Doug Mientkiewicz Is Trying to Take My Credit
June 21, 2009 at 8:49 am | Posted in Doug Mientkiewicz, Russell Martin | 7 CommentsAs you heard last night, Russell Martin finally broke out of his extended power drought by launching a homer off of Jered Weaver in a 6-4 Dodger victory. To what does Martin attribute his bomb? Changing his batting stance after seeing Doug Mientkiewicz.
After holding a Thursday news conference to announce his involvement with the ONE DROP Foundation, while en route to the clubhouse, Russell Martin walked past injured infielder Doug Mientkiewicz, who was practicing his swing, which included the leg lift he uses to keep his body weight back.
“And that’s when it hit me,” Martin said Saturday night. “That’s it. That’s what I wasn’t doing. This is it.”
Martin stopped cold. He started talking to Mientkiewicz, mimicked his leg lift, took it into batting practice, then that night’s game.
On Saturday night, the leg lift launched Martin on his first home run trot of the year, first three-hit game in nearly a month and first RBI in three weeks.
(Holy hell, first RBI in three weeks? I hadn’t even realized that, just brutal). Now sure, I suppose it’s possible that a batting tip from a renowned power source such as Doug Mientkiewicz, what with his 66 homers in 12 MLB seasons, could be what was responsible for Martin’s homer. It could also be that Martin has had good success against Weaver (1.091 career OPS against him now), or it could be that Weaver simply grooved an 89 MPH fastball down the inner part of the plate. But see, none of that is as important as the post I wrote the other day detailing his problems, against fastballs in particular, because that put Martin on the fast track to getting the MSTI bump.
It was just last month where I detailed James Loney’s issues with pop-ups, and what did we get to post the very next day?
A little over 24 hours ago, I wrote an entire post about how disappointing James Loney has been this year, including how he hadn’t homered in seemingly a decade.
Since then? Two games, two homers. Oh, sure, some would like to kill my buzz by pointing out the fact that yesterday’s homer probably wouldn’t have made it out of any other park in the bigs, but still: Loney’s riding the MSTI bump. And he might still get another at-bat in this game!
Russell Martin, I’m looking in your direction. You’re next.
See? It’s foolproof! Stay tuned for later this week when I try to teach Clayton Kershaw how to last more than 5 innings in a game.
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Great job. Now it’s time to write an article about moving Kemp up in the order!
Comment by Jimishelter — June 21, 2009 #
kershaw riding the msti bump!!
Comment by montana — June 21, 2009 #
I think Kemp is destined for leadoff again. That bunt he laid down tonight was impressive. He’s the fastest guy on the team, he’s aggressive and most importantly, he gets on base. During the ESPN broadcast tonight — the trio of Joe Morgan, John Miller and Steve Phillips were trying to hypothesize what happens when Manny returns (“How can you take Pierre out of this lineup?” and “Furcal is not hitting good enough to bat leadoff”) all which leads me to believe Kemp goes to leadoff once Manny gets back. I think Torre will attempt to hit Raffy at the leadoff for about a week… and then we’ll see the change. Obviously, you would think Pierre has got to be trade bait at this point. But, I’m a little nervous that getting an ace this year to make the run might cost us Ethier — and that Ned might try to pull it off because Juan is playing like a man possessed.
Comment by Vegas Blue — June 21, 2009 #
That idiot Steve Phillips actually suggested sitting Ethier and moving Kemp to RF. Forget the fact that Kemp is a superior defender in CF to Pierre. Forget that Manny spent the first half of his career playing RF (why do so many people forget that this guy was headed to the Hall long before Fenway) and still has a very good arm. Even Joe Morgan’s suggestion was to trade Pierre to get him time elsewhere.
I actually understand sitting Dre against very tough lefties in favor of Pierre, who is actually better against southpaws, and I would keep Kemp in CF and shift Manny in those games. Trading Etheir, however, is not close to an option. I would much rather have a superior offense with a rotation consisting of an ace, 3 number 3s and a 4/5 and to waste Ethier trying to pick up an Oswalt or someone else.
Comment by Alireza — June 22, 2009 #
4 – Did Phillips really say that? I must have missed that. Ugh, what a fool. That’s almost as bad as Miller saying “OPS”, but rhyming it with “cops” as opposed to “O-P-S”.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness — June 22, 2009 #
Yes that moron really said it, and it is worse than Miller’s syllabic pronunciation of OPS because it would hurt the team and is a key example of why Steve Phillips is not a GM anymore.
Actually, it actually makes me happy to have Ned Colletti, which is shocking. At least McCheap wouldn’t let such a stupid thing happen (I hope).
Comment by Alireza — June 22, 2009 #
[...] R/R 6-0 195 01/27/78 21 Nick Green R/R 6-0 180 09/10/78 76 John Lindsey R/R 6-1 245 01/30/77 13 Doug Mientkiewicz L/R 6-0 210 06/19/74 72 Russ Mitchell R/R 6-1 182 02/15/85 63 Argenis Reyes S/R 5-10 165 [...]
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