=== Inning 7 ===
We go into the late innings behind, but Naftali Feliz is on the DL and Wedge's boys are spitting and snarling.
Langerhans' slider-speed bat gets an 83 slider from Strop and he swats a long single into RCF. Ryan bunts and .... Torrealba commits a rather shrill gamble, trying to cut down Langerhans at 3B.
Langerhans slides head-first, winning the game with his slide.
............
Dr. D's 3rd-biggest pet peeve in baseball (beanballs, closers) is runners refusing to slide head-first. They always say that they're avoiding injury, but have you ever seen an injury off a head-first slide? Pete Rose did it every single base for 25 years... so did Rickey...
Feet-first costs 1-2 feet at least, and on a SB play, don't 1-2 feet decide the play a lot of the time?
.............
Anyway, The Great Ryan Langerhans slides headfirst into 3B and wins the stinkin' ballgame for the Seattle Mariners. 1B and 3B, nobody out, AND THE SEATTLE MARINERS WILL NOW PROBABLY WIN.
60.6% chance per fangraphs. More like 80% considering the personnel and momentum involved. 99%, according to Cindy, but she called that when fangraphs had it at 21%.
.............
Ichiro grounds into a DP; it's mostly luck whether his grounders are hits or DP's.
Oddly, Dr. D remembers a 20-year-old quote from Jack Clark. "Fans don't understand baseball. You hit into a DP and they boo. Then they look up, 'Oh! We're ahead! Yea!' "
Clark stating that sometimes he grounds into DP's to win games.... um, okay. But right here, Ichiro just did that. I'd like to ask him if he factored that in. Probably he did figure, okay, a grounder up the middle 5-3 is just fine.
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=== Inning 8 ===
David Pauley, the 0.7 in my 2.7 man bullpen, throws lousy. But Young hits the ball right at a fielder and Pauley gets a DP.
With a runner on 3B, Ron Washington pinch-hits a bunter, Elvis Andrus. Later, Smoak said that the M's knew Washington was going to bunt.
Consider for a moment --- > how aware Ron Washington is, that his batters are toothless outside Arlington. He bunted three (3) times. Get the Rangers with Hamilton on the DL, get them in a big park, and they look a lot different, amigo. Smoke and mirrors.
The M's are sort of the reverse. Vargas and Fister and Aardsma weren't really as good as that last year, but hey, always helps to match your club to your park...
Problem is, a team built too much to its park can go on long road losing streaks. I think the Rangers are doing just that. Gimme just twwoooo more L's, baby :- )
.
Pauley threw lousy. It kind of makes me nervous. The M's have had a whale of a lot of luck in the bullpen. They need to improve it.
.
Two runners on, Justin Smoak gets his third hit of the game, his cheapest.
Slider a little inside, a little low, but with plenty of the plate, Smoak hits a brisk 3-hopper at Napoli playing first and Napoli volleys the ball into no-man's land in right-center. M's win the pennant! M's win the pennant!
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=== Inning 9 ===
We covered League's save elsewhere. If he's going to throw first-pitch fastballs on the black, he doesn't need anything more than he's already got.
If he ever plans to have any 1-0, 2-1 or 2-0 counts, however, he might wish to evolve a bit. We'll see.
.
=== The 2011 Season Is Alive ===
M's are -2.0 out of first and, hey. After Kong peels the Rangers like bananas, game three will be to tie the Rangers in the division ...
.....
Kudos to the Red Sox. They had 99 colors of trouble with us, but found Jered Weaver and Dan Haren easy pickings. Always helps to swap down to easier customers, don' it Papi?
......
Nice that the season's alive, and that we're now looking at five months of baseball enjoyment. Here's to Jack Zduriencik's fighting spirit.
Quote of the day, gathered by Geoff Baker:
"There's a lot of energy in the dugout,'' Wedge said. "They're pulling for each other. They've competed from the first inning of the first game of the year. When you keep pushing, good things are going to happen." - Eric Wedge
You will not find that idea quantified on a saber site.
But is the essence, and it is the societal value, of sports. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no wisdom in the grave where thou goest.
Sports teach us to struggle, to do our duty when it is possible that we will receive no reward for doing so.
"Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about your species? It is that you are at your best when things are worst." -- Jeff Bridges, Starman
Whattaya say we not computer-hack the heroism out of sports.
