.

Dr. D had time this morning for a quick dip into the balmy Carribbean of post-victory blog seas.  He found many swimmers 300 yards from shore, getting tugged out by the rip tide into the ancient Rum-and-Tobacco shipping lines.  Well, if you have to go at age 28, you might as well do it with a bandana on your head and contraband below decks.

The Angels are dead?  And they say that Dr. D is delusional.  Read it and weep, last year's b-ref.com offensive summary:

Rationalize it all you want, Cupcake.  But the Seattle Mariners' catcher does not own a 122 OPS+.

I suppose if we'd seen the 1927 Yankees against King Felix, we'd have watched Lou Gehrig hit a solo shot to center field, the rest of the Yanks fan 10 times, and we fans would be projecting the Yankees to 79 wins.  But you'll notice that the moment Felix exited the game, the entire Mariners' bullpen was scrambled in a mad attempt to keep the Angels from scoring 3 runs before they got 3 outs.  They succeeded, barely.

True, Weaver and Wilson are over the hill.  They were in 2014 also.  Those Angels won 98 games, not 87.  Howie Kendrick is fine and all that, but he's not worth twenty games.

Moral of the story:  don't wait for Felix to retire, to go sit in the yellow section.  The fabric of baseball history is written in HOF starting pitchers.

.

Young Pitchers

The term "master of his craft" gets thrown around a lot.  Hisashi Iwakuma is the very definition; I daresay there is no such thing as a baseball pitcher who is more a master of his craft.

But Iwakuma struggles with his mechanics and execution, and has months with ERA's over 5.00.  Super-veterans can find their fixes quickly.  Children cannot.  Any time you are counting on a rookie, you're counting on somebody who does not even know what is wrong when he's pitching badly.

Which raises the question:  Hold on Lil Doggie.  The lead on the Angels is +1 game, not +8.  And we have to play them tonight.

........

Keys to the game:  You want to see K-Pax throw strike one, first time thru the lineup.  The key is not for him to avoid the center of the plate laterally; the key is for him to avoid the center of the plate vertically.  Picture the strike zone as having three floors.  K-Pax wants to stop at floors 1 and 3, never hitting floor 2 if he can avoid it.  If, the first time through, K-Pax can hit the knees (even right down the middle) and can get up to the hands or higher (even right down the middle), then he'll butcher the Angels.

Second time through the lineup isn't as delicate.  If he establishes the ability to execute his own game, Paxton will get into the Angels' heads quickly.  And then he has lots of margin for error.

...

Dr. D is Paxton's biggest fan, but even he is squeamish about Paxton finding his stroke within the first four games.  If he does, wow.

The good news is, Lloyd McClendon moved Paxton to #2 ahead of the great Hisashi Iwakuma.  He claims this is R-L-R-L-R, but I notice that with five pitchers you've got to have two righties together somewhere.  Why should it be 3-4 rather than 1-2?

On the other hand, there is field level.  An air-to-surface missile barrage of Paxton magnitude makes a statement to the Angels.  From field level, with James Paxton warming up, you've got the 1B dugout wearing its snake eyes and the 3B dugout with queasy looks on their faces.  There is a certain Rookie-Tim-Lincecum "wow" factor here.

McClendon's got a vibe about Paxton for April, I guess.  Dr. D doesn't.  Go with Mac.

.........

SSI has no idea whether Justin Ruggiano is going to be Chris Denorfia or the righty Seth Smith.  It will be fun to find out.  But the 2015 Mariners do have an Anti-Lefty Reaper prototype and on the mound tonight, there is a very hittable lefty.  

Cheers,

Dr D