NATS RISE TO GLORY game twenty-eight

So Strasborg left the game very early due to fucked upness in his pitching arm (again). Pitchers of today's standards are put through body motions probably not sustainable so ultimately it becomes a battle of attrition. Luckily the Nats are loaded (on paper at least) at P, but the fact The Guy who was going to change the game forever has not really changed the game forever is always a bummer. At this point (still early in his career? idk) it'd be nice to see Strasborg remain healthy enough to be that wily ass guy towards the upper middle of the rotation, who eats up six innings every fuckin' time, and leaves the team in position to not lose - maybe not win, but at least not lose. I worry about that guy, although Nats are sending him to chiropractor not legit "let's do expensive shit" doctor so who knows? Maybe this is much ado about nothing.
I did catch the highlights on the 10 o'clock news sports, and holy shit I had no idea Ichiro Suzuki still played baseball, nor that he played for the Marlins. A massive thing like BASEBALL is full of so many fuckin' crazy life stories like that - weird little Pete Rose of Japan comes to America, becomes star, and now is playing in Miami? What the fuck does Ichiro Suzuki do in his free time in Miami? Does he like the beach? Go to art galleries? Perhaps he does coke with big-assed whores? WHO KNOWS?
Oh, the Nats lost because Strasborg's chinked armor arm gave up two runs in his three innings, and offense has gone back to OFF switch, so 2-1 was the final.
Nats are 13-15.

mathematically eliminated #24 the Seattle Mariners

They are now done apparently. I am not even sure of who is on their team as I have an east coast bias, which is why I wear my right pant leg bunched up around my knee at work, and use my office stapler to staple motherfuckers in the head who look at me wrong at the water cooler. EAST SIDE!
Seriously though, forgive my ignorance, but did the Mariners still exist after they traded away Ichiro Suzuki? Or are they in the Pacific Coast League now? Does the Pacific Coast League still exist? I know Triple-A went from three leagues to two leagues at some point a few years back, but I don't know which one ceased to exist. I grew up an International League man personally, seeing the Richmond Braves play as a little leaguer. Back then it was easy to know who the minor league team was a minor league team for, because they had the same nickname. Nowadays, with hat merchandising, there's no fucking way to tell. I went to a game last year to see Bryce Harper play in Richmond and it was the Richmond Flying Squirrels vs. the Harrisburg Winterfells, and they were hyping up a big weekend series against the Charleston Baby Bo$$e$ with fireworks and some sort of bobblehead promotion. Ultimately, this just furthers my belief that over-marketing has essentially ruined the joy of Western civilization, and now we are just left to suffer the diminishing returns of what we have wrought, until death.

GAMBATTE ICHIROOOOOOOO

they are right to think he is cool

It is of course undeniable that Dustin Ackley and Felix Hernandez had a lot to do with the Mariners' 3-1, eleventh-inning win over the Athletics in Tokyo in the opening game of this probably glorious 2012 Major League season, but is it not awesome, I ask you, that Ichiro went 4-5 and knocked in a run? Is it not? Here, look at him busting out of the box on an infield single, the first hit of the year: 

ichiroooooooooooooooo

Also, and finally, I would like to propose that there always be a baseball game going on when I get up in the morning, because today I found this arrangement agreeable to the extreme.


KS

Pablo Sandoval Hits for the Cycle in 8-5 Giants Win

Not pictured: Pablo Sandoval hitting a triple.

Baseball is the best. I think that's pretty much indisputable. Also indisputable: if you call yourself a baseball fan and you don't like Pablo Sandoval, you should probably hang it up. Hockey season will be starting soon. Try that for a while and get it together.

Seriously, Pablo Sandoval. A perpetually-smiling, fat third baseman who hits like if Ichiro were Vladimir Guerrero. He's a switch-hitter with an afro whose nickname is "Kung Fu Panda." He's naturally left-handed and taught himself to throw right-handed so he could be an infielder. There is nothing to not love. Last night, he hit the second cycle of 2011, and the 10th in San Francisco history. It was awesome. He went 4-for-4 with an intentional walk in his fifth plate appearance, and his homer was the 20th of the season for him. This dude missed FORTY games this season with a broken hamate bone in his hand, and still put together an All-Star year as well as being the best defensive third baseman in the National League by UZR. The Gold Glove will probably go to Scott Rolen, because the managers in MLB just go with the first name they can think of for position players.

