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Mike Leake had a 2-hit shutout to had the ball to Alex Colome in the 9th.  Line score:  8 2 0 0 1 6.  This guy is a #4 starter?  It pushes the M's record in Leake starts to 17-8 and Leake's ERA back down to 3.90, that being #20 in the American League.

This leaves the M's starters at #17, #19, #20, and #21 in the entire league, with the Twin Closers, so it's not going to take that many runs.  As it is, the M's sit 70-52 which is no record to sneeze at.

For the second time this year Dr. D writes the game without having seen it, which is Jamesian in the sense that he's spent his life deciphering what happened on baseball fields from the available records ... :- )

Leake is usually successful when he throws dropballs into grounders, and when his command allows him to avoid the BB's and HR's ... today he did the latter and the GB/FB ratio was 7/5, leaving him #4 in the American League in groundball ratio at 50%.  

The strike-ball ratio was 63:32.  You're not going to have a lot of success making any sense of this MLB box score but the ESPN box allows you to figure out which pitcher threw when.

Amazingly, his pitch splits were 74 fastballs/cutters against 11 sliders, 9 changes and 2 curves, almost a Colon-like performance.  Obviously his command was razor-sharp.

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Since the M's were shut out the entire game also, Leake handed off to Alex Colome, who threw 1.1 virtually perfect innings into the 10th; his scoreless innings streak runs back 20 games (!) to June 27.  Take that in for a moment.  This guy is our #2 closer and you can't get a run off him.  Alex Colome is one more reason to stick with the M's for a while longer; the surfboard of our hopes ride merely on the 8-foot wave that the A's won't play .760 ball over the last 40 games.  And, we'll allow Mo' Dawg, that the M's offense starts to score a few runs.

Colome handed the ball to Zack Duke, to Nick Vincent for 1.1 nice innings in the 11th, and to James Pazos.  Whereupon Dee Gordon finally broke the tie by homering (?!) with Zuumball on first.  Postscript:  Mitch Haniger doubled "on a sharp line drive to CF"; despite going 1-for-6 he's sitting at .279/.365/.479 and in Safeco that translates to a Dewey Evans-like 136 OPS+.

In the 12th, Sugar fanned 3 more batters (!) for his 47th.  From a Stars & Scrubs standpoint this team has so many fun stars to root for and Diaz, along with Zeus, is the brightest.

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Bottom line:  our #4 starter bails our fannies out and -2.5 is such a nice place to chase from, compared to -4.5.  Now get some runs going, feebs.  You've got the bats to do it.

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BABVA,

Dr D