A Rubber Match in Seattle
As Wayward O points out (among other notes), the Orioles have a chance today to finish up this west coast swing at a respectable 3-4. That seems somehow wrong, but it’s true. We’re one strong David Hernandez outing and a couple o’more Luuuuuke Scott RBI from a very decent farewell to the Pacific.
Game time is 4:40, with the M’s offering up Jason Vargas (3-3, 4.14, 1.33 WHIP).
Also: rumor has it that Felix Pie is on the trading block. It’ll be real interesting to see what kind of market Andy can create for him, if any.
This Felix Pie stuff makes zero sense to me. Zero. If we trade Pie, according to the Sun it’s because we need to free up a space on the roster for Izturis and the O’s don’t want to lose Pie or Salazar to waivers (which I suppose is likely), so they’re trying to trade them to get something back.
But if we trade Pie to make space for Izturis, then we’d be an outfielder short and would need to call up Justin Christian or Joey Gathright (puke) and would be playing this whole game over again.
My guess: Salazar gets traded for some low-level nobody in the Michael Aubrey mold (ala the Ramon Hernandez trade).
Now then. I think I’m ready to proclaim the signing of Mark Hendrickson to be both very valuable and very smart (despite it’s connotations of losing Teixiera to the Yankees…). Yes, Hendrickson is/was/will be just Awful as a starter. But look at these numbers in relief:
2.89 ERA 1.18 WHIP 6.75 K/9 2.57 BB/9 0.64 HR/9 3/14 inherited runners scored in 28 IP
Wow. Did any of you think he was that damn good? That’s better in EVERY way than Matt Albers last year. That’s better in EVERY way than Jim Johnson this year, better than Danys Baez, better than Brian Bass, better than the 2008 version of George Sherrill, heck it’s better in a lot of ways than the awesome 2007 version of Jamie Walker.
Chew on that.
Orioles look like they have strong shot at signing Sano. One would say it looks like we have a “Mark Teixeira chance” at signing him even.
Pie is worth trading for the correct pieces. Salazar is worth trading for any pieces. I’ll say that much and leave it at that.
Will Patton replace Guthrie? Apparently ol Guts isn’t doing so hot.
Michael Aubrey is swinging a hot bat, can’t say the same for Snyder.
I’m not worried about what we can get for Pie. His middle name is Lemon Meringue. We’ll be alright. Let the bidding war begin.
@Dan H – this comment is blowing my mind.
I mean that in a good way, by the way.
Off to watch the game…
Zaun with the split slide! That was a heads up move, Zaun has really gotten better since becoming a back-up catcher.
WOOHOO!!!
This just in: I love baseball!
If I were David Aardsma, I’d wonder A) why do I have so many ‘A’s in my name and B) why can’t my defense make a play. GO O’S.
Oriole.
Magic.
(And really inept Seattle defense)
Ken Griffey Jr. bears a strong resemblence to his Simpsons counterpart who drank too much nerve tonic and suffered from an acute case of gigantism.
I think this is exactly what the O’s needed. The Mariners aren’t that good, and we suck on the road, and on the west coast
There’s probably a temptation among some folks (though likely very few of you) to chalk today’s win up to luck. Seattle’s defense faltered, some might say, and we won as a result. I’m not on board with that line of thinking.
Our guys did three critical things in the ninth: had strong at-bats, made contact, and hustled. Granted, those things don’t matter in a normal game and we’ll lose regardless 9.8 times out of 10. But bottom line is that they didn’t pack it in and settle for strikeouts and weak grounders, and they didn’t make lazy mistakes on the basepaths once they got their opportunities.
That’s baseball — you have to do the things that give birth to cliches like “play hard to the last out.” They did that today, and they salvaged a tough road trip as a result. I’ll take it, even if it can’t necessarily be repeated.
I’m quite happy with what Hernandez did today. That first-inning HR could have been a dagger, but he didn’t let things get out of hand. He ended up going six innings with 111 pitches (69 strikes), five hits, two runs (both earned), two walks, and three Ks. His season ERA now sits at 3.94. We haven’t seen nearly enough yet to start speculating on his long-term prospects, but the kid is doing enough.
@neal s – Those strikeouts aren’t coming, though (yet). It’s really hard to win at the major league level if you a) don’t miss bats, and b) throw such an extreme amount of fly balls like Hernandez does.
Keeping the walks down is half the battle, sure, but there’s little beyond that that gives me much to point to and say “Going forward, I feel comfortable with David Hernandez in the rotation”. Not yet, anyhow.
When David settles down and finds a rhythm in the bigs, I’m sure the K rate will go up. It’s only his 5th start, right?
Sweet win. Agreed, Neal, luck is part of the game, but we didn’t score 5 runs on good luck alone.
On, David Hernandez, it seems like in the minors, he was just blowing dudes away with his stuff. If he wants strikeouts in the bigs, he’s going to have to get it by keeping guys off balance, spotting his fastball better, and using all his pitches. You can’t expect to come up here with a 95mph fastball and throw it by everyone. It ain’t gonna happen. That said, he’s showing that a)he doesn’t walk very many people, b)he doesn’t get rattled, and c)he learns from his mistakes (notice the breaking ball that he struck out Lopez on the second time around). That’s more than can be said for Olson, Liz, D-Cab, Burres, etc, etc that we’ve seen for the last few years.
Even with Berken’s struggles, it seems our three rookies at least all understand HOW to pitch and how to pitch without, as Dave Johnson said in the post game last night, immediately walking 5 guys after giving up a home run. It’s fucking refreshing, if you ask me.
@dan the man – I thought Brian Burres knew how to pitch very well. I mean, he had to have since he had basically nothing above (or perhaps even closely resembling) a major league average pitch. Yeah, he walked guys, and he wasn’t any good anyway…but that was because his stuff blows.
Which is funny…because in the minors he struck out a LOT of guys: 8.0 per nine for his career. Those numbers obviously didn’t translate to the bigs, but I’m sure that once he gets settled in and finds his rhythm with Toronto those strikeouts will come.
Sorry, Greg…sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. The jury remains out, but skeptical, for David Hernandez.
Also worth noting, without comment: when he got sent back to the minors, Hernandez put up those big strikeout numbers immediately. In 3 starts, he pitched 14 innings and struck out 19 batters.
I’ll give you that Burres had an idea how to pitch, but I still say Hernandez even without the K’s, can still be a solid starter. We have to look at what he’s using to strike guys out in the minors with. The fastball, I’d guess. Well, unless you have crazy movement and deception, you’re not going to strike out major leaguers with a fastball. My concern is less about strikeouts and more about pitch count.
To touch on the Pie/Salazar rumors, I agree with Andrew that it makes no sense to replace an outfielder (Pie) with an infielder (Izturis), thus giving you no one that can really play CF. But I seriously doubt that Andy has overlooked that, if Pie was to in fact be traded. Andy has said that he likes Pie in his current role and there’s nothing wrong with have 4 young outfielders, so I think he’s more inclined to deal Salazar, who is Ty Wigginton minus a touch of defense and a ton of track record. We also have to see what comes back in a trade before we question whether or not the roster is being mismanaged.