Please give me something positive to think about with this offense, like "these shutouts are part of the growing process" or "Milone was just really really good" or something. I want to believe they're a better group, heck I'm sure they're better than last year. But in terms of deltas that's a low bar to pass. Give me swagger and cockiness. But how does a team that's been losing for a decade get that? Being shutout at home doesn't help. I was there tonight and the crowd only made a peep when prompted. Give me red sox-style fans who care, who live and die with the team, who give a standing O to a rookie who just K'd 10. Not sure the fans tonight even realized. Do those fans exist here? Did they in 2001? Santa I know it's June but please bring winning baseball. Ok rant over.
-Nick
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Q. Do y' feel like I do? Was he really that good?
A. Every bit that good. Musta been a dream; he don' believe where he been.
The stats say 16 swings and misses, but unfortunately nobody has a stat that counts "garbage swings." That woulda been about 12. He had ten strikeouts, one "accident" walk, this against a lineup stacked with lefties. He pwn'ed 'em, no doubts there.
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Q. What happened out there?
A. After his first start, SSI said tersely, "too many strikes, wayyyyyyy too many fastballs." Erasmo came into the game having thrown more than 70% fastballs, and Erasmo is the last pitcher in the WORLD who should be doing that. (See accompanying article.)
Today he threw more offspeed pitches than fastballs. He started offspeed, and he stayed offspeed until the confusion set in. That's all.
And he laid waste a lineup that had been scoring 5.3 runs per game in June. The A's had been locked down 1 time in their last 12 games, scoring 8+ runs in 5 of those games.
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Q. Was it repeatable?
A. Erasmo's arm action on the changeup is plus-plus.
He can throw it up in the zone for a swing and miss. He can bury it, falling down out of the zone, for a garbage swing. He can double up and he can (and did) triple up.
Read it and weep: he threw 28 changeups and had .... wait for it ... 13 separate swings and misses on those 28 pitches. We are talking knuckleball efficacy here.
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Q. What's the upside?
A. He's got a good shot to make a run at a RH (poor man's?) Johan Santana territory, which I guess would be Roy Oswalt, if you swapped out the yakker for a diving changeup. Santana and Oswalt are short pitchers who create mammoth (-15 MPH) separation between their changeups* and their live fastballs. Both Santana and Oswalt can sell, sell, selllllll their changeups (curves) with whip-fast arm action, and then can follow up with 94-95 fastballs located.
The funny thing here is, Erasmo Ramirez did not have his fastball location on Saturday. Best he could do was hit a circle about 2.5 feet across. He hardly ever threw his fastball into Olivo's mitt.
Give Erasmo a chance to settle in, to hit the mitt with that 94-95 heater, and if he's got the guts to throw 50% offspeed pitches ... SSI gives him a chance to run into something like Santana/Oswalt territory. That's the game that Ramirez has, and you wouldn't want to rule out his chance to do so.
IF he will ride that changeup.
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Also see:
2 June 25, 2012 - his Achilles' Heel
3 June 25, 2012 - his Key Weapon
4 June 25, 2012 - the Eckersley Clause
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Comments
At 4.15 runs per game, the M's are solidly into "mediocre" territory in 2012.
At 4.15, the Mariners have four A.L. teams scoring less than they do, including the Angels, and another four teams not scoring appreciably more. That's runs per game, not even adjusting for Safeco Field.
This compares to 2011, when the M's scored 3.4 runs per game, FAR below the next-worst team at 3.8. And in 2010, the scored 3.17 runs per game, with the next-worst team also at 3.8.
The M's have essentially added a run per game this year, with various hitters (Ackley, Smoak, Montero, Carp) nowhere near the places they're going to be very soon.
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The M's have scored 307 runs and allowed 333. Despite their W/L record, they are essentially a .500-quality team, held down only by the M's own insistence on using Blake Beavan and Hector Noesi.
They're on a steep arc up, and have already hit the general area in the vicinity of .500.
There's been a certain amount of bad luck camouflaging the M's progress. Stay cool. Zduriencik has things getting better, and fast.
I will feel a heck of a lot better about a Felix/Vargas/E-Ram/Millwood/Hultzen rotation than the one I have now. That's all I'm saying.
As for the offense...last night's game the Mariners banged out 7 hits in the first seven innings...they just weren't bunched...and this against a pitcher throwing one of his best games of the year (seriously...check the nasty factors on his pitchers...consistently in the 70s and 60s...that means MLB hitters are 20% worse on those pitches than they are on average!)...laser after bloomin' laser right on the friggin' corners and at the knees, followed by crackling cutters and slurves with a ton of armside break.
Last time we faced Millone, we beat the tar out of him...this time he was sharp and we got beat...it happens.