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Posted at detectovision.com.
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... Rays 3
=== Fister ===
Ballplayers will tell you that when a pitcher has plus-plus command, it's as though he has two or three different weapons off his fastball.
He has a jam pitch on their hands, and they have to cover that ... he has a teaser four inches off the plate, and they have to cover that ... they change the eye level up and down, and that's a different idea.
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Doogie, with his computer-guided swerveball and its 11-inch corkscrew on impact, has four distinct weapons -- just off the fastball. You can see the first three in the first-inning Evan Longoria strikeout:
1. Catfish Hunter tease pitch on the outside black. Do I swing or don't I?
Is this backdoor frisbee going to catch the edge this time, or stay four inches outside? (Different fastballs break different amounts.) If it does, will the ump call it? 'cause it's going to hit the catcher's mitt and the ump might rob me. (Longoria watched it bite back over the plate for 0-1.)
2. Jam pitch A: starts inside half and UP, swerves a foot inside, way off the plate for a sucker pitch. Longoria swung over it like a Randy Johnson slider.
3. Jam pitch B: starts down the middle UP, swerves to the inside black on the hands (where the handle of the bat is). Longoria fought it off for a foul ball.
4. Ladder pitch up: finally the hitter gets a centered pitch he can handle -- but it's half a foot too high to reach it. Longoria went for it, tried to check his swing at the last second and failed. Strikeout.
5. The other fastball weapon that Fister uses is a pound-the-knees approach that he also throws when behind in the count. This and the Catfish pitch are the two pitches he loves when down 3-1.
Check it out against Carl Crawford 1st inning. Fister threw six pitches: three Catfish tease pitches, two jam pitches, and an up-the-ladder pitch.
Or against Zobrist in the 1st, he threw two pound-the-knees swerveballs around one jam pitch.
No wonder Johnson and Moore only need one finger. That is a lot of weapons before you get to the offspeed stuff. Pedro used to do that stuff at 96 mph, except with different arm angles.
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=== Teixeira ===
2 innings, 0 hits, 3 strikeouts. Not shabby against the D-Rays, or even against the Orioles, we've heard.
Legitimately mixed 4 pitches -- threw each of 4 pitches at least 3 times each, seldom "doubling up" on any pitch location or speed -- quite odd for a man in a short-relief situation. Deceptive delivery, unusual movement, does not telegraph the pitch. He's getting by on novelty, which is fine, but he looks more like a starter than a reliever to me.
Somebody said that the M's have lost what, 11 road games -- 9 as walkoffs?! that can't be right. But it has been horrific, and now Lowe's out. Kao-Kan Attack was the MVP of this here ballgame.
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Cindy says that Texeira resembles me more than any other Mariner ever has. :- ) I've got a good amount of Samoan / Hawaiian ancestry, in case you were wondering, and wear my beard and mustache exactly as Kao-Kan does. I'm quite a bit more into the Mariners than he is, though.
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=== Aardsma ===
Reminded us of how he went 38-for-42 last year. He threw 94-95, but again, the funky short-arm equates to 96-97 ... and the fact that he throws up in the zone makes it more like 98.
Considering he's "effectively wild," you can see how he's not saving games by accident.