Q.  The last two blown saves felt like catastrophes.  League is pitching badly, or is it that this club needs too much out of its closer?

A.  For five weeks, M's got accustomed to winning every game that they ever led by one run. 

This ballclub needs too much out of its (ad hoc) closer and setup man.  League's performance can be easily improved, but .... the bullpen was pitching over its head early in the season.  That near-perfect bullpen was needed just to keep the Archie Andrews Jalopy popping and pinging along at close to .500.

League is what, 9-for-11, which is within the range of acceptable closer conversion.  But there are scrappy pro sports teams that bite and scratch and eventually learn that gravity wins.  It's like watching a chicken fly.

...........

The M's won the first 13 games that they led after six innings -- despite usually only being up by a run or two.

And they needed to win them all.  You're in tough shape when you need an impossibility.

It's a flawed formula, "okay, half our games we'll cobble up a 1-run lead behind Felix or Erikkk --- > and we'll win all those."  League's blown saves aren't an incrimination of him; they merely underline the flaw in the formula.  League's blown saves, ironically, are an incrimination of UZR Moneyball Orientation.

The M's should be winning a fair share of games 7-3, like everybody else does.

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Q.  What's the primary reason that there's no margin for error?

A.  No homers.  In the American League.  It doesn't work.

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Q.  Okay, how's Sasaki Syndrome?

A.  Dr. D didn't see the game, but GameDay records his every 9th-inning pitch as being according to his pre-announced tendencies.

• First-pitch FB to 5 out of 5 hitters
• Two 1-0 counts, both FB's, two base hits
• Blizzards of splitters thrown in pitchers' counts

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Q.  Every pitch thrown was according to the playbook?

A.  And notice carefully that this was the game following his previous blown save.

League showed you a diamond-hard retreat into his comfort zones, the day after he got gut-kicked.  Many times a guy shows you his true convictions when he's scared.  (We don't mean it in a pejorative way.)

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Q.  Give him credit for the nine previous saves, though.

A.  Oh, definitely.

He was throwing the fastball so well that the Sasaki Syndrome was usually moot -- and that will occur again in the future.

The problem with pre-announcing his pitches is that the ball then has to be perfect.  Thursday, it wasn't -- he hit two batters in one inning, was wilder than usual.

It's like Dale Ellis or Ray Allen sprinting around a pick, jumping 30 inches in the air and shooting the basketball from 24 feet falling away.   If they can do that, fine, more power to them.

But the average NBA starter has one or two games like that, and then he thinks he can hit fadeaway 3-pointers as his bread and butter game.  Next thing you know, your 11-ring coach is retiring.

I don't like the pressure it puts on League's game, the way he announces pitches ahead of time.  The last two games, his command did not justify that pressure.  Probably the next two games, it will.

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Q.  Solution being?

A.  Kazuhiro Sasaki went through precisely this evolution.  He started throwing The Thang for a called strike on 0-0 ----- > and then his 9th innings were easy, repeatable, and consistent.

SSI is firmly convinced that League's game would become much easier and more repeatable if he got comfortable with called 0-0 strikes.  But if he insists on letting the other team know that he's coming around the pick for the 3-point shot, well, it's up to him to hit those shots (the 97 fastballs right on the black).

The Sasaki Syndrome will self-inflict all kinds of pressure on League, which is fine with me, if he shows that he can withstand that pressure.

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Q.  Does this apply to Michael Pineda as well?

A.  Sure.  Unconventional "here it is, hit it" approaches aren't incorrect as such; what they do is put extra pressure on the pitcher to execute.

Pineda (and Nolan Ryan, and Randy Johnson, and Kerry Wood, and Doc Gooden, and Josh Beckett, and ...) want to allow ML hitters to cut them down to two pitches... what it means is that those pitches have to be real good.  Consistently.

........

Michael Pineda actually is Kerry Wood 1997, so he's fine.  Pineda's pitches can easily withstand the pressure that his pitch selection gathers.  

Is League a second Mariano Rivera, a guy who can announce fastball on a game-in, game-out basis?

2010 leads me to believe, "No."  Brandon League has had problems before, executing his  "here it is, hit it" game.

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Q.  Are League's pitch sequences softening any?

A.  As he gets a little pressure on himself, he becomes even more predictable, if that were possible.  (He has now also decided that two-strike pitches are to be splitters.)

Here are his updated tendencies after May 12th:

He does have the two counts in which the batter doesn't have the pitch, those being 0-1 and 1-1.  I'm sure he's death on a stick in those counts.

But there's nothing wrong with the M's bullpen that 4 runs a game wouldn't solve.

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BABVA,

Dr D