Lookout Landing - All Posts

MLB Scores: Mariners Lose a Wild Heartbreaker to the Indians, 10-8

2013-05-20T20:44:55Z

9:05 am games are weird to watch in Seattle. Eating breakfast while watching baseball feels wrong, and yet delightful at the same time. One thing that is never delightful these days is playing baseball in Cleveland, as the Mariners manage once again provide false hope, only to Mariners up the victory. How sad is it that I don't even have to explain or justify the use of "Mariners" as a verb? Or adjective? Or expletive?

Seattle hasn't won a game in Cleveland since 2011, and have lost in spectacular fashion during that time, as five of the last seven losses in Cleveland have been walk-offs. After today, it's now six of the past eight. Is that real? That can't possibly be real, can it? That is so Mariners.

This game had plenty of highs and lows, and was one of the craziest games we'll see all year, but the ending was as predictable as it gets.

The Mariners got off to a nice start early on, snagging a quick 2-0 lead thanks in part to a Kendrys Morales double that he thought he hit out of the park, which he didn't actually hit out of the park, or even close. The ball bounced off the lower part of the left field wall, and the end result was a hilarious big dude who doesn't know how or when to slide situation, as he tap danced his way to 2nd base.

A Morse shot up the middle scored Morales, and the M's were out to a quick lead against Scott Kazmir, and everything was going as planned. Iwakuma settled into a nice groove, and other than a double up the line to Carlos Santana, he had things working for him. He struck out Ryan Raburn to end the 2nd inning, but then he got Laz'd. Iwakuma was denied an obvious strike three, and Raburn promptly bombed a 3 run homer two pitches later.

The wheels came off a bit, and Yan Gomes bombed another mistake pitch from Iwakuma to make it 4-2 - fortunately, Scott Kazmir is still Scott Kazmir, and the M's scrambled a few back on 3 straight hits to tie it back up 4-4.

Iwakuma came back out shaky again, and conceded another run to make it 5-4. At this point, it became fairly evident that the Mariners weren't in for their typical 2-0 zipper on a getaway day, and this one could be a messy one. The M's started smacking around Kazmir again in the 4th, and chased him. The M's tied things up, and things cooled down for a bit.

Iwakuma managed to recover and retire 7 straight to get through the 6th inning, but the Mariners were unable to get anything done against Matt Albers and Bryan Shaw.

Yoervis Medina gave the lead back to Cleveland in the 7th by struggling with his control, but managed to limit the damage to 1 run despite a couple loud outs to finish the inning. Seager responded in the top of the 8th by crushing a line drive homer to right, and we were tied once again. This is the exact moment I started to sense the Mariners were going to lose another walk-off game.

In the 9th inning, Wedge decided to pinch hit Endy Chavez for Kelly Shoppach against Chris Perez, and Chavez promptly smacked a meatball into the seats to put the M's up 7-6. Just as he wrote it up. Though I was prepared for for more "saving the closer" snark before the Chavez blast, Tom Wilhelmsen quickly started warming up after the M's got the lead. In the 9th, Wilhelmsen let a couple batters on, and there were runners on the corners with 2 outs and that familiar walk-off feeling came up again with Carlos Santana at the plate. Like bile rising in the throat. Inevitable. Not a matter of if, but when.

Instead, Smoak smothered a hot grounder to first and made the toss to Wilhelmsen covering first for the win...and Wilhelmsen drops the ball.

Game tied.

On to extras. It wasn't for long, as in the 10th, with 2 outs, Justin Smoak absolutely annihilated a ball into the RF bleachers to give the M's the lead back. Wilhelmsen threw 22 pitches in the 9th, so Wedge pulled him.

Furbush came in to replace Wilhemsen to try to close things up and promptly allows a bloop single. Furbush bobbles the ensuing bunt, recovers, tosses it to Smoak, who drops it after Drew Stubbs is initially called out (he was safe), and there are 2 on with nobody out. I think I've read this book before.

