The Three Amigos, Parte Tres

By Anthony

See what I did there? I made the second part of the headline in Spanish, didn’t see that coming did you? Patrick recently told me I get to do this every turn in the rotation. Guess how excited I was? If you guessed marginally so, you were correct. No offense to the three amigos, but Felix and Vargas are substantially more interesting than these three and infinitely more so than Blake Beavan. All complaining aside, my grades follow.

Hector Noesi

It seems Noesi spent way too much time hanging around Jason Vargas in the spring since he has now turned into Dr. Noesi and Mr. Hector. This time out we saw the worst start of the year. He didn’t get out of the second, gave up a bunch of runs, sucked in almost every possible way. Something I did notice that is interesting, if not redeeming was that he threw strikes 66% of the time. This is different than his other sucky start against the Rangers when he threw strikes 58% of the time. So Noesi has diversified how he has sucked. I guess that’s good. What’s bad is that he was throwing up in the zone, such as the meatball he threw to Adam Dunn. Adam Dunn is a pretty bad hitter in the sense that he hit under .200 last year. But when you throw a major league hitter a pitch down the middle, odds are it is going to travel a long way. Adam Dunn is also pretty strong so it went a long way. Noesi needs to work down in the zone, because low pitches get hit for groundballs. It is almost impossible for a groundball to turn into a home run. Noesi needs to do better and please be more consistent! He gets a D- because he is a rookie and still got out of the first. 

Blake Beavan

Guess what? Blake Beavan had another classic Blake Beavan start. Six innings, three runs, 70 percent strikes. I wish I had something to write about him here but Blake is just being Blake. So I will go on a random tangent of my choosing to make this section seem about as long as the other ones. The theme of this tangent is the future. Here are three sets of stats: 16 innings pitched, 2.81 ERA, 11.81 K per 9 innings, 4.5 BB per 9. 11 innings pitched, 1.64 ERA, 12.27 K/9, 1.64 BB/9. 17 innings pitched, 4.15 ERA, 11.42 K/9 7.27 BB/9. Those three stat lines are awesome. Over 11 strikeouts per nine innings for all three? Are you not entertained? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? If you couldn’t already guess, those three stat lines belong to the future three amigos, Danny Hultzen, Taijuan Walker and James Paxton respectively. Yeah, that’s the future M’s fans, so whenever you watch Brendan Ryan argue a strike call instead of running to first, just imagine those numbers and let all your angst disappear. So yeah, about Blake Beavan, he gets a B. The dude had to go against a perfect game, cut him some slack.

Kevin Millwood

Hey, want to know why Spring Training stats are usually ignored? Boom! Kevin Millwood. His first start was pretty solid. But the other day he was not good. Five innings pitched, five earned runs, three walks. I had pretty low expectations going into the year for Millwood, Wedge loves his ability to get out of jams. Guess what his LOB% is. 54%. Know what his career average is? 71%. Wedge, wake up! I am all about irrational favoritism and stubbornness, but I am more about pitchers who don’t suck. Sorry Kevin, but you are washed up. I know you want to be like Bartolo Colon and pitch until your arm falls off but you are not Bartolo. He throws strikes, like 38 in a row. You threw 54 strikes against the White Sox. Please do decently until Forrest Snow or somebody is ready to show up and do cool stuff that you can no longer do. You get a C- because you finally got your first decision. Congratulations, and remember, C’s get degrees. 

For those who watch Steven Colbert, you'll know his segment "The Word." Since we lack creativity here at Way Out In Left Field, we (read I) came up with this segment to apply after every turn in the rotation in some way. 

Obscene

Dictionary.com defines this as "offensive to morality or decency." For those who saw King Felix on display against the Indians, you can probably agree with me; that was an awesome start. He reassumed his crown as one of the best in the AL. But that as a whole is not obscene. His performance in the eighth inning was awesome. That dude can flat out compete. If Wedge had tried to pull him there I feel like Felix would have yelled at him till he left. That inning however, was not obscene. What was obscene was what happened to Jason Kipnis and Shin-Soo Choo. Those two probably had nightmares about those at bats when the literally had zero chance. King Felix was not letting them beat him, he knew it, they knew it and the crowd knew it. Those change ups were unhittable. It should be illegal to throw that pitch. I'm sure that was offensive to at least the 3 Indian fans in Cleveland. And that brings us the word. Obscene, Felix Hernandez's change up.

Now for some venting about the perfect game. If you are sick of hearing about it, by all means ignore this part. I was first told the result of the game as I was sitting under a tent trying to recover from heat exhaustion. Through the headache, dizziness and gallons of water passing through my system, I was perplexed. I figured the M’s would flirt with perfection in the bad sense, but I always thought Figgins could get a cheap hit, or Ackley or Ichiro. But no, Phillip Humber was perfect. And what put the nail in the coffin was Brendan Ryan, the hustle guy who is a leader in the clubhouse and whatever. I am sorry Brendan, but when did you ever see an umpire change their mind. Ever. I have never seen it unless it was a HR call on video replay. Run to first base. It is really simple. Argue the call afterwards. Hats off to Phillip Humber, perfect games are difficult at any level. Yeah Brendan Ryan was one of 27 outs. But show some hustle and class and try to beat out the throw. Argue later. Brendan Ryan you get a wag of my finger. New section for these articles, tip of the cap, wag of the finger, thanks Steven Colbert.