizzlin' Lefty Sock ===

TV game tonight showed highlights of Junior, quicker to the ball than the other night, smoking two rockets to center field.  One of them hit 20 feet up a wall that was 410 feet away, meaning that Griffey hit the ball 425 feet to center.  If you're just joining us, the bathead is moving faster as it has traveled farther through its swing arc, which is why long home runs are hit to the pull field.  Griffey once tried to teach Darren Bragg how to hit.  He said, "Get the bathead out here," holding it out in front of home plate, "not back here," he said, holding it parallel to the plate as if hitting a ball to CF.  "Back here (to LF, CF) there's no money, no production."

I'm not sure any current Mariners are CAPABLE of hitting a ball 425 feet to center field, ever, unless you count Jeff Clement as a current Mariner.  Maybe Russell Branyan.  In any given year there are only a handful of pitched balls hit over 435 feet in game conditions -- to any field.

In other words, Griffey's swing looked better; on the highlight reels it also looked quicker and shorter to the ball.

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Mister MC sez:

Did you happen to notice what type of pitch Wilson hammered that homerun on? Curveball, the great nemesis of Balentien. I am predicting a breakout year for Wilson right here and now.

It is highly doubtful that Wilson makes the travelling 25, so what that does is make for a very, VERY powerful team down in Tacoma.

Watching Mike Wilson play the man-among-boys role ... well, it kinda reminded me of some of those WBC games, like the Korea-Venezuela game.   Some big 1B from some league you've never heard of just steps up, grins, and pulverizes all that weak slop the major leaguers throw up there.... Read more