Yan Gomes goes yard for the second time. Game.

Get to the bus. Get out of this city.

Umpire Laz Diaz was all over the place today, expanding the strike zone early and then quickly shrinking it down to a ridiculously small size as the game went on, because he's Laz f'ing Diaz and don't you dare question him until you've earned the right to do so.
Robert Andino had his 2nd multi-hit game of the season. My favorite kind of hits are those liners up the line where a hitter didn't really get a clean stroke on the ball and is confused that they just got a double, and is subsequently a little slow out of the box. At this point Robert Andino is surprised any time he gets a hit of any sort, let alone more than one in the same day.
The Mariners had a chance to take the lead in the 4th, but Wedge went with the contact play with a runner on 3rd yet again and it predictably failed yet again. The worst.
The Mariners got a leadoff runner in the 7th, and we were all treated to an exhibition of Eric Wedge style small ball, as Saunders promptly tried to bunt Ryan to 2nd and popped his bunt up, then Ryan was thrown out by a good amount trying to steal 2nd and the leadoff runner was wasted. Let 'em play.
Kendrys Morales squared the ball up again and again today, crushing line drives all over the park from both sides of the plate. His 3rd hit was a double to right that he made sure to slide on after the 1st inning fiasco.
Tom Wilhemsen made Asdrubal Cabrera look as stupid as you can possibly look in the 9th with an 80mph 12-6'er that just left him flailing. Wilhelmsen hasn't been striking out as many batters this year, but his stuff is still baseball porn.
Justin Smoak continues to show some hints that he still has power, and his OPS is now up to .733 after today's bomb. I want to believe.

Dave Hansen and Plate Discipline

2013-05-20T16:00:07Z

I'm going to assume that you don't have any idea who Dave Hansen is.

I think that's a pretty safe assumption, because Dave Hansen is the Mariners' hitting coach, and no one ever cares about the hitting coach until the hitting coach gets fired. Do you remember anything Chris Chambliss did? No. You probably don't even know what Chris Chambliss' job is these days, and if this paragraph has inspired you to look up Chris Chambliss' current employment, you should probably rethink how you allocate your time on the internet.

The reason that no one cares about the hitting coach is simple: no one knows about the hitting coach. His exploits are not the stuff of legend. They usually aren't even the stuff of beat reporter tweets. His work is done behind closed doors, and most of it doesn't have a huge effect on a hitter's performance. Brendan Ryan isn't bad at hitting because of where he puts his right foot, he's bad at hitting because he's Brendan Ryan, and in that respect there's only so much a coach can do. What work the hitting coach can do is generally kept secret - the team obviously has a vested interest in not revealing their hitters' weaknesses to the world. So while I'm sure Dave Hansen does very interesting work, and the players are grateful for his presence, and he is considered an important part of the staff... I'd wager that the median Mariners fan neither knows nor cares about him.

Which is a shame, because it seems like he's doing some pretty nifty stuff.

As you know, last year's Mariners were rather strikeout-prone and walk-averse. They ranked 20th in MLB in walks and 8th in strikeouts, which is a rather undesirable combination, and then over the offseason they decided to fix their plate discipline woes by trading John Jaso for Michael Morse. People did not expect this team to be good at taking a strike.

But people's expectations are often confounded. Sometimes a cigar is a dick. Sometimes the Angels sign Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols only to witness Raul Ibanez post a higher ISO than the two of them combined. And sometimes the Mariners trade away their most disciplined hitter, only to leap from 20th to 10th in the BB% rankings.

How are they doing it? Well, check out the 2013 Mariners' O-Swing%s, juxtaposed with their career O-Swing%s in bar graph form:

The first thing that immediately leaps out at you is that almost everyone's O-Swing% is significantly down. Now, before you ask me if this is statistically significant, I'd like to point out that the timing of this post is not accidental. Michael Saunders and Jesus Montero both just cleared the 100 PA bar this weekend. Since (as per the research of the fabulous Pizza Cutter) the normal threshold for Swing% significance is 50 PA, and since Montero and Saunders see roughly 50% pitches in the zone and 50% pitches out of the zone, we can roughly estimate that O-Swing% tends to become meaningful right around 100 PA. Which is where all of the Mariners on the chart are now. Hooray for Logan not being really stupid, probably!

