Cano's Suspension
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Dr. DL headed out to the ballpark Tuesday night. (The DL part is more a Cruz-type day to day than a Cano-type see ya next year type). Picture if you will his Mariner emotional investment banking around the Matterhorn curves at runaway velocity. No joke, my hopes in the M's fortunes took at least 6-8 turns in an hour tonight :- )
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SAG 1 The M's had lost the ballgame late when he left. Are they ever going to string a few victories together, maybe get a couple of games ahead in his WC thingie? Probly not (just talking about the way I'm feeeeeling)
JAG 2 His wife texted him to turn on the radio. Uhhhhh? Tied in the 9th? (we're all quite familiar with the leap our hearts take in this kinda dealio)
JAG 3 - Made it home. Sat down. In plenty of time. Guillermo Heredia (more about him later! mmmmm much more) rocks a long, satisfying walk-off single to put the M's in the Wild Card lead
SAAAGGGGG 4 Sits down to type up a conversation thread. Whoop HEADLINE Robinson Cano sent to the baseball pokey for 3 months ... scan article "Empty locker leaves hole as deep in M's psyche as in its lineup"
JAG 5 Heads over to Slack - users surprisingly upbeat. No. AMAZINGLY upbeat. Hopeful speculation about Dee Gordon to 2B
SAG 6 Dr. D with very little confidence that the M's will do the logical thing here, as apparently so with G-Money at Slack
JAAAAAGGGG!! 7 M's headline: Gordon To 2B
JAG 8 Guillermo Heredia now to CF. So, um, does this rollercoaster glide to a stop with a BETTER M's ballclub than it had in the 8th inning?!
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Oh, and that beat writer shtick about "Empty locker leaves hole as deep in M's psyche as in its lineup." Dr. D calls baloney; a jetlagged ballclub seemed to find very little trouble finding "traffic" and "walkoff" energy to pull off a 9-8 win that took four hours to accomplish. But the beat writers have relationships to maintain with the stars of the team, you know...
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Of all those sags and jags, you can easily review the above and pick out the choicest. The M's are not only willing to move Gordon back, but to announce it for us. James once admired Earl Weaver's commitment to being SMART and DECISIVE.
You like Heredia's chances to hit? You like Dee Gordon's defense at 2B? How then can you not be intoxicated with the M's chances to string a better lineup than the one they had?
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Guillermo Heredia's OOZ% was 17.1% coming into the game, his SwStrk% 69.0%. His BB:K was a glorious 10:7. And yes, you can judge him by Plate Discipline alone. This isn't a guy who arm-swingin'ly drags the bat through the zone; Heredia EXPLODES so hard with that swing that he normally has to regain his footing after a miss. We're piling on at this point, but his 0.5 WAR -- before the game -- came in fewer than 60 plate appearances (fewer than 10% of a season).
"Coming into the game" you say? IN the game he was 2-for-5 with a double, a run, a sacrifice, and something about a gapper that walked the no-Robby squad off.
So, yeah, I'm jazzed. Dee Gordon's UZR last season: +9.8 runs, which is fully 1 win in the standings through glovework alone. Which is +9.8 more* than Robby gave with the mitt, no disrespect to him. His WAR probably square off with Robinson Cano's to cancel the fractions, but many of us are partial to slick, waterbug second basemen. With Heredia's jumps in center and Ryon Healy playing the stuffing out of 1B the M's lineup looks sleek, dangerous, cobra-like.
Dr. D is spirally madly out of control, Regis Philbin-style. Mitch Haniger gets to hit #3 now, right? Isn't he the guy who hits like Junior did?
So Al Kaline goes to 3 and the end of the lineup will be Gamel 8 and Heredia 9. I'm feeling no pain, babe.
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I loved the old lineup. Is it wrong to like this new one more?
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SLACK CHAT
Again, if you're having any trouble joining the in-game convo, drop a line in the comments and G-Money will set you up. My own fave lines from tonight:
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Andrew (Mal) [12:36 PM]
... I posit this: Robinson Cano was the player we could most afford to lose. Shifting Dee will likely improve infield and outfield defense, and 4th outfielders are one of the teams rare points of depth.
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Mojician [12:46 PM]
Yep. JeDi is looking like Yoda and Mace Windu put together right about now. Maybe he foresaw all of this when he signed Gordon.
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Andrew (Mal) [1:07 PM]
If Cano has been appealing it then I don't see how he could have not known when he made the trade
But you don't embarrass your team captain buy announcing that to the world
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Well, yeah, but let me wet-blanket it by reminding that you DO need to put Cano back at 2B in mid-August. No team truly wants an upheaval like this one, the possible catastrophe in CF, the second-guessing, the looking like Amateur Hour, etc. But, yeah; it might have been that JeDi liked the idea of having 2B covered for part of a season and factored that in. Luck or foresight, give the M's credit.
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DaddyO [5:29 PM]
Sanity and wisdom join forces to prevail in Marinersland.
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I want my $27M back,
Dr D