Saturday, April 08, 2006
GAME 5: ATHLETICS 5, MARINERS 0
In 25 words or less: Somehow the Mariner arms walked eleven batters and the game still only lasted two hours and thirty-six minutes.
This game featured Joe Blanton going up against Felix Hernandez, a day before the 20th birthday of the latter. Though we'll always be looking forward to any game involving Felix this season, he had not thrown in game action in 14 days. In addition, his stamina wouldn't be midsummer form or anything since it's the beginning of the season, but more so since he had to stop running a while to rest off the shin splints. How would Felix do in the first game After Shin Splints (ASS)?
What's hilarious is that if you go back into the archived MLB.tv feed, you get the Houston Rockets/Golden State Warriors game on FSN Bay Area until the 1:21:53 mark of the feed.
TOP 1ST
Mark Kotsay got ahead 3-0 and walked on five pitches. Mark Ellis took two strikes, fouled one off, then singled into leftfield, advancing Kotsay to second. Eric Chavez fell behind 0-2 and whiffed on a 2-2 curveball down and in for Hernandez' first strikeout of the season. Frank Thomas got ahead 2-0 and whiffed on a very low full-count breaking ball. Milton Bradley had the hitters' counts and rolled the 3-1 pitch out to second. Hernandez threw 25 pitches.
BOTTOM 1ST
Ichiro grounded out to second. Willie Bloomquist got ahead 2-0 but later took strike three on a pitch he thought was down and in. Raul Ibañez got behind 0-2 and later whiffed on a full-count breaking ball in the dirt. Blanton threw 17 pitches.
TOP 2ND
Dan Johnson popped foul to Beltre in foul ground along the leftfield line. Antonio Perez had the hitters' counts and ended up holding his swing on a low pitch (full count). Jason Kendall bounced a 2-2 pitch to the left side, where Betancourt charged a bit, but it was a tailor-made 6-4-3 double play. Hernandez threw 14 pitches and had 39 through two.
BOTTOM 2ND
Richie Sexson reached and popped high to Bradley in rightfield. Adrian Beltre put the ball off the end of the bat and flew out to shallow leftfield on a 2-2 pitch. Carl Everett popped a 2-0 pitch high to Bradley among a cluster of three A's in foul ground near the seats in rightfield. Blanton threw 12 pitches and had 29 through two.
TOP 3RD
Nick Swisher hit a healthy fly ball to Ichiro on the first pitch. Kotsay bounced out to Sexson for a 3-1 putout. Ellis worked a 1-2 count full before rolling out to short on a full count. Hernandez threw 11 pitches and had 50 through two.
BOTTOM 3RD
Kenji Johjima popped out high to Swisher in shallow left. Jeremy Reed rolled a ball through the hole on the right side for a single. After Blanton made a few pickoff attempts to first, Yuniesky Betancourt rolled a 1-2 pitch softly into a 6-4-3 double play. Blanton threw 11 pitches and had 40 through three.
TOP 4TH
Chavez bounced a 3-1 pitch to the right side, where Hernandez came off the mound and underhanded to first. Thomas grounded an 0-2 pitch hard to third. Bradley fell behind 0-2, took a 1-2 change barely off the plate (umpire opinion), then later walked on a full-count pitch barely inside and low on the twelfth pitch of the at-bat. Johnson bounced a 3-1 pitch to Bloomquist on the rightfield grass. Hernandez threw 26 pitches and had 76 through four.
BOTTOM 4TH
Ichiro reached high and flew out to Ellis drifting backward into shallow centerfield. Bloomquist was ahead 2-0 and later popped high to Johnson on the infield grass. Ibañez bounced the 1-2 pitch into the hole on the left side, where Perez backhanded the ball but didn't glove the ball cleanly (scored as a hit). Sexson whiffed on a 2-2 slider about six inches off the plate. Blanton threw 18 pitches and had 58 through four.
TOP 5TH
Perez took a lethal 1-2 curve for strike three. Kendall got the hitters' counts and walked on a 3-1 pitch up and away. Swisher flew out to Beltre near the stands in foul ground down the leftfield line. Pitching coach Rafael Chaves visited the mound. Kotsay drove the second pitch into the gap and to the wall in rightcenter for a double, scoring Kendall.
»» ATHLETICS 1, MARINERS 0
Ellis fell behind 0-2 and later took a 1-2 pitch to the back elbow, though he looked like he dove into it. With 96 pitches already in the book, Hernandez was left in to face Chavez, who took a sick curve for strike three. Hernandez threw 23 pitches and had 99 through five (something obviously changed with the MLB.com statcounters or something, who ended up giving him 100 total pitches).
Hernandez' line: 5 innings, 1 run, 2 hits, 4 walks, 4 strikeouts, 100 pitches (56 strikes)
BOTTOM 5TH
Beltre popped high to Johnson in foul ground near the plate. Everett whiffed at a high 0-2 pitch. Johjima popped a healthy 0-2 fly ball to Bradley in fairly deep rightfield. Blanton threw eight pitches and had 66 through five.