The second thing that somewhat less immediately occurs to you is that the five hitters who've seen the biggest proportional drop in O-Swing% - that's Saunders, Montero, Seager, Morales, and Smoak in order - have all seen a significant spike in BB% without a corresponding spike in K%.

Here, I'll prove it. A table:

BB%	Saunders	Montero	Seager	Morales	Smoak
Pre-2013	8.1%	5.8%	6.9%	6.6%	10.9%
2013	10.7%	6.7%	10.6%	9.4%	15.5%

Another table:

K%	Saunders	Montero	Seager	Morales	Smoak
Pre-2013	26.3%	18.6%	17.1%	18.2%	21.6%
2013	23.3%	18.1%	19.0%	15.8%	21.3%

Montero is walking at 115% the rate he used to. The other four are walking at more than 130% their old rates, while Seager is all the way above 150%. Of the five, only Seager has seen his strikeout rate increase, and it's not a large increase relative to what his walks have done. In fact, the group as a whole has seen their average K% drop.

The third thing that may possibly make itself evident to you if you stare at the graph for long enough is that the hitters who have NOT seen any improvement are the hitters who a hitting coach would be least likely to work with on plate discipline - specifically, the slumping (and generally beyond saving offensively) Brendan Ryan and the Wise Veterans Raul Ibanez and Jason Bay. This is what initially led me to believe that Hansen might be responsible for the improvement, rather than just a bunch of young hitters tweaking things.

But I didn't want to write an article advising the club to give more money to Dave Hansen without actually knowing whether or not it was Hansen making the difference. Problem is, since I don't have clubhouse access, I have no way of verifying whether or not Hansen's been working with the younger hitters on their plate discipline.

So I did what any reasonable blogger would do, and asked someone who actually knows something! From Ryan Divish's chat on May 10th:

Comment From Logan Davis
Is Dave Hansen working on the team's plate discipline at all? Saunders, Seager, and Montero have all been swinging at way less junk out of the strike zone so far this year.

Ryan Divish
Yes, and you should include Smoak, who is first or second on the team in walks.

If anyone would know, it would be the beat reporter who gets to spend time with the team, go on road trips with them, and interview them as he chooses. I take this as confirmation that Hansen has been working with several of the Mariners' hitters on improved plate discipline - and I take the numbers as confirmation that it's working.

In retrospect, perhaps this shouldn't have been a big surprise. In his heyday Hansen was a famously disciplined hitter. Around the turn of the century, in fact, he walked over 17.5% of the time in three consecutive seasons. What plate discipline data we do have for him is perhaps a little suspect, since it's BIS data from before PitchF/X was around, but it credits him with a stupid low 15.7% O-Swing%. It's not really all that shocking that he'd convince the Mariners to stop swinging at so much junk, especially considering that the guy he's replacing - Chambliss - walked only 7.6% of the time over his seventeen-year career.

In the final analysis, just as there are three factoids to be drawn from that chart, there are three lessons to be learned from The Tale of Dave Hansen and the Mariners' Plate Discipline.

1) The Mariners are probably going to walk more now. Hooray!

2) It's possible for factors that you don't account for to influence results in ways you don't expect. Suggesting before the season that the Mariners with Michael Morse were going to walk more than the Mariners with John Jaso would've gotten you laughed out of the comments, by a group of Jaso fans that would've included me. And yet here we are. Good analysis takes into account all possible variables, and it turns out (who would've guessed?) that hitting coaches can be an important variable. Don't ignore something just because you don't have a good way to project its influence.

