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In October of 1961, the Soviets set off a hydrogen bomb that, for all intents and purposes, set the limits of power for such a weapon (due to fallout affecting the initiator). When the Russkies lit up the 55-megaton "Tsar Bomba", the fireball alone blazed 5 miles in diameter and the mushroom cloud blossomed 200,000 feet into the air, about eight times the height of Mt. Everest. The cloud was 25 miles in diameter.
Picture a single bomb going off in Seattle, and blowing to smithereens all concrete and brick structures in ... Tacoma. Mammals being terminated by the heat in Olympia. Wooden houses in Portland being wiped out. Windows being broken in northern California.
The TNT equivalent would be represented by a cube about 1000' by 1000' by 1000', twice the height of the Space Needle. That's one H-bomb; obviously 30 or 40 of these would put any country in the past tense. The U.S. has 9,600 warheads. By the grace of heaven, you and I sat there all last week not worried in the least.
In related news, the Seattle Mariners lit up the 34-megaton starting pitcher "Felix Bomba" on the Twinks Saturday night. A few post-blast damage reports:
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Felix' spitball, er, his changeup, had a runs value of -4.55 coming into the game. Meaning that 100 changeups resulted in a -4.55 reduction in enemy runs scored. In this particular game, he threw 38 changeups (!!) and those changeups resulted in a -2.25 reduction in runs scored, over those 38 pitches.
Give me one pitch anywhere in baseball, and I'll take Felix' dry spitball. Bobby Murcer said he'd rather hit a 500-MPH fastball than Gaylord Perry's hard spitter. At least that way he'd have a chance.
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Though the Twinkies have a terrible record, their offense isn't all that bad. They're 22nd in the majors in wRC+, right next to the Angels. They've got Denard Span, Joe Mauer, and Josh Willingham's OPS+ is 185. They've got six players who draw good walks, have lots of lefty hitters, rank decently in AVG, OBP, 2Bs and SB's. They ain't the Red Sox but Felix didn't blow away the 2010 Mariners out there.
It helps CC Sabathia's stats, a lot, that he never faces the Yankees. It has hurt Felix' stats, a lot, that he never faces the Mariners. Don't dis' him for finally getting a single game against a team in the bottom 50% of the league.
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He didn't throw the cutter tonight, not to speak of. Huh. He had absolutely no use for it. The curve was unreal, dropping 19" relative to a fastball (!!) and getting 19% swinging strikes. The slider drew 25% swinging strikes.
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His fastball seems to have stabilized at 91.5 MPH, which coming from him is 92-93 MPH due to release point. Jered Weaver's pinpoint fastball plus three feet.
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Coming into the year, Felix ranked as the world's #8 starting pitcher. I thought that was about right. Verlander, Halladay, Cliff Lee, Kershaw, and a few others were more consistently dominant.
As of right now, though, I'll take Felix over anybody. Verlander included. This is the version of Felix that needs rules written against him. I wanna go to a playoff game in which the New York Yankees swagger in ... only to find Felix Hernandez standing on the mound, head back, shoulders loose, taking the sign for the first pitch.
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