.... Mariners 5. (and Saunders' travails)
Ichiro's relief at finally being caught by the howling mob, toward the end of the M's 513-run season? Nah, he's just getting kaizen service at the Nippon TowerMall Nike shop
.............
=== Pitch of the Game ===
Bottom of the 5th, and the A's have just come back to tie it 3-3. John sez to me, sure would be nice to answer immediately. That's what the Rangers would do...
Ryan flies out. Figgins walks on four pitches. Dustin Ackley gets on base, courtesy that 60-foot backhand "flip" by a feebleminded Jemile Weeks. Two on, one out, your #3 hitter up.
Ichiro takes a fastball for an 0-1 count and here comes the pitch of Sunday's baseball game. Ready? Ready? ... wait for it ...
Graham Godfrey fires a "ladder" fastball, down the middle, just a little too high. The most tempting pitch in baseball. .... Ichiro jumps at it, takes a 1/4 swing, and then ......... juuuuuuust holds up. Check swing.
The umpire takes a long look and then ... ball one.
The count will not be 0-2, baseball's equivalent of rotting flesh disease. Or a torn ACL on the at-bat. Or pick your metaphor. The count will be 1-1. Godfrey has to try a changeup, going 2-1, and on pitch four, Ichiro vaporizes an inside fastball down into the RF corner. That's the ballgame.
...
This March, we debated whether Ichiro's #3 spot in the batting order would produce a tightened strike zone and a zippier swing. Here is the tale of the tape: Ichiro's Outside Zone Swing % remains ultra-low, 18%, and his SwStr% simply doesn't exist.
His line drives are by far the highest of his career, 25%, and he's hitting very few grounders. That may be a bad thing in isolation, but there is no doubt that Ichiro is approaching the game differently. That's a fact.
When Ichiro ripped the double, John and I thought, supposing that Ichiro were an Anaheim Angel hitting #3 with two men on. Wouldn't it feel like there was nothing you could do to stop him? ... when he's making you throw good strikes, that's not far off.
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=== Oh Well Whatever Nevermind ===
I guess that I really don't get what Michael Saunders is trying to do. He took a swing and miss today in which his hip turn looked like Tiger Woods'.
In the middle of March, when he was hitting everything off the left-center fence, I thought that his idea was to keep the lower body quiet, take an Ichiro swing, and use his "long lever" arms to drive the ball. Here's the video of a March 16 double and here's a picture:
Run the video and watch:
- How gently he puts his lead foot back down, with "ki" going up the middle / the other way.
- How LOW his center of gravity stays.
- How the ray of energy off his belt buckle and thighs point at the shortstop and NEVER turn past that until he starts his run down the line.
- How his followthrough never goes past the 1B line.
- How that, in aiki terms, his "intentionality" is into the center of the field.
........
Now here's a video of Saunders' last successful at-bat, April 11 -- we're not talking about a strikeout here. We're talking about a best-case for him, mid-April. Here's a screen shot of his position at the same point in the swing, one month later:
to instincts. Takes a lot to groove in a golf change, right Moe?
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=== Said All That to Say This ===
The Jaso decision, in isolation, is understandable. The Kawasaki decision, in isolation, is understandable. The moratorium on pinch-hitting is, in a vacuum, understandable (well, no, probably not).
But with Saunders' situation also, you've got a linkage here. You can't play with three automatic outs, not even for a week.
Gimme a heads-up 7-Stud match with my homie Captain Tom Franklin, and I'll play him for any amount of money.* .... if he gets three blank cards per hand. This is the American League 2012. You cannot play with three automatic outs. You got lefties running your bench like roaches, man.