3) The "Eric Wedge encourages the Mariners to hack" meme is officially dead. This is the last nail in its coffin. Not only was that idea spawned by a quote seized right out of context, it is directly contradicted by the Mariners' hiring of Dave Hansen. If Eric Wedge is such a swing enthusiast, why would he bring on a hitting coach who's telling all of the hitters to swing less? He wouldn't. Don't take out-of-context quotes and use them to deride others' viewpoints. That is the way of someone who is both deliberately obtuse and an asshole. An ignoranus, if you will.

In conclusion: Dave Hansen will probably not get a raise, because

However, he has probably earned one. When Hansen is eventually fired, as all hitting coaches must be, I hope that you will join me in shedding a single tear. Farewell, sweet Dave. You will be missed.

5/19: Chart of Antipathy

2013-05-19T20:10:36Z

Hero of the game: Kyle Seager (-0.01 WPA), for taking only 12 pitches in 4 plate appearances, helping to end the game faster

Goat of the game: ...

...

...Felix. (-0.32 WPA)

Instead of posing questions, by suggestion of sea-townie, I'll present a visual history of the 2013 Seattle Mariners, as reflected by the herb garden on my deck.

The Seattle Mariners, on April 24:

The Mariners are a collection of untreated wooden boards, unsupported by any foundation, sagging under the weight of the dirt and decomposed material that feeds a few sad, sagging herbs.

The Seattle Mariners, on May 16:

The Mariners have been stained and braced as well as possible, and there are actually a few plants growing (although, of course, not always the most desirable ones).

The Seattle Mariners, at 11:00 this morning:

5/19: Felix Day Game Thread

2013-05-19T15:44:49Z

One of the most interesting and frustrating things about baseball is that success doesn't perfectly correlate with victory. Yesterday a haunted, shivering Joe Saunders allowed nearly half (13 out of 29) of his opponents to reach base, but only gave up four runs and kept the Mariners, nominally, in the ballgame. Meanwhile, a Mariners bullpen that has, on average, been fairly strong throughout the season, has been slapped with two losses on consecutive days. One comes away with the sense that it isn't fair, or that it is by definition fair, or that there is no such thing as fairness, based on one's philosophical predilections.

The lineups:

1. Michael Saunders	CF	1. Michael Bourn	CF
2. Dustin Ackley	2B	2. Jason Kipnis	2B
3. Kyle Seager	3B	3. Michael Brantley	LF
4. Kendrys Morales	DH	4. Nick Swisher	1B
5. Michael Morse	RF	5. Jason Giambi	DH
6. Raul Ibanez	LF	6. Carlos Santana	C
7. Justin Smoak	1B	7. Mark Reynolds	3B
8. Jesus Montero	C	8. Mike Aviles	SS
9. Brendan Ryan	SS	9. Drew Stubbs	RF

FELIX	SP	Justin Masterson	SP

The Hot Hand buys himself at least one more start, which is understandable, while the guy with easily the best OBP on the roster hits in front of Montero and Ryan, which is less so. The lineup is actually the same as yesterday, minus an Endy Chavez and plus a Condor.

On the Indians side, the graybeard Jason Giambi returns to the lineup. This could be the very last time you ever see Giambi play, as is true any time he starts, so if you're inclined toward nostalgia, drink that up.

It is in fact a Felix Day, for which we should all rejoice. The Mariners in turn face Justin Masterson, who is quite good at pitching, and seems to be even better at it now than he was before. This could very well be a 2-1 game, or a 7-4 game, or a 5-1, because they are all possible scores for baseball.

20-23: We Continue to Wait

2013-05-18T22:40:12Z

A couple of days ago, a gentleman some of you might know by the name of Jeff Sullivan cautioned Mariners fans to be patient. He was referring specifically to the Brendan Ryan benching, which drew some ire from the fanbase (and myself) at the time, and which has over the past couple of weeks sorted itself out. Ryan is back as the starter, and is showing signs of improvement. All the fuss was over next to nothing.

