8-21-13

Congratulations to Ichiro, a class act even if I have issues with his game at this point!  I hope he gets 3000 hits in the states because that means he breaks Pete Rose’s record!

While on Ichiro, I have mentioned his long release time on throws; tonight was no different.  A bullet was hit to him and he waited a little to try and time coming in on the ball (he might have been able to charge a little more) and while he didn’t catch it clean, he did what he always does and that is hope twice before throwing.  He actually touched the ball when Gose (who is very fast) was 2 steps away from touching 3^rd base, but by the time Ichiro released the ball it appeared that Gose was 3-4 steps beyond the base and the throw arrived in time but up the line and a tough hop.  Honestly a decent throw gets him there; you simply can’t take so long to get rid of the ball unless you throw a perfect strike.   Ichiro did make a nice running catch in foul later in the game.

I was hoping that warren would look great so we could pull Hughes, but Warren was not sharp allowing 6 base runner sin 3 innings.  Fortunately, Girardi brought in Huff at the perfect time with a lot of lefties in the lineup and Huff did a great job allowing only 1 hit but he did walk 4 in 5 innings.  See what having a 2^nd lefty does for you (I actually forgot about huff).

With 2 outs Cano ripped a single and Soriano broke his hitless streak for a 2 run HR to get Rivera a save!  That is always good, although Mo was not sharp again.  The cutter was not sharp, although the last pitch to strike out Encarcion was his best pitch of the day.  After allowing a double to Raji Davis with one out Rivera picked him off of 2^nd.  It was very close, but I watched it in very slow motion and Raji was tagged by Cano just barely before his fingers touched the base.  Cano missed the original tag, but Raji didn’t get directly to the bag and was on the side of the bag and when Cano did touch him he was just barely short of the bag.  That being said, what an awful play by Raji to get picked off down by 2 runs.  Down by 1 would be bad, but down by 2 is a firing offense as you mean nothing.

We only need 13 more saves for Rivera to get to 50!