A few quick points before I head off to bed:
1. Jeff Cirillo went 4-for-4 with a walk. I still don’t think he’s going to hit much this year, but hey, you have to at least point it out when he does well.
2. You (Derek) mentioned earlier that you weren’t sold on Winn. I certainly wasn’t all that excited when he joined the team, but so far I like what I’m seeing. He’s been very patient thus far, with eight walks in eleven games. Small sample, sure, but it looks like he’s taking a good approach at the plate. If he keeps walking like this, good things (i.e., a .380 OBP) will happen.
3. Meche. Good: 6 K’s in 5 2/3, so the stuff is certainly there at times. After A-Rod’s homer in the first he got Raffy Palmeiro on a very nice 2-2 curve, after falling behind in the count 2-0. I also liked how he worked to Juan Gonzalez in the first, hitting the corners, even though it resulted in a walk. Bad: 4 walks in those same 5 2/3, and he fell behind quite a few hitters, particularly in the first three innings. He got better as the game went on, though. Getting ahead of hitters I mean. I would post the numbers but for some reason ESPN’s pitch-by-pitch gamelog cuts out two batters into the top of the sixth inning at the moment, and I don’t want to post ’em if they aren’t complete.
‘Night all.
Carl “No Dinosaur” Everett takes the Golden Expletive for the most clearly audible swearword televised from Safeco so far this season, when Meche fooled him and he yelled “F—!” before taking his well-deserved walk to the dugout. Say what you will about Meche’s start tonight, but I feel that any start that involves an Everett plunking can’t be a complete failure.
Meche reminds me a lot of the injured-but-not-yet-discovered-to-be-injured Meche: some of his pitches were great, with wicked movement. And then some of them were awful, the Todd Van Poppel special: flat fastball, letter-high.
I don’t know if that’s a result of the surgery and rehab, or what. So far this year I haven’t seen a lot of evidence he shouldn’t be in AAA until it’s clear he’s ready for the majors. The problem, though, is that if you’re already optimistic, you point to the good stuff and write off the others as jitters, or something he’ll get over as he gets stronger during the season.
Not to be outdone, I had some rather interesting fans sitting behind me Friday night as well. We began with a run of he-said, she-said allegations about how ballplayers are all such evil people. College-age woman: “I was in line at Hagen’s yesterday, and this girl started telling me about how Bret Boone was hitting on her. That’s so awful… he’s married!” Her mother followed up with: “When I worked at such-and-such, I knew a woman who was Ken Griffey Jr.’s mistress.” Great, now so far we’ve got a random allegation and an unsubstantiated rumor. To complete the trifecta, the dad chimes in with: “These ballplayers aren’t exactly known for their nice behavior or being good people, you know.” Say what you will about the M’s on the field, but off the field they’re pretty good guys, with Dan Wilson and Jamie Moyer heading the list.
Later, we dealt with the inevitable blather about how Alex Rodriguez was so evil for taking all the money the Rangers offered him. It’s all so trite, so predictable.
Oh, and Meche doesn’t look very good so far tonight, either.
This week’s Overhead at the Ballpark:
“When you see a little kid at the supermarket or something and they’re wearing mismatched clothes, you have to just love them because it means their parents are letting them pick out their own outfits. I had this girl in my kindergarten and she wore her braids in this really weird way (gesturing) because she liked it, and her clothes… they obviously didn’t have a lot of money, but wouldn’t you know it, before the end of the year, she was my favorite out of the whole class.”
— extremely drunk kindergarten teacher who would later spill beer all over my wife and me.
The Mariners line-up Thursday had combined to hit all of one home run this year. This is little ball at its purest form, and it doesn’t lend itself to scoring many runs.
I don’t mind pushing Meche back a few days. With his history, extra rest can’t be a bad thing. Besides, the less starts he makes in the majors this year, the better our chances of competing in the west.
Is it too early to start lamenting the loss of Gerald Perry? This team is hacking enough to make Wily Mo Pena proud.
I was looking forward to seeing Gil Meche get shelled tonight, but it appears they’re skipping back to the top of the rotation instead. That means everyone’s favorite game, “Which Freddy Garcia will show up tonight?” Speaking of “tonight,” I notice the M’s are still undefeated during day games but winless at night. So much for that glare during day games, eh?
Also, Safeco has a new, larger beer size for $7.75 premium, $7.25 domestic. Being the only beer drinker of the group here, I think it’s important for me to publish news like this.
I went to the game last night and I was struck by just how awful the Mariners hitting is. It’s not that they’re not hitting home runs, or quality singles, they’re just popping up, grounding weakly to second, and the hits they get are largely the Blooomquist dying quails.
Seriously, what do we have for hitters?
Davis – enh
Wilson – bad
Olerud – good
Boone – swing from heels
Guillen – enh
Cirillo – continued awfulness with chance of helplessness
Ichiro – not quite as electric as once was, but that’s another topic
Cameron – I love Cammy, but he’s killing me at the plate
Winn – hot start but I’m not buying it
Edgar – gold
And then there’s the first not-awful bench ever, but we’re going to be running a regular lineup out there where maybe you can put two, three guys together who even have a hitting approach, but then it’s
Ichiro – speed leading off and decent OBP
some dude
Edgar
Olerud
?
I don’t see this team scoring a lot of runs, and that may mean Melvin tries to squeeze a lot out of his bench, which’ll be interesting in itself.