Today’s game was another tough game to watch, redeemed by the win. I’d be really mad about this game if I wasn’t happy about the win. The starting pitching on both sides was toiling, and they went through so many pitchers it was hard to keep paying attention. Meche’s delivery adjustment didn’t do much for him, but some of those pitches had wicked movement on them. I’m still worried about having him change his mechanics at all, but I have faith that Price knows what he’s doing.
But I didn’t post to tell you that… I’ve got an idea I’m going to toss out: when the M’s are on the road, would people be interested in informal USSM outings, where we all get together to turn a local bar into the smartest place to watch the game in the Seattle metro area? It’d probably only be once/series, if that, and probably on the Eastside, since I’m lazy and don’t want to cross the water anywhere near rush hour on weekdays… but we might work something out on weekends, or… who knows, it’s just an idea I had. If this is even remotely interesting, drop us a line.
Bob Finnigan on the Kevin Jarvis move has some fun stuff:
Howard Lincoln making the call to Bavasi to have Jarvis canned:
No sooner had Adrian Gonzalez’s long ball hit the right-field seats than Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln was on the phone to general manager Bill Bavasi.
“I knew those guys would be calling me, at one point or another,” said Lincoln, who is traveling with the team in the first of his four planned trips this season. “I felt I might as well save them the trouble.”
Also, we hear “The front office imposed the decision on manager Bob Melvin. ” Their intention, Finnigan reports, was to see if they could milk something out of him (looking back to his past success at San Diego, which … and I’m just looking at his lines here… what success in San Diego was that? His 12-11 2001 season, with the 4.79 ERA?), or to include him and his salary as part of a deal with another club (“Here, we’ll throw in Leone, Zapp, and a set of steak knives… but no take-backs”).
We (me, particularly) mock Finnigan frequently for being the unofficial mouthpiece for management, but it’s times like this when having that insight into what’s going on there is amusing and educational.
I do want to point out though that the Mariners aren’t eating $5m all of a sudden, as if a bill will show up requiring them to hand over the Kazu money they never spent. They ate that when they brought his contract over. That money was going to get paid to Jarvis if he stunk it up and if he was a servicable part. It was much more likely to be the former, but we shouldn’t forget that they took on his contract in the Cirillo trade, and it was a sunk cost then as it is a sunk cost now. If this is used as an excuse at any point this season for not making moves, or taking on salary, or raising beer prices, everyone should know this — this is not an added expense in any way. It’s an admission that they’re not going to get any value out of an investment they already made.