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INPUT/OUTPUT: On a day when ONE run would have won the game (big advantage in extra innings), the Mariners couldn't even get that.
Ruining a chance to swell the Seattle possibilities even more pregnantly.
CRUNCH: The night before, the Soggy Bottom Boys waded through a 3+ hour rain delay. This red-shifted their sorry little biological clocks badly.
That would have been plenty 'nuff of a problem, but it was the final stop on a road trip! and then you had an early game day the next day!?
Those would have been plenty 'nuff problemos too, but all of a sudden here is Derek Holland throwing tic tacs to various and sundry little nodules of the strike zone. Anybody else feel like Ender going through training drills? What's next, handcuffed and blindfolded while waking up in the jaws of an Asian white tiger?
....
As we might have mentioned a time or two, all* left hand pitchers with hot fastballs are tough. Provided only that there isn't some weird flaw going on.
Compared to other high-octane lefties, Derek Holland is more polished than average. Sunday, he got 7 whuffs on his power slider alone, AND he has a bloopy change curve into the bargain. The kid is death on a stick, even if your good hitters AREN'T left hand.
The script was set for the lockdown. Holland could have done a cold reading, in the back of a limo, and still crushed the movie. Come to think of it, he read the script cold, in terms of his yearly arc.
There is a reason, gentlemen, teams go 14-2 in the NFL but teams don't go 140-20 in baseball. Slop happens. At least in Seattle, slop is followed by a Robinson Cano "what me worry" megawatt smile, de-scenting the slop with a cleansing blue overwash.
I/O: Kendrys.
CRUNCH: For all his irrepressible focus-on-the bright-side intentions ... Dr. D did, however, find bats in his befry courtesy of one overpaid, underworked, over-entitled Scott Boras client.
It was after the key Morales strikeout in the 7th. Robinson Cano scrounged an infield hit, so the tying run was on with a big, beautiful 3 outs left in the inning. Morales was gifted a 3-1 count by Holland, he was batting right hand, so you had a perfect setup. 285-yard drive down the heart, now here's the 6-iron into a green that was yawning wide open.
and then .... two lazy curve balls made him look like a high school hitter. PFFFFT went the morale, PFFFFFFT went the Morales, and PFFFFFFFFT went the last (projected) chance to score one run...
This guy was supposed to be contributing by now. Dr. D's rage is building. ... that, or he's being frustrated by one player shuffling out of step and making the battalion look bad.
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I/O: Throwing to the leadoff hitter, K-Pax immediately spotted (in order) a fastball, then a cutter, and then a curveball. Here comes the light show! Right?
CRUNCH: Didn't work out that way ... the curve was in the zone, but at the moment it lacks bite. It's a get-me-over deal. Sucre wisely abandoned it.
James Paxton has not, in this 2H reincarnation, shown a dangerous 2-strike pitch. He is still groping for an offspeed that will rattle hitters, one that will leave their egos terrified of looking bad on a garbage swing.
He had grade B, B+ stuff. So just another lockddown, as opposed to a holocaust.
...
That said, K-Pax on the night:
So he started the day with an ERA of 1.77, and lowered it. In Texas!
...
The unusual thing about K-Pax, lately, is --- > how good he is, when behind in the count. He's the anti-Beavan. One of you amigos might want to cherrypick some stats on that.
Really he just needs to add the element of "dangerous when AHEAD in the count," and of course that is just a matter of time. Not much. Time, as in.
...
He is spending his ugly 5.50 Gio Gonzalez year --- > setting records. Here's looking forward to Gio Year Three. Unlike Dustin Ackley, here's one youngster who isn't making it a point to deny the ballclub his Club Controlled seasons.
Earliest Free Agent: 2020. He'll be 123 W's, 16 losses at that point. His ERA may bloat into the low 2's, though. A lot can happen in six years.
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I/O: Blowers was asked by visiting baseball people ... "If Felix can't go in a Wild Card game, is Paxton ready al-ready?"
CRUNCH: Blow sez, "I'm fine with it because HE's fine with it."
Great line :- )
Along with everything else, James Paxton has the makeup. And leads the league in grizzled stubble.
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I/O: Glorious opportunity botched. :: grrrrr ::
But you don't win 90% of your games in baseball, and most particularly, you just don't sweep 4-gamers. At least the M's are still ahead of Detroit.
CRUNCH: Dr. D enjoyed this week, just about as much as he would enjoy a playoff series. And that's sayin' a lot. The whole charge from behind to overtake the lead horse, sometimes that's the best moment. Not the finish line.
Anybody living in the Puget Sound, with Monday night off, can nab the best seats in the house for $10 per seat ?! courtesy Boeing. And we are talking a King's Court game here. You a baseball fan or what?
Happy Felix Day,
Dr D
Sometimes they lineup for your bats.
Sometimes they lineup for the other team's pitcher.
It was "one" of those games. You get those, even in hot streaks. But the bigger thing was (again) James Paxton. He's just really really really good: Even with his "B" stuff.
Playoffs, here we come!
That poor team deserves something to cheer about. Nobody except Oakland deserves the horrible things that have happened to the Rangers this year. Kinsler for Fielder and hold the health. Jurickson Profar, the hope of Texas up in smoke. Shin-Soo Choo goes missing. And Washington quits without two weeks notice. So they got their Holland back and he still has it. GOOD. The carnage was making me queasy.