There's a danger in patience, however, or at least a danger in avoiding fuss. Because if we take the philosophy to its logical extreme, one could easily argue that many of the things we care about as fans are similarly negligible over time, to the point where wins and losses themselves become meaningless. Because everything is based on perspective, and tinged with uncertainty, patience leeches out the passion in a fan. Why spend a Saturday afternoon listening to a Mariners game that ultimately won't matter? Why read a recap? Why write one? Why care about baseball at all?

I don't think Jeff is saying that fans shouldn't be passionate. He's right; it's all too easy to lose perspective. But I do believe that while being too narrow in one's view can cause one to overreact to something like a Brendan Ryan benching, being too broad can be equally harmful. With this team, in this era, it can be so easy for the emotional fire to flicker and die. Joe Saunders nearly doused my own spirit with five-plus innings of eleven-hit, one-run baseball, a sort of water torture. But I persevered, partially because of my silly obligation to write this, and those of us who did were rewarded with two innings of legitimately exciting baseball.

For a couple of innings, it didn't matter that we were hoping for a single victory in mid-May by an also-ran baseball team. We didn't really worry how each play affected the M's playoff odds. We got caught up. (The actual, abbreviated recap in this article: the Mariners came back from 4-0 to tie the game 4-4 with three home runs, only to cough it up in the bottom of the ninth.)

There are countless different ways to approach fandom, and no right or wrong way to care about baseball. But from a communal standpoint, one of the greatest feelings is getting caught up, and we want to experience that wave from its very earliest moment, its origination. We wait for a time and a place for the story to start, where we can start constructing our own narrative of our fandom. Narratives get a lot of bad press lately, and certainly, they're really terrible if you're using them to make predictions. But there's nothing wrong with using narratives to frame our own experiences and create our own history.

Today, for a little less than an hour, it felt like this might, just maybe, be the beginning of a wave. The two-run home run by Brendan Ryan, of all people, cascading down the LL comments before my phone had reached through the internet to learn of it, was one moment.

It didn't quite work out. It usually doesn't, which is why it's so special when it does. Instead, we'll just wait a little longer.

Seemingly needless bullet points:

If there is such a thing as style in baseball, Joe Saunders is the absence of style. Every inning was a series of wounds, seemingly self-inflicted.
Justin Smoak increased his season OBP to .374. That puts him in the top-20 in the American League.
I'm going to disagree with Logan here and say that if Mark Reynolds wore a Mariners uniform next year, I‘d be perfectly content. At the right price, of course, which it probably wouldn't be. I'm probably overrating him, but from my viewpoint, his improvement doesn't look like all luck.
Asdrubal Cabrera has about as much faith in Raul Ibanez's defense as we do. He was halfway to third when Ibanez caught a fairly easy (albeit wind-deadened) fly at the wall, and got doubled off easily running all the way back to first.
Wedge's refusal to employ his best reliever in a tie game in the ninth inning was as frustrating as it was unsurprising. We've come a long way since Dave's letter found its way into Felix's hands way back when, but it's 2013 and we're still saving the closer. It hurts.

More day baseball tomorrow, beginning at 10:00 AM. Adjust your sleep schedule accordingly.

5/18: Chart of Sadness

2013-05-18T20:32:17Z

SEA Pitcher	WPA	CLE Pitcher	WPA
J Saunders	-0.112	Z McAllister	0.315
D Farquhar	0.034	R Hill	0.036
O Perez	-0.302	C Perez	-0.295
Y Medina	-0.064
T Wilhelmsen	(N/A)

SEA Batter	WPA	CLE Pitcher	WPA
E Chavez	-0.001	M Bourn	0.074
J Bay	-0.023	J Kipnis	-0.011
M Saunders	0	A Cabrera	0.227
D Ackley	-0.07	N Swisher	-0.01
K Seager	-0.111	M Reynolds	0.256
K Morales	-0.072	M Brantley	0
M Morse	-0.075	C Santana	-0.082
R Ibanez	-0.039	M Aviles	0.047
J Smoak	0.418	Y Gomes	-0.039
J Montero	-0.172	D Stubbs	-0.018
B Ryan	0.089

Hero: Justin Smoak (+0.418 WPA)

Goat: Oliver Perez (-0.302 WPA)

Honorary Bonus Goat: Jesus Montero (-0.172 WPA)

Questions posited for the reader:

1. Is it better to be hurt than to never feel at all? After seven innings, this game was more of a surreal, hangover-fever dream than an actual sporting event. If the game had ended then, would you have been better or worse off?

