M's 8, Cubs 7 - Quick Takes
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It's been a cold winter, hadn't it? :- )
Detect-O-Vision gets to take its hacks off the big, bright 60" high-def TV this morning. As you know, we live to serve.
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Abraham Almonte
McTeacher's Pet. Literally the only* guy in camp not playing well, too. He's 4-for-30 including 26 three-hop bouncers on the infield. As Dr. Lasker said, the theater of war despises petted favorites, and breeds heroes...
That 4-for-30 ain't off of Yu Darvish, seeing as Yu Darvish doesn't pitch in the Cactus League. Almonte is swinging badly against VERY fringe pitching. 's OK. He's still McTeacher's Pet. Abraham Almonte will have to do a whale of a lot to blow his starting gig.
Of course SSI hasn't blown off AA because of two bad weeks. We're just saying. ... but you do realize certainly isn't a foregone conclusion that this guy is a 3-WAR player. Or that he can play in the bigs at all. Or if he can, that it won't take him Bill James' 90 games to adjust to the pitching pool.
The M's land a bat, he's OBVIOUSLY the guy who hits the bench. Unless McTeacher wants to slide (even) further down Dr. D's mud list.
We're talking about freezing out *Michael Saunders* here, you know. Granted, the cream will rise to the top. Dr. D is wringing his hands about the scenario in which Almonte ---> elbows in front of 1,656-AB Michael Saunders and --- > receives 200 AB's merely to prove he's Trayvon Robinson. We've spent the developmental time on guys now.
If McLendon doesn't get married to Almonte, we're good here. But will he?
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*AA is the only guy playing badly except for Hart and LoMo -- the two players who fulfilled all of Zduriencik's promises to Robinson Cano.
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Kyle Seager
Swiped second tonight by two knuckles of his left index finger. In case you missed the memo, McClendon wants his kids to run.
In case you missed the other memo, Dr. D believes that if you're not a certified 30-SB man, you should go headfirst into second base. Seager does so. Which figures. They made a "Kyle Seager is Old School" commercial and included nothing actually interesting about the matter ... such as Seager being safe instead of out because he's willing to dive in.
McClendon has told them to run? That's good. Know why?
He's got the kids playing loose. He does. McClendon and Robinson Cano have 'em in a real good state of mind, no doubts there.
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Robinson Cano
Is batting .632 in eight games. Small "sample size"? Don't forget to include his time at the WBC for the Dominican. We're talking Robinson Cano Outside of Derek Jeter's Vampire-Captain Hypno-Fog.
Two ridonkculous doubles:
- He waited on a slow curve and casually lashed it down the 1B line
- He got a first-pitch 92 MPH fastball outside and alertly lashed it down the 3B line
Like Cito Gaston said about Edgar Martinez: make a mistake to that guy and there is no telling where the ball is going to wind up.
Have to confess I'd never watched him, y'know? I knew he was great. I didn't know he was sublime. He almost brought tears to my eyes.
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Justin Smoak
The TV guys said that Cano has singled out --- > Justin Smoak for under-the-wing-age. And that the "fence drills," the ones that teach a batter to hit the inside half of the ball, are --- > ongoing.
In the first inning, James McDonald (touching 95 MPH) worked Smoak to 3-2, and then fired a 92 MPH jam pitch wayyyy in onto Smoak's hands. Smoak pulled the hands wayyyy in, barrelled it, and WHOCKKK! hit a home run* down the 1B line.
The crowd oooh'ed and aaah'ed as the ball left the bat. (*As it happened, this park held the fly ball down the line; Safeco probably wouldn't have held it.) The point is, Smoak got a hellacious jam pitch and crushed it as if he were Robinson Cano.
On-field evidence that the fence drill is --- > taking? There it was, live and in 60" HD.
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If you missed the previous articles:
- Hitting the INSIDE half of the baseball is the SOLID approach
- Hitting the OUTSIDE half of the baseball is the AMBITIOUS approach
- Smoak did not know how to hit the inside half of the ball ("the fence drill felt really awkward at first")
Smoak's running a 1:1 EYE ratio, is cat-quick at the plate, and I'm blinkin' likin' it.
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Logan Morrison
Hey, I didn't know this guy was a topspin hitter, did you?
But! That's all I liked about him. Tonight, anyway. I certainly didn't see a 30-homer swing. I didn't see a .300 AVG under any circumstances. I didn't see sixty walks. So what is another lefthander doing here?
He's got a lower body that fights itself. He's got a static arm swing that doesn't accelerate with any authority. He just topswings at the ball without torque - John Jaso plus some size, but minus the fluidity and relaxation. This guy isn't camouflaged by injury; he's fouled up. Sure, he's a big league player and he can OPS+ a lukewarm 110 from his extreme-bat position. Lefty. So what?
Question for you: do teams ever flip guys like Logan Morrison a month after they import them? Would that be against code? Three AB's and I want the guy gone.
No, we're serious. Would it be against code to get Logan Morrison out of here? If the M's could find something they could actually use? I think it would be. Against code. Could be wrong.
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