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M's 8, Red Sox 2

In case the Red Sox thought Monday was an accident.  Take this with you.  And enjoy WBC-san tonight, too.

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Erasmo Ramirez

That's four games in a row.  His motto has been "I Will. Not. Center. my short fastball."

The result has been nibbling, picking, and 44 strikes vs 49 balls.  It's like having your fingernails pulled out with pliers, to watch him aim a pitch at the inside black and desperately hope to nick it, for a called strike.

Those 4 games, in which Erasmo has pitched "with a sense of danger," he has walked 16 men and struck out 15.  If you just joined us, it is not possible to pitch this way in the American League.  Starters like that, more balls than strikes, nibbling like every hitter is Mickey Mantle ... you can't find any, because there aren't any.

We're not trying to crucify him.  We're just describing reality.  It's puzzling, because he used to have hair-fine command.  Usually you associate this loss of command with a shoulder problem.

.......

There could be an upside here.  Can't imagine what it might be, though.

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9-to-make-5:  Clubhouse Chemistry

Let's explain a couple of facets of this SSI convention.  :- )  Yes, we used the "clubhouse chemistry" phrase to incite the Seattle blog-o-sphere.  Dr. D is incorrigible, ain't he?

In 7-card stud poker, you own 7 cards, and you pick any 5 of them to represent you at the "showdown."  Totally your own choice.  The "babies" (the 3's, 4's, 5's) don't complain when you leave them on the bench.  

Neither do Endy Chavez and Willie Bloomquist and Jack Buck.  They smile, work hard, and coach the guys playing in front of them.  This makes it very tough for the 4th benchie to circle the clubhouse moaning about how unfair and stupid McClendon is.  It is opaque to the anti-Bloomquist fans, invisible to them, that you need personalities to make San Antonio Spurs type rotations work.

This factor means less than nothing to Big Blog.  This factor is, however, indispensible to 30 out of 30 real GM's.  Bill James, hybrid saber-and-real-life-asst-GM, just had a piece on it:  everybody's 25th man is there for his personality, and must be.

Jack Zduriencik was very, very skillful when he swapped out Jack Buck for that Kelly Shoppach character, who threw a snit fit when he had to give way to Zunino.  The Jack Buck move was brilliant, was hard to perceive at the time, and was an unsung season-maker.

Personally I think Endy Chavez -- a THIRD team captain out of your 4 bench players -- is overdoing it a bit, but maybe not.  Anybody else okay with the current winning streak?

SSI's traffic is double what it would be, if we were 30-and-48.  Curious that the Red Sox drew such small crowds, but the Seattle fanbase is appropriately skeptical.  The 'net fans perceive the improvement first.

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9-to-make-5:  Game Theory

People realize that 6-to-make-5 is preferable to 5 cards.  They do NOT realize how MUCH preferable!

In home poker for matchsticks - the only kind Dr. D plays, but he's pretty tough against the gamb'lrs who arrive to take him on -- you might go with "granny games" in which you get extra cards at the end of 7-stud.  Maybe you "twist" (trade in a card) for an 8th card, at the price of five matchsticks.

If you have 9 cards to make 5, however, what kind of hand do you think you'll need to win the pot against six opponents?  :- )  Seriously, 4-of-a-kind is the minimum.  9 cards to make 5 creates a hilariously prosperous situation.

In 5-card stud, you might win a pot with King High -- not even a single pair.  But if it is 7-stud, you ante with the idea of needing three Queens to bet into the last round.  The number of cards = compound interest, baby.  A draw at the deck -- say, Logan Morrison right now -- is worth a lot!

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9-to-make-5:  Theory and (current) Application

The 5 lineup spots are the bat spots:  LF, CF, RF, 1B, DH.  Billy Beane* (*Earl) (*Stengel) (*whoever) created the idea of using literally 9 players to fill these 5 spots.  You remember Jack Cust and Chris Snelling playing CF for him, right?  You only have 4 bench players.  Using the max 9, using 9-to-make-5 dynamically and with a sense of summerlong coherency, is going to require some unorthodox lineups.  Remember that, the next time Willie plays DH or 1B.

On any given night, Lloyd McClendon does indeed play any of 9 men in his 5 bat slots, but it goes way beyond that.  Last night it was

• Ackley, LF
• Jones, CF
• Chavez, RF
• Buck, DH
• Morrison, 1B

On the bench he had:

• Bloomquist -- you've seen him play 1B and DH, and deliver sharp line drives to RF, vs. certain SP's
• Montero, DH
• Gillespie
• Romero 

Yeah, on paper it is extremely annoying that Endy Chavez has precedence here.  But on the green grass of American League baseball fields, Lloyd McClendon has his team in the playoffs.

Remember that Tacoma is your 2nd bench, being only 24 hours away.  In the abstract, any of these players could (the DL notwithstanding) be in uniform for tonight's game:

• Michael Saunders (their best 9-to-make-5 player, we suppose)
• Justin Smoak
• Corey Hart* (their richest 9-to-make-5 player, by far)
• Nick Franklin

So we won't include Abraham Almonte here, but in context -- this coming winter -- he will have been an A's-style draw at the deck.  (How do you like the future perfect, Zum-bro'?)

The M's are, without exaggeration, working a 13-to-make-5.

What kind of hand would you need, in match-stick poker, to win a 6-player game of 13 to make 5?  Double decks, of course.  You got it.  Straight flush, or 5 of a kind, are the minimum to stay in the pot.  Try it sometime.

The maddening thing is, that Zduriencik's young players haven't produced this kind of effect earlier.  Maybe it was the April-May Seattle conditions?

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Dustin Ackley had the 12-pitch at bat that imploded John Lackey, and McClendon correctly pointed out that the PSI of that at-bat (a fielder's choice groundout, was all) set up Ackley's teammates to rip Lackey later in the inning.   When you get the intersection of these two things, the Nightly Pencil (no disrespect) and the constant insistence that players --- > Have An Idea Out There, you get "the process."

Which brings up...

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9-to-make-5:  Lloyd McClendon's Style at the Table

We don't link much, but this video is riveting.  Fascinating remarks about Seager's undiscovered potential, which which Dr. D agrees, and about the offense generally.

SSI is not a shill for McClendon, but the man did grab the M's by the collar and yank them back away from the elevator shaft when they were 7-13 and he had no political capital to work with.  (Check the Eddie Guardado year when the M's went 7-13 and then like 61-101.)

Now, he's got everybody fighting for playing time, accepting it, and actually enjoying it.  For that reason alone, the anti-Hargrove pro-Beane reason, he's okay by Dr. D.  The 2014 M's actually remind you, a little, of the Spurs.

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McClendon might not be Gregg Popovich.  I dunno.  But he is classy, he is dignified, even with his job on the line he absolutely refuses to Entitle players in Hargrove fashion... like McClendon himself said on the linked video, he has been around the game a long time.  That is the impression you increasingly get from him, a Lou type impression.  He does see things we fans fail to see, and he's flexible about exploiting those insights.

Win streak or no, this ballclub is unquestionably --- > in fighting trim.  I don't know what you expect from a manager.  ?

Hey ho let's go,

jemanji