Cubs 3 .....
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Two more games till they count! We are undefeated, untied, unscored upon.... and we got Ichiro! And if all that were not baseball-beauty enough, we've got Mike Scioscia calling this dismal Shohei Ohtani game "a great outing." Those guys down there in LA are taking on some water 'neath decks. Check their ERA's after you sort by K's.
Anyway, here's how the Cubs game looked, short and to the crux of the matter:
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FELIX HERNANDEZ. The question was, how much "bounceback life" did he have after a couple of light seasons' innings. The answer was, in this game a certain amount, not as much as Dr. D would have liked.
He hit 90-92 on the gun, threw that plus-plus 12-6 curve he's always had, threw a few sloopy sliders, hit the mitt on the black maybe once in three times. This was good enough to hold the Cubs to 1 run in 3 2/3 innings, and the 1 runs was a spring homer -- an Arizona fly ball that scraped the fence on its way out. In the regular season the OF takes two steps back and stifles a yawn.
Still, it was kinda sloppy command-wise ... but then again, I guess Felix hasn't thrown much yet. So: "bounceback life" still UNKNOWN.
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Dr. D has always been Old Felix' biggest fan, based on the large-muscle engagement, the beyoooooootiful slide of the CG down the centerline, and the depth of his wisdom. SSI will bet Felix, whether or not he's going to show any type of Justin Verlander bounceback.
He also insists that the Opening Day shtick is unseemly narcissism, a type of delusion / hallucination that he is a better pitcher than James Paxton, but .... if the narcissism drives Hernandez to 16 wins along the way, so be it.
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DAN ALTAVILLA. They say he's a new man. They say he throws 99. They say he throws his slider for strikes at will. If all this were true, of course, the question wouldn't be "Is he on the 25-man" but "Will he make the Hall of Fame."
Felix came out after 3 2/3 and Altavilla came in, started with a thunderbolt fastball that drew a terrible swingthrough. Threw a slider that missed by a mile .... garbage swing! Threw another vicious fastball .... third straight swing and miss.
So we still haven't seen the "slider for strikes at will" but we most certainly have seen the body language of a kid ready to slay his ten thousands.
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ARIEL MIRANDA fired 3.0 innings, which is like four hours in an exh game, with a line of 3.0 1 0 0 1 4. He did this in a "good Ariel" fashion to which you are quite accustomed. His performance increased Dr. D's anger at the pointless "churn" that has the eternally mediocre Wade LeBlanc parachuting, at the very last possible moment, into the M's 25-man roster. GRRRrrrrrrrr What a way to treat the Mirandas and Whalens and Morins and Bradfords and Povses of camp. Wade LeBlanc?!?!
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RYAN COOK flashed all the hot stuff that he had when he was an All-Star for the A's (94 fastball, big yakker, fadeway change). Problem was, he had little idea where any of it was going. 1 inning, 2 walks, 3 hits, and a trip to Tacoma, one presumes. He's just one of the boxes that has to be moved out of the garage for Wade LeBlanc.
Enjoy,
Dr D