…that’s what they called the stone wall at Cemetery Ridge. The South never made it that far north again.
Is that what we’ve got here?
The big man is off to an insane start. Is this as good as it gets?
Gotta admit, we got a little man-crush thing going for Daniel Vogelbach over here at playininthedirt. Sure, we poked a little fun at Jerry Dipoto for mistaking the big fella for Kyle Schwarber. Yeah, we lamented giving up the pitcher who saved Game Seven for a guy who came here and batted .083. That’s no typo. .083.
But after four awesome days (big props and gratitude for good buddy and fellow Mariner fan David King) in Arizona watching a confident, nimble and still-not-so-svelte Vogey put up a streak the likes of which we’ve never seen before — four doubles, one homer, two walks in just nine plate appearances — we gotta show some love for the big man. Yes, nimble. The man can dance on the basepaths.
Side note, our attention got diverted to Vogelbach not only by his amazing performance but by the lack of response from the Ms’ front office, and by Mike Marjama himself, to our request for an interview with Mike Marjama.
Yes, the Ms denied playininthedirt.com a press pass.
All we wanted was to ask if Marjama’s September callup felt like a Moonlight Graham moment last fall. His first game in the majors consisted of half an inning at catcher, game over, no at-bats, then he sat in the dugout for six days wondering (we suppose) if the bus to AAA Tacoma was idling outside the locker room waiting to dump him back in the minors for good.
Marjama hung in last fall to play in four more games, going 3 for 9 and clubbing a homer in his last at-bat of the season.
This spring, we never got the chance to ask that burning question, and we respect that, I mean the man is making the most of his shot to be the regular backup to Mike Zunino. In fact he’s working so hard his Twitter feed has gone dark for over a week. Turns out he’s been saving energy for this moment:
But we digress. Back to Daniel Vogelbach and his unlikely spring.
We could throw out a zillion stats. But how about nibbling on this: as a major-leaguer, in-season, he’s a lifetime .175 hitter. But this spring, his batting average, just his batting average alone, is higher (.526) than his career in-season OPS (.450).
Hard to believe he’ll keep anything like that going on. Spring training means nothing, right? Which is great news for the Ms, who stand at 6-9 after losing four straight while Dave and I enjoyed beer and Giant Wieners in Arizona this week.
But you really have to get behind this kid. There’s a battle for that Opening Day first base spot, and Ryon Healy’s injury combined with Mike Ford’s weak hitting just make it look like young Daniel Vogelbach has a pretty strong shot.
Maybe it’s his relaxed attitude this spring. There’s just something about a guy who doesn’t mind dressing up for rookie hazing night as Chris Farley’s Chippendale dancer:
All that said, we’re still left to wonder. Is this the high water mark?
Keep charging, Daniel.
One Reply to “High Water Mark?”