.

So in the 2nd inning, our #7 starter (or is it our #7 lefty?) was batting the Champs toof-and-nail.  The enemy had loaded the bases with 1 out, no score.  First Blood imminent, or, not.

Mike Montgomery responded with a celery-crisp changeup to Joaquin Arias, inside, off the plate.  Arias KBIZLT'd a perfect fungo to Dustin Ackley, and it took a Major League effort to even put that pitch into play, fair territory.  But it was into play, fair, only as a clinical double play grounder, as if a coach had hit it to Ackley in the pregame warmups.  Way to go Mont-mi-go.

Ackley had not played 2B in the better part of two years.  Didn't look like it on this play!  Ack Attack was a fish in water, lowering the tailgate, dirt-schhhoooping the ball neatly and backhanding the ball over to Miller at a really nice catching temparature.  Second baseman, anybody?  Tampa, maybe?

Brad Miller glommed onto the perfect backhand feed, skipped across the bag like an ice dancer, and ... flopped the ball on the ground like he'd suddenly realized he was holding a Fringed Ornamental Tarantula.  One run scores.  Champs' inning still going.  #7 Starter still under massive pressure.

Now, it's not that a team is going to finish the season with a teamwide total of 0 errors.  Physical mistakes are as much a part of the sport as are fans.  

1.  "What's the matter?  Afraid of a little lightning?"  :: Capt. stern, mystified ::

2.  :: Loki looking up and around very nervously ::  "I'm not overly fond of what FOLLOWS."

.......

#7 Starter should have been in the dugout.  That's all fine and dandy.  But right then, he chose to throw a "Quit" pitch -- sorry, but there we go; it was a first-pitch fastball that could not have been more centered -- to the lefty Aoki, who raked it easily into right field for the second run.  This is the equivalent of hitting your approach into the sand, and then missing the ball on your first sand shot.

By "quit shot" we don't mean that you spin on your heel and walk back to the 19th hole to drown your sorrows.  Nor do we mean that you try to do something wrong.  What we mean is that your concentration drops from 99% to 80%, and you play an "Oh, what the hey" move and HOPE that something good happens.  

Sometimes it does.  Say, 50-60 wins per season's worth of the time!

Game in, game out, it's like the Mariners look up in the 3rd inning to assess whether the game is worth their full attention.  :: vince vaughn ::  But how do you FEEL about this syndrome?

.......

We're guessing you either (1) saw or (2) heard about the rest.  The M's shuffled down Death Row and strapped in for a painless shutout.  Better to have not loved at all, than to have loved and lost.

We said that Miller's physical error was not, in itself, cause for condemnation.  But the way the drop occurred -- in a bizarrely-rushed, nervy manner -- Dr. D feels free to spekulate that:

Miller's SUBconscious mind sensed that either he get Montgomery out of that inning right there, right then, or the M's were going to lose.  

It's a margin-for-error kind of territory.  Winners are in a mindset that if something goes wrong, that's okay; they'll overcome it.  They'll repair a leaky faucet if one sproings a leak in the 4th inning.  Losers are in a mindset that if something goes wrong, well, we'll get 'em tomorrow.

Very possible that's all armchair sykologie.  Personally I believe it's razor-sharp analysis.  Your mileage may vary.

........

So the M's played a World Championship game on Wednesday, the MadBum-King game.  If you'd stopped watching the M's in May, you'd have had every right ... but you'd have missed that ballgame.  If you'd kept watching the M's through June, you'd have had every right ... but you'd have had to endure the skullcrushing emotion of watching them hand back the Felix win with their compliments.

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SELF-CONTRADICTORY MOMENT

If you're a John Wooden, or a Phil Jackson, or a Tony LaRussa (who cares how many caps in his name?  I don't), you are one of those coaches who has won everywhere he has been.  You coach the "How" of the game 90% of the time, and you bluster about effort 10% of the time.

One time per year, you throw over the postgame buffet and make the kids go to bed without supper.  And you threaten wholesale changes.

If Dr. D were Phil Jackson -- which he actually is, in many non-significant ways -- this would have been the single game in 2015 that ended in a true postgame "Spread."

Who was it, Emerson?  "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."  Like we said, macho gets you nowhere.  Unless it does.

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FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN TECHNICAL-TYPE DETAILS

Mike Montgomery, in his first start ... he looked like a guy who would have to be in the bullpen.  His motion on the fastball (much of the time) was hyperaccelerated, max-effort -- you know, take the backstroke, and then LUNNNNGGGGEE into your throughstroke going 0-60 MPH in 2 seconds.

He is getting better at that, every game out.  Gordon mentioned this.  Gordon rocks.  Drive home safely.

On the flip side, his 75 MPH Boomer Wells change curve has been AWOL for two starts.  Well, he has attempted 12 of them a game, but he's gotten jobbed on a couple, missed badly on a couple, and they have not controlled the flow of the game.  Later in his career -- 2017, or July, or next start -- those change curves could make Montomery a TOR.  That's my opinion I could be wrong.

........

Another technical-type detail:  baseball is fun.  MORE fun than almost anything else.  That applies even when your team is .500 (ish) and underperforming.  Dr. D plans to enjoy the game tonight; the turnaround COULD begin, correct?

Like the judge asked Jim Carrey in that one movie.  "Is that true?"  Forced reply:  "It HAS to be!"  The prospect of a turnaround especially has to be true for Howard Lincoln selling tickets, because the prospect of winning baseball is (usually) all he's ever had to sell to us.  Ho'ard or not, I'm looking forward to watching Roenis Elias try to bounce back from the last time the Astros beat his head in.  Sad as it may sound, my M's enjoyment factor is about 8 of 10 right now.

.........

Here's a question for you.  Wells himself benefitted from 2.5 years in the 'pen, Earl Weaver style.  Is that antiquated, in the age of Service Time?  Or is it still feasible to give a guy 1.5 years in the bullpen?  With the specific intent of turning him into an assassin SP when the time is right?  What are the recent precents for this -- if any?  (Feel free to use the comments area rather than the Shout Box.  Dr. D is not above throwing over the buffet table, you know.)

For me, pitchers are injuries waiting to happen, and to sit there and pencil out 7 cotton-candy-puffy years of prosperity for them is the wrong idea in the first place.  When the A team is back, I've got Montgomery in the 'pen, learning the league and working on his Signature Weapon.

Bah humbug,

Dr D