The Mariners were 4-and-11, the writers were on them, the city was on them, their wives had tears in their eyes -- and then the Mariners set their jaws, narrowed their eyes, and they plugged in fresh magazines. All right, come get some.
The Seattle Mariners' 2011 April comeback was nothing less than heroic.
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Long live King and Kong,
Dr D
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...Smoak's hit in the 8th wasn't that cheap to my eyes. Looked like he squared it up, just got on top of it a tiny bit, and hit a screaming one hopper 3 steps to Napoli's right...I think that's a tough play for most first basemen...even tougher for most catchers who should NOT be playing first. :)
Here's the single in the 8th: http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=14441585&c_id=sea
No, not really cheap.
Double in the 3rd: http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=14436453&c_id=sea
That's as purdy as anybody playing ball right now. Hope he can swing like that for another 15 years.
Smoak OPS+ = 168; Teixeira OPS+ = 168.
And here comes Jack Cust with that uppercut swing again, just like the when he banged it off the Green Monster the other night: http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?c_id=sea&content_id=14441843
Cust last 5 games: OBP .429, OPS .804
Figgins last 7 games: BA .333, OPS .808
Olivo last 7 games: SLG .536, OPS .858
On the other hand: Langerhans since his last XBH on 4/12: SLG .179 -- get healthy, Guti!
And Brendan Ryan's last 10 games: .088/.139/.088 (yeah, .088 SLG) -- not getting good vibes about the Ryan experiment at all. More Luis Rodriguez, por favor!
At least we're down to 2 automatic outs, and those are hardly hopeless situations, with Guti back to playing and a bunch o'guys who can play middle infield.
Many people doubted his ability to go oppo when he was struggling last year and striking out like a champ. Then Smoak went to the minors, fixed his handload, relaxed, and started hitting everything with power the other way early in this season.
So he fixed his middle-of-the-plate-and-out coverage no problem. The next league adjustment is then to pound him on the hands, since it's a baseball aphorism that you can only cover one half of the plate at a time. If he's looking outside, then tie him up inside.
Except that inside to a lefty is into the Safeco RF power alley when he pulls the hit...which Smoak just showed twice in a row he's absolutely capable of doing. Watching him pull his hands in and put solid wood on those inside 95 mph heaters was beautiful. His rotation is something to behold.
What he does with his broad chest and hips is what I was hoping-against-hope that Clement would be able to do. When Jeff was drafted (and I'd stopped cursing) I said that the way this would work is if Clement - who has a chest like a water buffalo - can use those big shoulders and wide torso to turn on balls and crush em. He can't.
But Smoak is his own kind of wildebeest-strong and HAS, 300 ABs into his major league career. Jesus Montero is hitting a blizzard of singles down in AAA, btw, with a huge average, a .097 ISO, a .13 eye and some niggling injuries.
Zduriencik's calculation of, "forget possibly getting 5% more production in 2014, I need a MOTO hitter NOW" selection of Justin Smoak looks better all the time - especially since Smoak wasn't racking up those Safeco power hits against us for a division foe last night.
Anybody think Smoak wouldn't be putting the Rangers' offense on his Atlas-like shoulders the way he has ours the first month? With Smoak, whose power plays anywhere, the Rangers aren't on their losing streak and we aren't climbing out of this hole.
Stealing Teixeira/Berkman from a division rival is a genius move twice over. Smoak is showing that Zduriencik may have made the trade of the decade to drag us out of the AL West cellar.
18 kinds of gifted indeed.
~G
Very well explained concept. Some days ago you asked me a forecasting for this Rangers series too and I answered I'm not a wizard. But when a team finds his groove it's a lot of amusement, so let's delight ourselves until possible with these amazing M's !
For the record, I didn't doubt Smoak's ability to hit oppo, merely his desire to hit oppo. I've argued in the past that his swing and approach at the plate was FAR better suited to hit oppo.
There was a clear trend in his spray charts that of being an extreme pull hitter in the minors and majors. Smoak fixed the hand load and then fixed his approach at the plate in a very short time frame.
And I'd rather have Smoak than Montero at this point (good call by Z in the end). The X-factor here was Smoak's ability to make effective adjustments. Its the first time in a while I've seen this from a hitting prospect.