TOP 6TH
Julio Mateo came in for Hernandez. Thomas took a high 3-1 pitch for a walk. Bradley walked on four pitches, moving Thomas to second and bringing Chaves out to the mound for a chat. Johnson got ahead 3-1 and ended up flying out to Ichiro running toward shallow centerfield as the runners held. Perez whiffed on the 1-2 pitch in the dirt, but it got away from Johjima as the runners moved up to second and third. Kendall had a 3-0 count go full before holding his swing on a low full-count pitch to load the bases. Swisher doubled off the wall in centerfield to score Thomas. Oddly, Bradley missed the bag coming around third and suddenly two runners were at third base. The relay came in and Bradley was hung up and tagged between third base and the plate. Mateo threw 25 pitches.
»» ATHLETICS 2, MARINERS 0
BOTTOM 6TH
Marco Scutaro came in at shortstop for Perez. Reed popped the 1-1 pitch along the stands in foul ground down the leftfield line, but Chavez couldn't catch it. Reed rolled into a 3-1 putout on the next pitch. Betancourt flew out to fairly deep centerfield. Ichiro bounced out to second on the first pitch. Not sure why the Mariners kept swinging early in the count at this stage...guess they wanted Blanton to stay in the game longer. Blanton threw eight pitches and had 74 through six.
TOP 7TH
Kotsay took Ibañez just short of the warning track in leftfield. Ellis popped a 1-2 pitch lazily to rightfield. Chavez splintered his bat on a nubber to Mateo, who had the ball go off of him and toward first, but he shoveled it over in time. Mateo threw 12 pitches and had 37 total.
BOTTOM 7TH
Bloomquist fell behind 0-2 and took a 1-2 pitch for strike three. Ibañez broke his bat on the second pitch, a low popup to Chavez on the left side. Sexson took two strikes and whiffed for the third. Blanton threw 10 pitches and had 84 through seven.
TOP 8TH
Thomas got ahead 2-0 and later popped high to Betancourt in shallow leftfield. Bradley walked on a full-count pitch up and outside. On the second pitch to Johnson, Bradley took off for second and Johjima's throw tailed into the runner and sailed away into the outfield, enabling Bradley to scoot to third. Already with a 2-0 count, Johnson was intentionally walked. Chaves visited the mound again as manager Mike Hargrove got onto the bullpen phone. Scutaro drove a 1-2 pitch into the gap to break the game open with a triple to the wall in the rightcenter gap to score Bradley and Johnson.
»» ATHLETICS 4, MARINERS 0
Kendall was intentionally walked.
George Sherrill came in for Mateo. Swisher fell behind 0-2 and whiffed on a 1-2 fastball. Kotsay dumped the first pitch into shallow rightfield for a single, scoring Scutaro and moving Kendall to second.
»» ATHLETICS 5, MARINERS 0
Ellis walked on four pitches. Chavez took a 2-2 fastball over the outside corner. Sherrill threw 14 pitches.
Mateo's line: 2 1/3 innings, 4 runs, 2 hits, 6 walks, 1 strikeout, 59 pitches (24 strikes)
Sherrill's line: 2/3 inning, 0 runs, 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, 14 pitches (7 strikes)
BOTTOM 8TH
Beltre worked a 1-2 count for a walk. Everett grounded the first pitch to second for what looked like the beginning of a 4-6-3 double play. Scutaro's throw from second base was blocked by Beltre's raised arm, but the second-base umpire ruled Beltre out of the baseline. Beltre was ruled out by the force play, and Everett was ruled out on the interference. Beltre's arm, if extended, would have been able to touch second base. Johjima bounced to a charging Scutaro. Blanton threw 14 pitches and had 98 through eight.
Blanton's line: 8 innings, 0 runs, 2 hits, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts, 98 pitches (68 strikes)
TOP 9TH
Jeff Harris came in for Sherrill. Jose Lopez came in for Beltre, whose hand was affected by the Scutaro blocked throw to first base on the double play from the last half-inning. Bloomquist moved to third and Lopez took second. Thomas popped the first pitch high to Sexson. Bradley fell behind 0-2 and worked the count full before grounding to Bloomquist on the left side. Johnson flew out on a full count to Reed a few steps in front of the track in centerfield.
Harris' line: 1 inning, 0 runs, 0 hits, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts, 15 pitches (9 strikes)
BOTTOM 9TH
Justin Duchscherer came in for Blanton. Reed took a 1-2 breaking ball over the outside corner. Betancourt bounced the second pitch back to the mound, which made for an easy play for Duchscherer. Ichiro whiffed at a low 1-2 breaking ball.
Duchscherer's line: 1 inning, 0 runs, 0 hits, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts, 10 pitches (8 strikes)
---
Gameball: Jeff Harris.