2. As pretend general manager, would you potentially sacrifice wins for the big league club by demoting Jesus Montero for the sake of a Shoppach/Sucre combination?

3. Perform some internal calculus. Raul Ibanez, as you have no doubt noticed, has hit 6 home runs in 7 games. Is he, at this exact moment, lovable? If not, how many games of averaging .86 of a HR per game would it take to make him so?

5/18: Open Game Thread

2013-05-18T15:44:23Z

Yesterday we got to watch Lucas Luetge, the team's seventh or eighth-best reliever, cough up a game in the tenth inning while Tom Wilhelmsen watched from the bullpen. I had a lengthy screed prepared for this flagrant managerial ineptitude, until I remembered that he'd already pitched consecutive nights against the Yankees, throwing 23 pitches on the sixteenth.

Here are Wilhelmsen's career stats when pitching for a third consecutive day:

	Sv	K/9	FIP
Tom Wilhelmsen	0	0.0	0.00

Whether or not Wilhelmsen could perform such a task is certainly open to debate, and though we're unlikely to see a 1974 Mike Marshall ever again, it's been said (often by older relievers) that today's bullpen is treated with too light a touch. The balance of the estimated risk versus the reward of staving off Luetge-dom in a mid-May contest against the Indians is an exercise I leave the reader.

Today, hopefully, we will not have to talk about Lucas Luetge pitching in high-leverage situations. The lineups:

1. Chavez	CF	1. Bourn	CF
2. Ackley	2B	2. Kipnis	2B
3. Seager	3B	3. Cabrera	SS
4. Morales	DH	4. Swisher	DH
5. Morse	RF	5. Reynolds	3B
6. Ibanez	LF	6. Santana	1B
7. Smoak	1B	7. Aviles	LF
8. Montero	C	8. Gomes	C
9. Ryan	SS	9. Stubbs	RF

P. Saunders	SP	P. McAllister	SP

I only seem to post game threads involving Joe Saunders. It makes me feel like I'm his personal catcher, like I'm Jamie Burke. I guess there are worse things in the world than feeling like Jamie Burke.

Things you should know:

Michael Saunders gets the day off, after starting all 15 games since coming off the DL. That sounds pretty impressive, but then, those 15 games came over the course of 25 days. Still, Endy Chavez catches all the fly balls today.
Resting Saunders also frees Wedge to ride the Hot Hand of Raul Ibanez. Currently Ibanez has a triple-slash of .235/.278/.541. It's the lowest OBP of his career, minus the early backup-catching days of his youth, and the second-highest SLG. Among the starters, only Seager and Morse have a higher OPS+ (126). Enjoy it while it lasts, if that's the sort of thing you enjoy.
Zach McAllister has a shiny 2.68 ERA, but beneath it he's a pretty average righty. He mixes a two-seam and a four-seam 91mph fastball, both of which are decent, with a curve and an occasional change-up, both of which are slightly less than decent. McAllister's FIP so far is 4.03, making him about a two-win pitcher on average.
Mark Reynolds is quietly having a great season, batting .263/.353/.564. What's more, it may not be a fluke: his famous strikeout rate (career 32.3%) is down to 25.6% this year, as he's making contact far more often. His contract is for $6 million this year, and according to FanGraphs, he's already produced $5.4m worth of value. He's only 29. In an unimpressive free agent class of 2014, he might earn himself a ton of money.
This isn't true, but it feels like the entire Cleveland Indians roster is comprised of players the Mariners shouldn't have traded, players the Mariners should have drafted, and players the Mariners should have signed. And Trevor Bauer.

