M's 3-4, A's 4-0
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ALL APOLOGIES, Dept.
Didn't have much of a chance to get to the shtick on Saturday night or Sunday. But here's a comment stub amigos. Hope that Aces Triple-Wired over the last three days will provoke a few chip-comments into the ASB pot? :- ) Dr. D is not usually given to hyperbole, but he expects Moore to rip off the next 100-200 quality starts in a row, at a minimum.
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1 Friday) was Zeus. And a fourth pitch that looks like a factor. Either Paxton is going to have to go back to struggling with his release point or they're going to have to change some rules or something.
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2 Saturday) Din't think the kid had it in him. "It" being star potential. ? The ability to snow-shovel heaps of quality pitches into the strike zone, and let the park-OF's work the odds in his favor? For sure. But you tack on the possibility of missing bats and Andrew Moore becomes quite the resource.
Did Jerry Dipoto really hold back a Best Bet in a Super-Two view towards games seven years down the road? Who knows whether James Paxton or Chris Sale will even be in baseball seven years down the road, much less whether a Rainier will be.
But wow. Maybe the M's saw that Saturday night start comin' as long ago as Spring Training.
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3 Sunday) only saw a couple innings of Felix, but Scott Servais saw all nine* and saith that it was "hands down, the best effort and stuff he has had all year." In the first few innings the dry spitter looked back to 97%, as Brooks confirms with 8 whiffs on that pitch alone.
A Felix dry spitter is such a weapon that an SP could build a #2-3 starter game around that and nothing else -- but Felix had plenty else. That being a feature curve ball and a dollop of life/command back on the fastball.
Felix seemed newly hopeful and lively, and Servais said as much in the postgame. He'd obviously been grinding and there's some sense that HE sees room to get back into attack mode. Hopeful sign Sunday.
Edit to add, we see that Lookout Landing has a clever postgame on the King. Read!
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So there's the possibility of Andrew Moore going from "very reliable mid rotation starter at $500K" to "150-game winner" for the M's, at the same time Felix looks upgraded and Zeus shows a zig-zaggy trendline up.
Guess Miranda will have to step lively to keep his four spot...
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MISCELLANY
√ Bob Dutton's Twitter feed has a .gif of Thyago Veiera's 101 MPH outing in the Futures game. Veiera seems to be jelling fast, with reputedly better command and also an emerging slider.
As a separate issue, they sez he threw 99 MPH in the game ... 15 out of 18 pitches. One of my first roto loves was Armando Benitez ...
√ The ASB league RBI leader plays for the Mariners? Had it seemed to you that Cruz had even been having a real good year?
√ Billy Zoom, whose dugout angle Dr. D enjoys thoroughly, predicts nada on an A's SP trade but sees a possible swap for a Haniger-class prospect coming in, such prospect to start for the M's 2018. Scanning the roster, we guess this would be a first baseman. Any other kinda player make our travelin' squad?
Personally I'd still like to see something Smyly-esque for the rotation. MLB Trade Rumors thinks we have an edge this month:
The Mariners are one of only a few teams open to adding payroll in deadline trades, which one official describes as not “as good as having prospects, but it is an asset.” The M’s began 2017 with a record payroll of more than $155.2MM, so with such a major financial investment already made, it makes sense that GM Jerry Dipoto and company are willing to spend a bit more to get the team over the hump. Dipoto recently stated that the team is still planning to add at the deadline, though Seattle ends the first half with a 43-47 record (albeit four games out of a wild card spot)
√ The Astros are only thirty games over. I like their chances to play worse the second half. At the same point in the season they'd have been a full 5 games back on the 116-win Mariners.
√ At the break, the Mariners have 10 different position players that are between 93 and 139 for OPS+. The lowest of which is Kyle Seager. When a $20M third baseman is your tenth hitter, you've lengthened the lineup.
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Rock and roll,
jemanji