Hooray for the only Mariner pitcher today that didn't walk anybody. I know pitching with your team down five runs in the ninth with your 8-9-1 hitters due to the plate isn't exactly a pressure situation, but after what we'd seen from the previous Mariner pitchers in the game, all he had to do was put the ball over the plate with some regularity and maybe something would happen, be it homers or outs. Of course, if you start walking people, you're not giving yourself or the defense a chance to get any outs.
Goat: Julio Mateo.
I know it was Felix Hernandez that set the tone with all the walks, but Julio Mateo's been throwing with this team for a while at this level, and to see him get seven outs and walk six hitters is nearly unfathomable. The good news is that I think we can reasonably expect him to never do that again for the rest of the year. We've seen Julio Mateo do some great things in long and middle relief in a Mariner uniform, and I think he'll continue to do just that. It might take him a few more appearances, but I don't think we have to worry here.
Yr W-L Pct GB Stk
2001 4-1 .800 -- W3
2000 3-2 .600 1 L1
2002 3-2 .600 1 L1
2006 3-2 .600 1 L1
2003 2-3 .400 2 L1
2005 2-3 .400 2 L1
2004 0-5 .000 4 L5
Felix seemingly set the tone for the game by walking four batters, which from last year we know isn't very Felix-like. Thus, at that point it was pretty easy to suspect the shin splints or the layoff right away as a cause to the lack of control. It's still a bit shocking, though, to see that despite the four walks, only two Oakland hitters managed to collect hits against him. He faced 21 batters. The first hit against him was a Mark Ellis single in the first that followed a walk, and the Mark Kotsay RBI double which drove in a walk and which I thought would drive Felix from the game. Simple math says two divided by 21 would make for a very small batting average (.095). The best inning for Felix was the third, a 1-2-3 inning in which he got three groundouts on 11 pitches. He walked a batter in each of his four other innings. He got a double-play ball behind him in the second, his second-easiest inning. In the first, he let the first two batters aboard, then got back-to-back whiffs from Eric Chavez and Frank Thomas followed by a Milton Bradley groundout. Bradley ended up doing the most damage to Felix's pitch count with his 12-pitch at-bat that ended in a walk in the fourth. His final walk came around to score in the fifth on the Kotsay double. The next hitter was Mark Ellis, who Felix beaned on a 1-2 count. Again, not very Felix-like. Neither were the nine three-ball counts Felix got into.
Talk about a walk party, though. Shin splints and Adrian Beltre coming out of the game aside, that was still a very tough game to watch. Felix had four walks attached to his name, but to see Julio Mateo walk six was a bit much, and Mateo already got his own paragraph. That leaves George Sherrill, who walked one batter in finishing out the eighth inning. Aside from letting one of Mateo's runners score, Sherrill wasn't horrible. He did get Chavez looking to end that inning. Of course, that Kotsay single effectively ended the game. The Scutaro triple earlier in the inning put the game out of doubt, but the Kotsay single ended it and paved the way for Jeff Harris to do his thing in the ninth with little to no pressure. Back to walks, though, they're not good. Aside from not giving the defense a chance to make outs, another byproduct is that your defense is just standing around. That's only good if a Felix-type pitcher (or the guy we thought Gil Meche would one day be) is busy striking out 12 batters a game or something. This brings to mind a hockey analogy -- you don't want your goalie to be in the game for a long time without facing a shot. If he doesn't face the first shot until fifteen minutes have come off the clock, you're probably going to be pretty nervous watching him face the shot than if he gets tested early and sharpens as the game goes on. Granted, defense in baseball is way different with nine guys fielding the object of play rather than one (you can't grab the baseball on defense and rush to the offensive end with the same baseball), but I think I had a point there somewhere.
The story on the other side, of course, was Joe Blanton rendering the Mariner offense quite Blandon. A Jeremy Reed single in the third and a Raul Ibañez infield hit in the fourth were the only two hits he gave up before he rolled until he didn't come out for the ninth. He set down ten straight Mariner hitters after the Ibañez hit. The last 13 hitters he faced went hitless. Eighteen of the 25 Mariners faced by Blanton saw first-pitch strikes or swung at the first pitch. As the innings went on, the Mariners decided since Blanton was getting the first-pitch strikes, they shouldn't even try to work the count, so they started swinging early in the count, which I didn't necessarily agree with. I know Blanton was rolling, and his control was way better than that of Felix, but it could have been the difference between Blanton throwing seven innings instead of eight and getting into the Oakland a bit more. The whole early-count swinging mentality just reminds me of those games against Tim Hudson or Carlos Silva where the opposing pitcher would get into the eighth because the Mariners were swinging early and not getting anything to show for it.
Still, this leaves a split in the series with two more games against Oakland to close out the weekend.
Zito. Moyer. Tonight.
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