Small ball didn’t ignite
jack
—–
squat
Can anyone seriously argue that Winn wouldn’t have got on without Ichiro! at third, or that Edgar wouldn’t have hit a double without men on 1st/3rd?
I know that to some extent, every situation is unique and we can’t re-fill the cup to get a better reading of tea leaves, but this isn’t a case where Ichiro! scored from third on a short single and that was it for the inning — given the same pitches, we’d have seen the same events unravel, and there’s no reason Kershner’s changing his pitches based on these situations.
I’d like to point out too that Ron Fairly continually gets this wrong:
The “Butcher Boy” is when you show bunt and then chop the ball past the charging infielder.
Beating the ball straight down into the dirt and trying to get on base before anyone can field it on the bounce is the “Baltimore Chop”.
You can look it up.
Ichiro’s amazing May, which may (or may not) be deserving of an AL Player of the Month award: .400/.436/.496. Huzzah. And look, he just stole a base. Mmmm… speedy contact-hitting Ichiro, where were you in April?
On tonight’s broadcast: it cracks me up when junk stats are used to try and show some point or other. The Mariners are 5 of their last eight? HOLY MACKERAL IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER!!!
What about their last ten. Oh, 5 for 10. That’s not nearly as impressive. And these stats about the Mariners hitting better in their wins? Well golly gee, if only they could hit that well all the time. I’m going to go out here on a limb:
Teams that score more runs than their opponents win games.
I know, you’re going to tell me the stats don’t support this, but how about this season: every game the Mariners have outscored their opponents — be it through good pitching, hitting, or just holding on through a slugfest — they’ve won. Every game.
New GM Watch
June 1st edition
a brief comparison of GMs in their freshman year at the helm of their teams
—
Dan O’Brien, Reds, 30-21, .588 [last year .426]
Paul DePodesta, Dodgers, 27-22, .551 [last year .525]
Bill Bavasi, Mariners, 19-31, .380 [last year .574]
In the spirit of the Giants 11-game winning streak:
The Mariners could win another 10 in a row right now and they’d be 29-31. If their divisional opponents all went .500 during that period, the Mariners would still be 6 games off the division lead, and 2 games out of third place.
In other news, MLB.com (link) has an article pimping Mariners for the All-Star game (other teams get this too, it’s nothing special).
“Not that Ichiro isn’t having an All-Star caliber season — he’s batting well over .300 — but the Mariners find themselves in last place in 2004 after leading the division at the break in each of the previous three seasons.”
Uh, I know that the definition of an All Star is personal and so forth, but Ichiro’s way down in the RF positional rankings, and overall… he’s probably below the tenth-best outfielder in total value this year. I like Ichiro, as I’m sure anyone who has read us here knows, but I have to admit he’s just not that great.