Brandon Belt got a hit last night, an opposite-field homer. The Giants had their third 8-run game in their last 5 games. They had three 8-run games in eighty-nine games prior to that.

This Giants five-game winning streak is nice, and if they had broken their offensive slump just two weeks earlier, they might be in contention for a playoff berth rather than playing out the string and staying technically-not-eliminated for as long as they can. It's kind of sad, but performances last Pablo's last night are reminders that 2011 -- for all its disasters and tragedies and improbabilities along the way -- was one of the most exciting and thrilling and emotional as any season in my lifetime of following the team. That includes last year's World Series championship run. It has been one hell of a year, and I'm still looking forward to 2012. After a run of games like this, it's hard to hate life quite so much.

On Ichiro, for just a second.

Did you have any idea Ichiro was this much smaller than Jeter?

Ichiro occupies kind of a strange place: so overrated that he's underrated or so underrated that he's overrated, or something. Non-nerd baseball fans are likely to think he is ridiculously awesome, whereas nerds are quick to point out that no, Ichiro does (or rather has done) a couple of things exceptionally well -- hit for average; steal bases at an historically high rate of success; field his position excellently -- but has been far less valuable over the course of his very fine career than many other players that you don't care about in the least. In fact, the nerds are correct, but with the caveat that also Ichiro is ridiculously awesome. 


Ichiro is unique and stylish and graceful and we love him, which is what makes this, his first truly bad season, such a drag. There's realistically nothing he can do in this final month of the season to salvage this utter butt of a year, if we are measuring his performance in the best ways we know how (he has barely been above replacement level as measured by whichever WAR you prefer), or even superficially (fifty points off his career average, and sixty below his career OBP). If, however, all we want is for Ichiro to have yet another 200-hit season, then maybe. 


Just a few days ago, Steve Rudman (whose work I did not know previously, but who has a kind look and so I am predisposed to like him) wrote a fine piece called "40 Hits to 200: Not Even Ichiro Can Do It," in which Rudman, pained, clearly and precisely details the muck and despair that has led us here and the daunting task that lies ahead. When I read it, I was completely convinced: Ichiro is old now, and this isn't going to happen. However! What if it did? Last night, Ichiro went 4-5, and hit a home run for the second straight day. With eighteen games to play, Ichiro now needs 33 hits, which is still nuts, but maybe? It wouldn't mean that Ichiro isn't in serious decline, or that he's not coming up fast on the end a Hall-of-Fame career, or anything like that, but it would a heck of a thing, wouldn't it? An eleventh-straight 200-hit season? Who wouldn't want to see that? And it looks like even the WARriest nerds are in on this one, too: as of this morning, Ichiro is the most popular player page right now at Fangraphs.


KS

Blue Jays 11, Mariners 6: Kind of feeling bad for the Mariners, actually.

Such mustache.

I am pretty jazzed yeah that's right jazzed that Brandon Morrow turned in a solid start at home, where he has struggled this year, and I am equally jazzed that Travis Snider (2-4, HR, 5 RBI) is hitting .357 since being recalled from Las Vegas, that Jose Bautista looks fine (1-3, 2B, 2 BB) coming back from his ankle sprain, and that the streaky E5 is raking right now and stole second and third in the fourth inning. But I am also kind of sad about the Mariners, our 1977 expansion cousins. Eleven losses in a row, that's rough, especially when the team you were only a couple of games behind in your (joke of a) division rattled off a dozen straight wins. 


And it is painful to watch Ichiro struggle through his first truly bad season. It's not just that he isn't going to end up with his customary 200 hits; it's that he has been legitimately bad: he's hitting .260 with a .306 OBP. It's brutal. He still steals bases with an amazing rate of success (he's 23 for 27 this season, and an unreal 406 for 498 in his career), but he's not getting on enough to be a respectable lead-off hitter. Hopefully he gets crazy hot in the second half, but at 37 he might just be done. 


This would sadden me greatly, because that guy was awesome.


KS

Definitely not trying to steal Nick's thunder by posting a pic from Mariners camp but this is just too fresh to be denied

ICHIRO

There is nothing in or about this photograph that is not completely, entirely, unequivocally the best.  


KS