Think Happy Thoughts

We Mariners fans are going through a bad stretch right now. The M’s were in the Wild Card spot a few days ago. Now after losing 5 in a row they are 4 games out and sinking fast. Somehow Jerry DiPoto coaxed Michael Leake and $17,000,000 out of the Cardinals but it’s hard to see how another #4/#5 starter is going to right the ship.

So I didn’t watch, listen, follow on the internet or in any other way subject myself to Mariner misery Wednesday. I looked instead for cheerier things…

Pittsburgh:  W 2, L 0; 20 – 4. (Yikes!) (.440, .517, .680; 20.0 ip, 8 er) … Like Ender Inciarte’s 5 for 5 game with a triple, a walk, and a stolen base.  He also went 3 for 5 in the second game of  the doubleheader.  I know, I know, Ender’s efforts benefit the Alleghenys, the team which just leapt 1.5 games further ahead in a single day, the last team in the league to need more good news.  But when the A’s got that huge Shelby Miller trade windfall, the commentators were all about Dansby Swansona and Aaron Blair. They mostly overlooked Inciarte.  But Inciarte was the one I wanted out of that deal. I quickly offered Branch Weinert a trade for Inciarte. I like to think he almost accepted it, but this may just have been Branch’s kindness and cunning at work. So I was able to distill a bit of self-satisfaction out of the league’s misery at yet another Allegheny triumph.

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Flint Hill: L, 3 – 4. (.188, .257, .219; 14.3 ip, 6 hr)... Like Keon Broxton, inserted in the 8th inning for his defense. He had no plate appearances. With the Brewers up 6 – 5, the Cardinals’ Randall (“drafted just before Mike Trout”) Grichuk came to bat with two out in the top of the ninth. Grichuk had already homered in the fifth inning to tie the game 3 – 3.  With two strikes on him, Grichuk lifted a high fly deep to center. Keon Broxton hesitated, then ran to the fence. Then he did this.

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Haviland: W, 6 – 4; (.281, .395, .531; 10.7 ip, 4 er)… Like Anthony Rizzo, who went 2 for 3 with a double, a homer and a hit-by-pitch– his 21st of the season!  That does not lead MLB or even the NL, because Josh Harrison has been hit by 22 pitches. But the third place hit batter only has 14 — fellow NLer Justin Turner. (EFLers Jose Abreu and Schott Schebler are tied for fourth at 13).  So here’s a fun two-man race you can follow, now that the Alleghenys are back to shredding the EFL pennant race (oops, sorry, not a happy thought… happy thoughts only now): can Anthony Rizzo overtake Josh Harrison for the hit-by-pitch crown?

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Cottage: W (-1), L 2; 8 – 16. (.300, .375, .640; 6 ip, 11 er)…  like Ian Happ. Mr. Happ singled in the first inning, homered in the third, and doubled in the fifth.  In the sixth inning, conscious that he only needed a triple to hit for the cycle, he lofted a fly ball deep into the left field corner and tore around the bases. I’m not sure why he stopped after rounding third — the ball was not back to the infield yet; maybe he picked up something from the base coach — but he had no trouble getting back to the bag. When he looked up he was befuddled to learn from the umpire that he was out.  He was the only one in the stadium who hadn’t seen Starling Marte catch his fly ball.

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Portland: W, 5 – 0. (.204, .286, .490; 8.3 ip, 0 er)… like Jose Berrios.  Portland came pretty close to trading Berrios away earlier this summer to get a stretch-drive ace. But in the end they declined the trade and stuck with Berrios.  Jose twirled 7 scoreless innings yesterday, striking out 11 and allowing only 4 hits. He has a solid 3.80 ERA in August — 0.69 better than the far more expensive “ace” he would have been traded for. With the ‘Buds back to being 11+ games out, that decision not to trade turns out to have been brilliant.

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Kaline: W, 5 – 3. (.298, .365, .404; 8.3 ip, 3 er)… Like someone from the Drive. Maybe Kris Bryant getting three hits and a walk in five plate appearances. The Wizard is one to appreciate the value of quietly batting 5 times and making only one out even if none of the plate appearances makes a big splash. Summers on Whidbey Island are just like that: they don’t make the news but 80% of the time they are pretty much perfect. Am I right? It makes me happy to think so, happy for the Johnsons.

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Peshastin: W, 13 – 4. (.419, .479, .744; 1 ip, 0 er) … like Javier Baez. In the middle innings of the Pirates game versus the Cubs, I tuned in just in time to listen to the Pittsburgh broadcasters complaining about Javier Baez playing the game all wrong.  “He swings at pitches out of the zone,” said one. “He swings for the fences all the time,” said the other. “He runs the bases like a crazy man,” said the first. “He ignores the signs from his base coaches,” said the other. (I’m quoting from memory without notes 14 hours later, so cut me some slack.) “Even though he gets all his fundamentals wrong, somehow he still succeeds,” said the first. “Well, he does have great bat speed,” said the other a split second before Baez drilled a ball to left for a two-run double.  I didn’t realize why the Pittsburgh announcers were so obsessed with the mystery of Javier Baez until later when I saw video from the second inning of Baez stealing home on a missed bunt to tie the game 2 – 2.  The Cubs won, 17-3.

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Old Detroit: L, 3 – 5. (.194, .237, .472; 2 ip, 3 er) … Like Josh Bell and Kyle Schwarber.  With Willson Contreras and Gregory Polanco injured, Bell and Schwarber were the only two Wolverines in the Pirates-Cubs game.  The part I enjoyed about that wasn’t Schwarber’s 3 strikeouts nor his weak ground ball, nor Bell’s strikeout, pop up, or fly out. It was Schwarber’s two homers, accounting for runs number 12, 14 and 15 in the Cubs’ blowout.  And Bell’s solo blast, counting for run number 3 for the Pirates, making the score at that point 12 – 3. Totally meaningless homers, yet they consoled Wolverine fans the world over for what was otherwise a dismal day.

Canberra: “W”, (-1) – 0. (.184, .205, .342; 12 ip, 2 er)… Like Stephen Strasburg, completing a nine-inning, six-hit shutout in which the winning run was driven in on a homer by… Stephen Strasburg. (Yes, I realize Strasburg is now an Allegheny, so this also benefits the team least in need. But Strasburg was a Kangaroo before he was an Allegheny, and the Captain Kangaroo is a Nationals fan now, I think, along with the M’s and the Tigers. And I had trouble finding happy news among the Kangaroos.) (OK, OK, the Kangaroos can be happy because both Rick Porcello and newly-called-up Ryan Merritt allowed only 1 earned run each in their combined twelve innings.) (Oh, and Jonathan Villar hit a homer to put at least one ribbon on his disappointing season.)

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DC: W, 8 – 5. (.355, .444, .645; 2 ip, 0 er). … Like Welington Castillo — or more accurately, his son, who found the perfect way to honor his dad’s 4 for 4 with a homer.

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