Yeah, okay I know the past tense of "slay" is "slain" but "Seattle Slain" doesn’t really work, does it? I thought seeing as how the Mariners are our "rival" and all, they deserved better.
Anyway, that was a good start to the road trip. Two out of three from Seattle, back into second place. Terrific pitching from Brian Lawrence and Adam Eaton.
Last month we took a look at Lawrence’s strong comeback following a slow start. Here’s a quick update on his numbers since April:
GS IP H ER HR BB SO GB FB 10 62.2 61 21 8 10 47 107 47 ERA BB/9 SO/9 GB/FB 3.02 1.44 6.75 2.28
That works. And remember my theory from last December about the negative impact Gary Bennett’s departure might have on Lawrence? Looks like we needn’t have been concerned.
As for Eaton, he appears to have turned a corner as well. Mark Grant credits a mechanical adjustment. Whatever the cause, the effect has been staggering. Check out Eaton’s line for the month of June:
GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA BB/9 SO/9 5 32.1 17 6 2 8 19 1.67 2.23 5.29
Aside from the relatively low strikeout rate, those are awesome numbers. And that fastball he blew past Ichiro in the sixth yesterday was impressive.
Speaking of impressive, have you noticed Blaine Neal? Mid-90s fastball, good breaking ball, throws strikes. It’s like having a second Scott Linebrink on the staff. How cool is that?
Jeff Cirillo provided the offense in Sunday’s affair, with a three-run homer off starter and loser Jamie Moyer. No doubt the hometown fans were all scratching their heads, wondering when Cirillo learned that trick.
Cliche though it may be, one of things I love about this ballclub is that so many different guys contribute. From Miguel Ojeda’s game-tying double in the Petco opener, to Terrence Long’s walk-off homer against the D’backs last week, to Cirillo yesterday, to the likes of Linebrink and Neal in the ‘pen, with a few notable exceptions (a certain speedy outfielder who shall remain nameless springs to mind) guys are getting the job done.
Man, that last paragraph sounds so anti-sabermetric. Here I am ranting about intangibles. But as I’ve said before, just because we can’t measure them doesn’t mean they’re not important. And besides, this team is a lot of fun to watch. Winning will do that. Winning, having fun. Isn’t that what this is all about anyway?
Other Stuff
A couple of sites I’ve discovered:
- Career Summaries and Projections Fascinating piece of research presented at the 2002 SABR convention. "While it is obvious that baseball playing careers follow a pattern, the results of this study seem to indicate that the more carefully age effects are modelled the poorer the prediction system does. It also suggests that any player career projections be treated with a considerable amount of skepticism."
- Wild Pitch "A site dedicated to two aims: (1) To discussing relevant information as it pertains to fantasy baseball. (2) To analyze and educate based on historical analysis of major league baseball through easily understood comparisons and sabermetrics (fancy math…but not too fancy don’t worry!)."
And here are a few that I’ve mentioned before and just recently added to Hot Links:
That’s all for now. Four in Phoenix starting tonight. First up: David Wells vs Shane Reynolds, 6:30 PM, Channel 4.
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