MLB Scores: Maurer Solid, But Indians Walk Off On Mariners

2013-05-18T10:40:58Z

You ever wake up in the morning and know exactly what’s going to happen to you the whole rest of the day? Let me tell you: it’s goddamn creepy. The first time it happened to me, I couldn’t get out of bed for half an hour. It was like having a bucket of raw information dumped into my brain – the flood of data, the sheer sensory overload just shut my system down. I couldn’t move. Or, maybe, I knew I wasn’t going to move until exactly 7:23 and 36 seconds, when the cat decided my face looked comfortable. One of those things.

Anyways, it’s a weird-ass feeling, like déjà vu on steroids. First thing I thought was, probably shouldn’t have stayed out with the girls past one AM the night before a quarterly review. Then I realized I’d known I was going to think that before I’d thunk it, and then I realized I’d known I was going to think that before I’d thunk it, and then all hell broke loose inside my head. Like being drunk, only not, y’know?

That first day, I was too shocked to actually use any of it. Here: imagine you woke up one day with wings. You wouldn’t jump out of bed and take off right away, right? First you’d freak out, and then you’d freak out some more, and then you’d try to pretend like they weren’t there, but it wouldn’t work. And then, maybe, you’d get kinda curious, do a few flaps, work your way up to it until finally you’re skipping around town like the world’s heaviest zebra bird. Or something.

So I went in to work like always, only a little bit late because of the whole head exploding thing. I saw it coming – the spilled coffee, I mean, not the psychic crap – but I couldn’t do anything about it. Too bad. I liked that blouse. Anyways, by the time the quarterly got done, I was freaking the fuck out. At first it just seemed like the same old, same old routine of work: broken printer, lost USB key, asshole in the cubicle next to me making fun of my Mariners mousepad… but by the time I got to the Q&A bit of the presentation, and I knew the As before they asked the Qs, I had a feeling something was up. Or, rather, I knew something was up.

So I asked my boss for rest of the day off. She said sure, congratulated me on the great presentation, looked impressed when I said I'd done it doped up on Nyquil. Told me to take care. I went home, called up my boyfriend, asked him if he'd believe me if I told him something weird. He said sure. I told him. He didn't believe me. But he came over after work anyways, because we'd already scheduled a date for that night (takeout dinner and the Mariners on TV, God help us). The food was crap, but the company made up for it. Plus, the M's flattened New York 12-2, and the look on his face when Seager hit the home run and he realized I'd called the final score perfectly... there's something you don't see every day.

The next morning when I woke up I didn't have it. It's weird like that - not every day, not always the whole day. My boyfriend laughed at me when I told him: "Miss One-Shot Psychic, wasting her shot on the Mariners". But then it was back the day after, and he shut up pretty quick after I told him exactly which puddle he'd slip in on the way to work. Being psychic has its advantages.

That third day was the day I figured out I could change stuff. If I saw a future I didn't like, usually one that involved the asshat one cubicle over talking to me, I could figure out the steps that had led up to it and then do things differently. Just like that, my work day became about sixty times more pleasant. Feeling pretty good about myself, that night I called up my friend Miranda, told her to come over to my house - I had a cool new trick to show her. She consented.

When I flipped on MLB.TV, she sighed. "This better be good," she said... I practically rubbed my hands together with glee. Then I pulled out a pen and an index card, and wrote down some key facts about the game: number of Maurer strikeouts, final score, number of Ibanez hits, the works. She scoffed. "Seriously? You're going to show me how good you are at sports betting? Jen, you know I don't like baseball, just like I know you don't like soccer. Don't try to convert me."

No no, I assured her. This was going to be good.

