It's two strikes and he's going ... offspeed?
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=== Fizzlers: Chone Figgins ===
Wedge remarked on Baggins: "tomorrow he has good numbers against that guy so we'll get him in there but it's getting time" .... ULP!! Cue nervous sidling away from Baggins in the clubhouse.
Tell you exactly where that comes from. Sgt. Wedge has reached his limit on Chone's strikeouts. He told Chone (as it were), this ends now, or else. Go out there and put the ball in play. And then Figgins, nervously, doing everything he can to impress, goes out tonight .... and fans 3 times. Sgt. Wedge concludes, "Okay, he's not capable." Thass' it.
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"Baggins" is a baseball nickname, not a scoff. Bilbo Baggins' job was to frustrate the bad guys, get underfoot, and disrupt enemy pitching, er, breath weapons. There came a task for which Frodo was better suited, however ....
=== Sizzlers: Jesus Montero's Defense ===
About which more later. Montero has a month to prove us 'net rats right. We hung on his every pitch call the first two days.
Quickly: we're not saying that he's Mike Scioscia, but he looks ahead of schedule from here. On Tuesday, Hector Noesi came out not able to hit the broad side of a barn. Montero had him in a rocking chair by the 3rd inning, and Noesi built momentum all the way through the sixth. This despite Noesi being lumbered with his B game.
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Blake Beavan is a complex subject, one for another post, and you could certainly argue that Olivo wouldn't have let one (shortstop's!) home run chase him off the strike zone. But Montero's body language, framing, connection with his pitcher, are all better than expected.
Montero made an amazing stop of a Blake Beavan wild pitch: Beavan yanked a fastball wayyyyy to Montero's right, in the dirt, and Montero lunged over and caught it on the short hop. Johnny Bench used to casually one-hop wild pitches like that. I don't say you should. The way Montero did it -- casually -- showed some talent.
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ROOT Sports had a pregame special, with Dave Valle chalk talks and all the trimmings, as to how well Jesus Montero hits when he can play the field as a catcher. They know, they know. ... sudden thought: the catcher is the only guy on the field who has seen dozens of live-action pitches by the time he takes his 2nd AB. For the catcher, is his 3rd AB kind of like his 20th of the night?
As a catcher, Montero is slugging .893 this year. In all games period, 2011-12, his batting line is at .307/.346/.507. Stats aside, Jay-Z got you a .500 slugging catcher. How 'bout the fillings out of Cashman's teeth next time.
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=== Fizzlers: Brendan Ryan ===
Ryan's OPS+ is 54, which has everybody aghast. SSI spent the winter reminding people that his OPS+ in 2010 was 57. It was never clear to us why he and Kawasaki weren't platooning in the first place. Whatever the MLB(TM) entitlement code was against that, I don't like it.
SSI panned Seager's defense at 3B last year, but this year he looks cat-quick, and with a lefty flyball pitcher on the mound ::coughvargaspaxtoncough:: he's in the SS jobshare for me.
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=== Sizzlers: M's Power ===
The Mariners now have 25 homers in 26 games. How many of them do you remember that were cheap?
In 2010 and 2011 they had 101 and 109, respectively. Jay-Z's lefty power has already taken the Mariners' homer total from "laughable" to "solidly middle of the pack." And I remember a lot more near-misses than cheap homers.
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NEXT
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