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Dave Neihaus said something, about 1979 or so, back when Dr. D wore a younger man's clothes.  It stuck with him ever since.  The M's somehow won the first three games of a series, way into the dog days of summer, and then botched Game 4.  "You figured the M's were in for it today," Dave said.  "You just don't see too many four-game sweeps in baseball.  Too many things can happen."

It's blinkin' rare to go 4-0 in May, even if you've got the best team in baseball against the worst.  It is even rarer for two teams to match each other perfectly, base-for-base, and then to align those four games such that one team wins all of them....

THREE TRUE OUTCOMES, May 17-20, 2013

The hits were square, 35-40, and the total bases were even more so, 66-71.  Add walks in there ... like we sez, when you got 79 bases for one side and 86 for the other, the odds against a four-game sweep in baseball have got to be 100-1.

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Sgt Wedge Dept. 

In games this tight, the little things decide.  That's why we've got zealous fans chipping their teeth about decisions Eric Wedge made:  because those decisions decide games like this.  You could very easily imagine a different set of managerial decisions, and a 3-1 series win for the M's.  That's the reality.

By the way, gentlemen, Gordon is co-author of the blog now, fortunately for Dr. D :- ) and we do appreciate your giving him some reasonable measure of deference when it comes to blog tone-and-flavor.  That's his responsibility.  Part of the reason you're here is blog tone-and-flavor ... which is on us.

I also wouldn't want the blog to turn into a monotonous, boring, trite, Monday-morning quarterbacking of Wedge's calls.  Of course neither do none of you, especially Super-Poster PHXTerry.  That said, anybody who wants to call attention to this or that specific decision, if it's an interesting 'put, knock yourself out.

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Bet You Can't Do That Again, Dept. 

If the little things matter, how about the blown strike call in the 2nd inning on Monday?

In case you didn't see it on TV ... Iwakuma had 2 on, 2 out, and an 0-2 count on Ryan Rayburn.  Kuma froze Rayburn with an 87 slider , thigh high, middle-away.  Nowhere near any edge of the zone.  Kuma walked back to the dugout.  That's pitch 3 on the lead image up there.  

The image doesn't convey the fact that Iwakuma hit Shoppach's mitt.  Shoppach was holding his mitt well into the strike zone for the umpire to stare at, and Iwakuma threw the ball into it, and the umpire said, Um, No.  It was quite intentional on the umpire's part.

The ump called Kuma back to face the Indians' rally again. The Indians went on to score four runs.  Kuma locked them down easily in innings 4-6.  The ump calls that strike, the entire postgame is different.

My postgame ranting about the strike zone, now THAT is becoming monotonous, boring, and trite.  It is also a factor that has cost the M's at least 5 games that I remember.

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Why do folks assume that strike zones are about the catcher's physical movements?  They don't assume that CERA is due to catcher intervention.  How do we know it's not bias against the pitcher, or the team?

"If you were wrong, how would you know, Doc."  How I would know, is that the Mariners would bring in a Kelly Shoppach type, and he'd get calls, while Montero wouldn't.  Actually, though, what happens is that every catcher who becomes a Mariner becomes bad at pitch framing.

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In fairness, the M's didn't quantitatively get that many pitches taken from them Monday.  Iwakuma lost 5 pitches and gained 2; Kazmir lost 4 pitches and gained one.  You can't measure the bias that way, although you can quantify that 0-2 pitch; it was worth four runs.

You can quantify the bias this way.  Chances that the umpire misses that same pitch on CC Sabathia, 0-2 pitch, rally situation, Sabathia hits the catcher's mitt in the middle of the plate ... Chance = exactly zero.  0.00%.

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Quintessential Glass Half-Full SSI Finish

1.  The Indians are red-hot smokin' on a roll, and the Mariners played them to a dead draw, and except for the bounce of the ball the series woulda gone 2-2.  This despite the fact that the Indians were at home, and are objectively speaking a bad matchup for the Mariners.

Mariners keep playing exactly this tough, they're going to play .600 ball for a good stretch, after things even out and they hit some easy teams.

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2.  The way that the lefty Indians took it to Felix and Iwakuma the last two days.  Maurer's game look pretty good to you now?  This series, he actually did outpitch Felix and Iwakuma -- and this in the hotly-debated RHP vs LHB context.

Only one more game and we're back to Brandon Maurer :- )

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