Ray Up to Put Marlins Down (+Virtual Birdland)
In and of itself the return of Chris Ray probably isn’t cause for much discussion. He’s a serviceable major league pitcher when he’s right, and his time at Norfolk suggests he’s right. Now we’ll find out for sure.
What’s interesting about the move is that it leaves the O’s without a left-handed specialist in the bullpen (closer FlatBrim Sherrill and long man Mark Hendrickson are now the only lefties). Anybody take issue with that?
I don’t. The notion of a left-handed specialist always seemed like a waste of a spot to me, every bit as silly as the notion of a right-handed specialist. I want to see quality pitchers in the ‘pen, period. And as Double J Johnson has proven this year, you don’t have to be a lefty to get lefties out.
I’m glad baseball’s back tonight, but that stadium where the Marlins play always seems like a graveyard to me. Maybe that’s because the O’s are just 1-8 there all-time. Yikes.
It’s Koji on the hill against Andrew in Miami Miller (2-3, 4.56).
Did you guys see Virtual Birdland yet? Pretty nifty 3-D animations of Camden Yards and surrounding areas, tied into businesses and directions. Most of us probably know all of those things already, but I’m betting they’ll come in handy for anyone who’s unfamiliar with the area or doesn’t go to a lot of games. Neat stuff.
Jesus. I’m spent. And worried about Adam Jones. And pissed at Zaun. And pissed that Baez no longer has trade value. But happy they fought hard and it was cool to see the crazy lineup changes. But god damnit, somebody just needed to go deep for fucks sake. ADAM WHERE ARE YOU1
I got a phone call I had to take right before the end of that and missed it all. Sounds like maybe that was a good thing?
Tough loss but I think the comeback is a kind of victory in itself. Time to go get ‘em tomorrow.
Yeah I mean, there are more positives than negatives.
1)Wieters opposite field dinger.
2)Very effective Chris Ray.
3)The comeback.
4)Wigginton 2-2, no errors at SS.
5)JJ being JJ.
Oscar Salazar.. how can we possibly waive this guy when Izturis comes back? He is the Perfect Bench Bat and more often than not, he comes through. He’s just a damn fine hitter. It’s going to be a shame because there’s no other move to make barring an unlikely trade of Wigginton or Izturis.
I really am officially on the Adam Jones Cliff and trying hard not to jump off of it. Somebody talk me down.
The talk down on Jones just comes back to where he’s at as a player. He’s still only got 866 career ABs — equivalent to roughly 1.5 seasons. This is his second year as a regular player, and first as a hitter in the top of the order. As fully awesome as he is, it’s still early and he has room to grow. I think you could actually argue that he’s ahead of schedule, despite any recent struggles. Dude will be fine.
@Tomás – That’s music to my ears, man. So glad you (and others) feel that way.
By the way, I did experiment with live comment loading when I redesigned the site but I couldn’t find an option that worked well enough. Maybe down the road I can add that, but in the meantime the refresh button is your friend on nights like tonight.
Man. Loss aside, love nights like this on TLC. So much good stuff going on.
@neal s – Alright I can definitely buy “ahead of schedule”. That should hold me over for a week or so. Thank you.
You know, it can be stressful at times following a team with exciting and unproven players. The talent is so clearly there and just as soon as you’re in awe of it, it’s gone. I guess that’s baseball in general, but with these young guys, you root so hard for them and their future is so promising that it’s extra taxing when they scuffle. I’m used to kind of just being pissed at veterans for sucking. This whole youth movement is a different kind of roller coaster all together.
That said, let’s really take a look at Adam Jones’ numbers as it compares to other center fielders (AL and NL). Out of all the center fielders in the game, Jones is:
-7th in base hits with 79, behind Ichiro, Victorino, Beltran, Kemp, Ellsbury, and Rios, in that order.
-3rd in runs scored with 47, behind Damon and Hunter.
-4th in home runs with 12, tied with a bunch of other guys.
-4th in RBI with 43, behind Hunter, Inge, and McClouth (and Inge is really only a CFer in a fantasy standpoint and I’m doing this through Yahoo fantasy, so Jones could really be 3rd).
-Nowhere close to anybody in SB.
-Way down in the list in BB, with only 19.
-Has a surprising 4 errors.
-10th in average with .316, but it’s .309 after tonight.
-In the top 20 in OBP with .371, but that’s going to be lower after tonight as well.
-4th in extra base hits with 29, tied with some other dudes.
Like I said, I did this using the Yahoo player filter, so it’s a very rough snapshot. But a snapshot nonetheless that tells us, basically, what we already knew. Adam Jones is still learning, but where he ranks with his bat stands out so far, being in the top 10 in many areas. He still doesn’t know quite how to utilize his speed and he needs to find a way to take more walks and get on base more. But overall, he’s keeping pace with some impressive names and that’s probably more than we could expect from a 23 year old dude with less than 2 years of Major League experience.
I feel a little better now.
Also, I love this website.
Random Wizards note! Looks like they are trading their #5 pick, Etan Thomas (suck), Darius Songaila (suck), and Oleskiy Pecherov (young but still suck) to Minnesota for Randy Foye and Mike Miller.
This is a great trade. It gets rid of 2 expiring contracts in Thomas and Songaila, who were mediocre at best anyway and aging. It solves the Haywood/Thomas beef. Then you bring in a solid veteran shooter in Mike Miller to hopefully take some playing time away from DeShawn Stevenson and add dependable 3-point range. And best of all, you get Foye who is a young, talented combo guard who will serve as a great backup to Gilbert (or, you know, if Gilbert somehow gets injured again, but THIS year is different, right? Sure…) and can also play the 2 guard, hit 3′s, drive, and pass.
And your core of young guys is now: Foye, Blatche, Nick Young, McGuire, and the very exciting McGee. Great trade for the Wiz.
Not to mention by getting rid of Thomas and Songaila, who are both PF/C, you finally open up playing time for McGee, Blatche, and McGuire which was a big, big problem last season.
I intuitively turned the game off after the top of the 12th sensing it would be over soon in a most ugly fashion.
Oh, and it was an hour past my bedtime and my wife wouldn’t let me forget it.
Uehara’s lack of strikeouts was uninspiring, but at least he worked six strong. Another step in the right direction.
I really liked Trembley’s creative use of his bench last night. Guthrie as a pinch-runner was inspired and I so wish that Rich Hill had delivered a hit to give us back the lead in the 11th. But you can’t win ‘em all.
Let’s see if Berken can put something positive together tonight and start a fresh five-game streak.