Pleased to see Millwood get a solid start.
I stand by my original take in Kevin ... especially the part Ms fans will have to get used to ... that he will "take an inning off" in every game he pitches. Last night, it was the first. But, this is the limiting factor on Millwood. For whatever reason, he has great difficulty in holding his form together for a full 9 innings -- (or 7 innings given the current starter reality).
The fact this happened in the 1st this time creates the impression that he just needed to settle down and cruise. I can say from past experience, the "inning off" is pretty much completely random. If he cruises through 3, and then goes 1B, HR, 2B, BB to start the 4th, the kneejerk analysis is going to be "the enemy has figured him out." The analysis would be wrong.
Millwood is not Weaver ... he's not pitching to the last batter. Pretty much his entire career, you pick a random spot in the game and for 20 pitches nothing works quite right. Then, for no particular reason, he pulls it back together, finishes the inning and tacks on 3 or 4 more solid innings afterword.
It's nice to know he's still got the stuff to make his game work. I just want to warn about the frustration of Millwood's ... (what's a good analogy here ...) ... Mound Narcolepsy.
But my #1 question is this: Will Montero become Millwood's personal catcher?
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Q. How did Millwood do it?
A. With guts and guile, knowledge of the hitters. With a rawhide-leather elbow ligament that can still cut the fastball gloveside after 37 years (counting from the first time he chucked a rubber ducky back out of his crib). And with a daring game plan to take the Rangers up in the strike zone, tempting them to go after pitches juuuuuuust a little too high to get on top of.
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Q. He took the Rangers UP in the zone? In Texas? A better strategy would be to flush his wallet down the toilet.
A. Especially Beltre, but really all (or most) of them. Dig the location chart:
That old man's still got a lot of hair on that fastball. And you remember the scenes in Wild Bill, the Jeff Bridges one, where he wades into saloons and starts blazin' away against nine guys? You just saw the AL West metaphor for it.
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Q. He can still cut the fastball, y'say.
A. In sales they talk about "points of difference." At Wendy's, the hamburgers are juicy. Sell it.
When you are talking about aging 4.25 ERA innings eaters, you're not usually talking about men who can still twist their thumbs up, rrrriiiipppp the elbow ligaments, and move the ball in on lefthanders. Kevin Millwood can. ::shakes head:: Give it up.
As usual, you'll be wantin' proof. Not that y'don't believe me, I unnerstand. Jes' to keep us out of a scrape and all.
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85 of 103 pitches were fastballs, just like Beavan the night before. And Millwood got 10 swing thru's, had 7 strikeouts in 6 innings. Against the Rangers. That's because he took them up in the zone. Chew on dat, you fangraphs groundball fanboys.
The Mariners stuffed some scouting right back down the Rangers' throats, took advantage of their overaggressiveness. Herrrrrre's that tater pitch... whoops. Little high there babe, ya didn't quite catch up. Next time, keep after it!
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SSI was scared for a while there. It looked like a 2-year deal for Jeff Suppan or somebody. Rather, Jay-Z went and got the ACTUAL clubhouse leader and the one who isn't going to meld into the side of the hull like Bootstrap Bill in Pirates of the Caribbean.
A #4 starter and a #5 starter, and two lockdown games in Texas?! You call that a placeholder? You see where Jay-Z is going with this.
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Q. Dr's Prognosis?
A. He's still 88-92 and he's still cutting the ball. Who knew.
Comments
Bamboozled the lefties he's supposed to get out.......then was nails against the righties.
He may do.
moe
Against the righties, he was definitely being hit much harder (deep fly out to center and a rocket-ball to first mixed in with a K), but he looked serviceable against the righties and appears to be death on a stick to lefties. That'll play nicely, thank you. To his credit, Montero CALLED a brilliant game...he realized Millwood was wild high early in the game and decided to exploit that. He called aggressively for the offspeed game when he had pitchers in there who could execute (League, Luetge, Delabar - though Delabar's results were poor on fastballs, his offspeed pitches got garbage swings...he's Bobby Ayala Mark II...he can't center a fastball or it's going out of the park, he needs to pitch backwards more).
I think Luetge looks like a solid rule V steal for us...he'll be in the pen year round if he keeps throwing this well to lefties.
when the season started I thought Millwood made the team to become Montero's personal pitcher and to be the player/old man cowboy that Wedge wants in the clubhouse.
Between Millwood and Beaven, it gives Montero a chance to catch 80+% fastballs twice every five days. Not a whole lot of worrying about rhythm (Vargas), crazy movement (Felix), or game calling (Noesi) for Millwood and Beaven. The next couple months could give Montero the confidence and experience to be at least a part-time MLB catcher when the AA arms are called up.
"He's just fishing at the edges hoping they bite and they're waiting for a hanger!" Then, about the 3rd, my brother says"Wow, is that his 5th strike out?" It was his 4th, but of course he got his 5th...and 6th...and 7th, but it was then I remembered what Sandy said about the bad inning.
I was a part time Phillies fan before I became a full-time Mariners fan. Check out the stat line of Ben Rivera. See those 4.50-5.00 ERAs back in the early 90s? They showed a stat during the post-season in 1993 when Rivera got a start against the Blue Jays...Rivera had the one-bad-inning syndrome BAD...that year he'd had like 19 innings with greater than 2 runs allowed and almost NONE with 2 or 1 runs allowed. They were saying when they showed that stat that Rivera was a great pitcher five out of six innings every time he pitched. :)
On both Luetge and Delabar. Delabar's breaking pitches are nasty, but with his robocop shoulder I dunno how many he can throw. His fastball is fast...but apparently eminently hittable. But he throws his breaker for strikes, not for effect, so I'd cut his fastball percentage down a bit until we're further into the season at the very least. Let guys try to hit the breaking ball for a while.
I still like him - he's got the right attitude and good stuff. But if they're seeing the heat really well right now then don't serve it up on a platter for em.
Luetge can take over Sherrill's spot RIGHT NOW. Call up Furbush for pen duty and make a day of it.
~G
And that's sayin' a lot. Will keep an eye on dis one.
Put this post in syndication on RetroTV. Every word a pearl.
Was going to finish with similar, when we did a Montero Defense POTD, but now that's finished... hey wait. We'll just copy-and-paste for the conclusion.
You go Jed.