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BAKER'S DOZEN
Not that you millenials hit a lot of bakeries any more. Used to be -- what, the sixties? -- that the store would give you your dozen donuts, and then maybe add a 13th. To show you that its heart was in the right place.
The M's did that for us on Saturday, rack up their 12 and then give us an extry, proving to all our satisfaction that they like to win at baseball. The 13th run was Jarrod Dyson scoring from 2nd, showing us that yea verily is their heart in the right place (crushing hapless enemies with no fleeting thought toward mercy).
The M's have a video up. Check OUT! Dyson's velocity the last 60 feet of the run. He eats up ground like he power jumped with two feet and flew that last 15 yards.
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LEFTY TO LEFT AT SAFECO
My grown son is a fairly casual baseball fan. He and I were at the game Friday, and it was Robby Cano I think who hit a deep fly at the M's bullpen, caught at the front of the warning track IIRC. John complained, what, is he getting old. That was a 2-0 fastball down the pipe and he just hits the warning track. (Or that's the vague gist of the sentiment.)
Dr. D shook his head and laughed. We didn't want to go into ballpark adjustments and HR/F and stuff, so we just kidded. "Hey, you let me KNOW the next time you see a left hand hitter, hit it into that bullpen right there." Since John goes to three games a year, we figured he'd forget about our loose jibe by the time he saw one. When he's fifty, maybe.
Then tonight heeeeeeeere's Ben. Not every left hander is capable of that drive.
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MIKE ZUNINO
Got a 92-MPH fastball, bisecting the bottom of the strike zone perfectly. Zuumball chopped down at the ball, unhurried, and almost hit the upper deck in left-center. (0:15 mark on this video.) They replayed it and the color guy's obligation is to describe what must have been wrong with any pitch that gets hit hard. "In the middle of the plate," he sez. Though it was bottom of the shins.
I got your "synergy" right here, amigos. A quality starting pitcher finally gets through the zillionaires and gets down to the 9 hitter. He starts the guy with a fastball knee-high, to "throw strikes," but he faces an upper-deck shot.
Zuumball has 29 RBI in the month. Seems that we heard the M's record for RBI in a month is 33, by Griffey and Blowers. Anybody betting Mike Zunino doesn't get his 5 RBI? So here's a batter who will change the scoreboard more than any M in 40 years. That doesn't happen to Leonys Martin, know what we're saying?
And Zunino isn't a batter. He's a quasi-pitcher, a guy whose job is the team ERA.
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UND TAKE ZIS MIT YOU, Dept.
1. Hey, did you know that it is now --- > RF = Haniger, LF = Gamel, CF= Dyson LH Heredia RH. So Friday, the M's had 8 regulars with OPS+ of 100 or better. The 9th was Dyson, who has an 89 OPS+ and another twenty points from his legs.
We can safely call the lineup long now, I think.
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2. I didn't know the Astros were #1 in OPS+ and also #1 in ERA, did you?
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3. How would you sort the M's two through four starters, after K-Pax? They've got Miranda, Moore, and Felix behind Paxton and in front of Gaviglio. Of course etiquette would have them Felix-Miranda-Moore. But if you had a playoff series tomorrow against the Red Sox, who goes in game two?
BABVA,
Dr D