I guess it wasn't that good, because after three innings and a beer Miranda was getting bored. "Tell you what," she said. "If you're so good at betting, let's make a bet so I don't fall asleep watching this stupid game. I'll do an index card too. If my predictions are more specific than yours, and they're all right, I win ten bucks. If not, you win five. Deal?" Easy money. I took the bet - though I confess I felt a little bit guilty.

So the bottom of the tenth rolled around with a lefty out there on the mound and the two of us now severely smashed on the couch. Luetge tossed the slider, Kipnis yanked it into the right field bleachers, the crowd went wild, et cetera. I looked at Miranda... she looked back. I smirked. I flipped my card: perfect 3/3. Nailed the score, Maurer's K count, and Ibanez's hits.

I reached my hand out. "Pay up".

She flipped her card.

Tie game after nine innings. Indians walk-off home run in extras, off of a lefty reliever after a walk. Home run hit by someone unexpected, barely over the right field wall. Awkward dance party at home plate.

My jaw hit the floor. "What? I... I don't..."

Miranda just laughed. "Shit, Jen. You don't exactly have to be psychic to predict a Mariners-Indians game in Cleveland."

***

Bullet points!

Today Brendan Ryan got his first extra-base hit of the season, a double that hit just below the top of the center field wall. Before that double, the Mariners' two shortstops had produced a combined zero extra base hits from the position in the first 41 games of the season. In case you were wondering, yes, that's a franchise record.
Last start, we made a big deal out of Brandon Maurer's changing approach to left-handed hitters. Having discovered that his slider wasn't an effective out pitch to southpaws, Maurer evidently chose to start throwing considerably more changeups and curveballs during his start in Oakland. Tonight, however, he tried something entirely different, opting instead to attempt to induce whiffs with fastballs just off the outside edge of the plate. It kind of worked, as he got 6 strikeouts in 6 innings while only 5 hits to a very tough lefty lineup. On the other hand, one of the hits was a home run, and there were also four walks as the Indians' more disciplined hitters figured out Maurer's plan.
Jason Kipnis and Dustin Ackley were sort of prospect rivals coming up through the minor leagues: two good-hitting second baseman, vying to be the next Chase Utley. So far it really hasn't worked out for anyone, and while you may argue that the Indians' second baseman has been performing better than Ackley for a year and a half now, you must also admit that Kipnis is nowhere near as good-looking as Saint Ack.

For a guy whose biggest calling card in AA last year was his refusal to give up any home runs, Maurer sure has given up a lot of dingers in the majors. That's one aspect of his game where you can probably count on the good kind of regression, and hopefully as that trends downwards his overall line will improve.
In case you're wondering why Brandon Maurer is a good prospect, check out his fourth-inning demolition of Mark Reynolds. Is Reynolds hacktastic? Yes. This is still awesome:

Rather than attempting to establish his fastball or some such, Maurer opened the at bat with an out pitch: nasty slider, low and away. Reynolds chased for strike one. Then Maurer changed things up with a perfectly located fastball at 96 MPH right in on the hands. Reynolds barely managed to foul it off, but he was left in an 0-2 hole, desperately trying to guess whether the 86 slider or the 96 fastball was coming next. Predictably, Maurer went with his out pitch... but he left it just a little low and outside of its predecessor. Reynolds whiffed and looked awful doing it. In short: Brandon Maurer's slider is really sexy.
To be honest, I actually kind of dig what the Mariners have done with their bullpen this year. They made the early mistake of not carrying a long man, but since then they've figured out that they can still run a pen full of platoon specialists if they also have several backups ready and waiting in AAA, which they do.The only problems are those caused by the 40-man roster - Farquhar's callup necessitated putting Pryor on the 60-day DL, and Francisco Martinez must be on the hot seat right about now. Can you imagine if the Angels had the Mariners' pen?
No. No, you can't, because the Angels suck at building bullpens. This bullet point is your daily remember to go laugh at the Angels and their free-spending, free-failing ways. You suck, Angels! Wallow in your continued misery!