...when it's allowed to blossom. Smoak was always one of the most talented guys around. Switch-hitters for power come along just a handful of times a decade. If you're switch-hitting to enhance a strength (power) instead of cover a weakness (opposite handed pitching) like so many waterbug shortstops do, it's impressive.
Most switch-hitters are stoploss players. They switch-hit because it lessens their uselessness and might be the difference between making it or washing out, plus hitting from the left side puts naturally-RH speedsters closer to first base. "Hey, that guy OPSes .720 against everybody, right or left handed, so leave him in the lineup..."
But switch-hitters who are plus from both sides of the plate are instant and long-time stars. Beltran, Berkman, Teixeira, Chipper Jones...and Smoak's looking to shove his name onto that list.
I dunno who helped him with the hand-load, or the use of all fields. Maybe he did it all himself. But as Sandy has pointed out, coaching up the local talent isn't something we've ever been good at, so it's nice to see a hitter making the necessary adjustments to stay an impact ML ballplayer. Smoak isn't just talented, he's also skilled and able to learn.
So we get a park-defeating lefty who can also take ABs from the right side to always have a platoon advantage. It's pretty sweet, if it works, and it sure looks like it's working... :D
~G
Smoak Smak'ed that grounder pretty crisply. Ya.
Zduriencik played the NYY and Tex GM's like fiddles. And that was huge.
At this point I'm in the mood even to accept the greed :- ) that went for the slightly-lesser hitter who was closer to the majors. The 2011 season counts too!
Thoroughly enjoyable report dere G...
At the time, Montero looked like the most Frank Thomas-y 'spect since 1990...
With Smoak on a 170-OPS+ tear, doing everything he's doing at the plate (EYE, off-field hitting, power, swagger, etc) I'm not sure that Smoak doesn't even come up to that level...
........
Because I'm here to tell you that Justin Smoak can pick it, too. Have seen him make 3-1 assists from the 2B's position on the right side.
Last night Smoak went 1B-to-3B on a play and both Cindy and I thought it was Michael Saunders making the run. I'm not kidding. He was really picking 'em up and laying 'em down.
We were flabbergasted. It looked like approximately Griffey 1998 footspeed. Maybe we were hallucinating.
If Smoak is genuinely a top-10 OPS+ guy and a pretty glove at 1B, I really will take that over Jesus Montero.
Few natural LH'ers have such a sweet swing. He's got one of the nicer RIGHT hand swings you'll see, even compared to natural RH'ers.
Smoak and Pineda have transmogrified the ballclub, Calvin :- ) ... the Lynn-Rice Sox didn't take long a 'tall to get rollin'...
Which is what makes his LEFT-handed batting so impressive. He looks like a natural lefty. He started switch-hitting at 12, and really got in a groove, I'm thinkin. :)
That's the reason I was never worried about his RH approach. It's his natural side, he just doesn't get to use it as much. As the reps go up, the comfort increases and his natural tendencies come through.
Smoak is a truly gifted switch-hitter, and looks like he's gonna do many special and beautiful things for us.
Including increasing the number in our wins column.
~G
I saw Smoak's upside as low-to-mid 800s OPS-ish (3+ WAR type), but with the adjustments I can absolutely visualize him hitting the upper end of that.
.270/.370/.480 with averagish defense would be my guess on his upside right now. Thats a 3.5 WAR type in Safeco.
Z basically created a 3.5 WAR 300K player from stratch.
You mean he's a natural RH in the sense that Ichiro is a natural LHB?
By which you mean he like used his RH swing first in little league, or ? Never thought of any player who threw LH as being a 'natural' right hand hitter. Lefties seem to be more predominantly strong-handed than righties. Never think of them as doing *anything* naturally with their right hands. :- )
I guess you could use Rickey. His RH swing was totally fluid.
And RH-throwing 1B are like LH-throwing 3B - uncommon. You need the glove in the other hand to more easily handle the hot grounders away from the bag that are the more common play. The hand you wear the glove on at either corner is not indicative of natural handedness, at least in my experience.
Smoak said he was a RH batter solely through age 12, then his dad taught him how to switch-hit lefty, but he's never stopped batting right-handed against LHP, unlike Ichiro who gave up his RH swing.
Smoak's a natural righty, Doc - he's just incredibly talented to make his LH swing that pure. :)
~G