Lookout Landing
I’ve plugged Jeff Sullivan’s blog several times before, but it bears repeating: if you’re not reading his stuff, you’re really missing out. He used mlb.TV and screen captures to break down Aaron Sele’s release point change from his starts against the Yankees and the Padres, and he’s doing great work all around over there.
Seriously, go check it out. It’s good stuff.
Doyle update
After being drilled in the hand by Andy Pratt yesterday, X-rays came back and he’s okay. He’ll be “day-to-day” for a bit, but the important thing is nothing broke.
Doyle’s line so far: .404/.484/.635. 2 doubles, 5 HR, 16 walks, 19 strikouts. No steals.
Game 43, Padres at Mariners
My turn to just get home and toss up a game thread. I’m exhausted, though, so I’m going to bed. Be nice to eath other in the thread.
Game 42, Padres at Mariners
Just got back from giving a speech at my hometown university — just in time to free the mind from creeping ivy coverage — and it’s time for the game. Brian Lawrence goes for the Padres, Gil Meche for the M’s.
Lawrence has been had on the road and Meche has been bad on the road, so the runs could flow. Stay out of the big inning, Gil.
TV FSN, Radio KOMO.
Game 41, Padres at Mariners
RHP Peavy v RHP Franklin, 7:05, FSN. Tonight is “Mariners Collector Train Night — Moose Caboose” which reminds me of an off-color Mariner Moose story.
Ahh, the historic rivalry of the Mariners and Padres (btw, note that this exact matchup, Peavy v Franklin, is a repeat of a game I preview in that two-year old post).
Even the teams that looked like they were going to be easier in this May schedule turned out to be tough: Baltimore, the Padres are both playing well, and only Tampa Bay remains as an opponent we can look down on.
The M’s moved LHP Bobby Madritsch to the 60-day DL to make room on the 40-man roster for C Pat Borders, sending C Rene Rivera down.
I saw the new Star Wars movie today, and I bring this up not to spark a long off-topic thread (Has Mr. Corcoran seen the movie? Does he have anything to say about movie theaters in Idaho?). Instead, I felt something familiar today. I enjoyed the first trilogy in my younger years, and saw Lucas loot and pillage his own work pointlessly, disappointing with poor decisions and two deeply flawed movies.
Today I didn’t expect to like the movie. And yet I was swayed. It is flawed, as any good review will tell you, but I liked it a lot and for the first time, felt like I’d seen something at least up to Return of the Jedi standards.
This is a lot like I think Mariner fandom is like for us right now. Success and enjoyment of the boom years, even as we might not have been wholly satisfied with what we got from so much potential. After that, tremendous disappointment (Phantom Menace as 2004 season) and now, bafflement (can they be this bad twice in a row?). But even as we contemplate things like “is this season salvagable or should the team punt?” we can enjoy a well-played game that the Mariners come out on top.
Normally, I’d play this into a Doyle reference, but instead — is Borders a Vader character? Is there any other way to explain his ability to play catcher this long than to suppose that every season he has a knee, or an elbow, or a shin, replaced with a cybernetic replacement?
D’Angelo Jimenez
From MLB.com:
Designated INF D’Angelo Jimenez for assignment and purchased the contract of INF Luis Lopez from Triple-A Louisville.
Jimenez plays 2b/SS, mostly 2b, and would be fine pickup to stick in Valdez’s place and try and patch the lineup. He’s 27 and his last two years:
2003, White Sox: .255 .332 .410
2003, Reds: .290 .365 .421
2004, Reds: .270 .364 .394 in a full-season.
That’s not earth-shaking, certainly, but I’d take a shortstop who could give the team 100 more points of on-base percentage — for free.
Draft Update
Big news out of Arizona this morning, thanks to Baseball America. The Diamondbacks have eliminated all but four players from contention for the #1 pick in the draft: Justin Upton, Luke Hochevar, Mike Pelfrey, and Craig Hansen, a college reliever.
So, barring an extreme change, the D’Backs won’t be selecting Alex Gordon number one overall. This makes sense considering their organization’s depth at his potential positions, but it does go away from the “best available talent” philosophy. It’s hard to argue that you’d rather have Craig Hansen than Alex Gordon, all things being equal.
But that’s not for us to quibble. So, essentially, the M’s simply have to hope that the Royals pass on Gordon, and they’ll get a shot at selecting the player I believe is the best in the draft.
Week #8 in Review
It’s May 20. And we all know what that means. In 325 A.D. the first ecumenical gathering of bishops met in Nicaea to hammer out the particulars of orthodox Christianity. In 1861, the commonwealth of Kentucky proclaimed its neutrality in the Civil War. In 1971, the world found out What’s Going On, thanks to Marvin Gaye. And in 2005, by 5 p.m. my semester will be complete. Yeah, and it’s also time to take a look at what happened to the Mariners last week.
And its still not too late to send Busta Rhymes a birthday card.
Vital Signs
On this Friday we find the Mariners 16-24. Rumor has it “one” is the lonliest number, and now the Mariners aren’t quite so lonely in last place. The Mariners now share that distinction with the Oakland Athletics. They dropped one more game back of the Angels and now stand 7 games out of first place. Please don’t jump ship yet. We’ve only played two months of baseball here. The Mariners have been outscored 195-173, and that’s not too shabby at all when you consider the Angels’ run differential of +4 and the Rangers of +3. And those two teams have yet to play New York and Boston. According to third-order-wins, the Mariners are still underperforming by a little less than a game. They should be in second place and the M’s, Angels and A’s are all dead even. Things really aren’t as bad as they may seem.
The offense ranks 10th in the league in runs scored (173), same as last week. Their 29 home runs rank 13th in the league. Their 116 walks rank 10th. The team is hitting .250/.312/.376. Think a lineup of Endy Chavez times nine. Their OBP is 11th in the league, and the SLG is 13th (the Angels, Mariners and A’s occupy the three bottom slots).
Their runs allowed is 9th in the league. The defense is turning 70.6% of balls-in-play into outs, slipping to fifth in the league.
Random stat of the week: Home runs from Seattle first basemen in 2004: 15 in 600 AB. In 2005: 11 in 145 AB.
Break out the bubbly. The Mariners won their first series of the season since a three-game sweep of the Royals in the second week of the season. And they did it against the reigning champ Red Sox. In baseball’s version of reincarnation this week, the Mariners came back with some better karma and split the week against New York and Boston. This has to be seen as a moral victory. Perhaps if the Mariners could play these teams yet again this week, we’d see more improvement. The Mariners nearly matched these offensive powerhouses, being outscored by just 3 runs (35-32), despite being out-homered 10-6 and out-walked 30-14. The Mariners did slug twice as many doubles as their opponents (16-8).
That 14-run outburst on Friday certainly helped.
Heroes
Raul Ibanez led the team in batting .348/.400/.739 with 3 doubles and a pair of home runs. with 15 total bases.
Saturday against Boston, Ryan Franklin stymied the Sox to just a 1 run, walked 3, but struck out 9 in 5.1 innings. He tossed 110 pitches and didn’t finish the sixth inning, so this isn’t a Cy Young week or anything. Still, Franklin struck out twice as many batters as he had in any other outing this year. The M’s failed to offer much run support and the bullpen imploded, as the the M’s lost the game.
Not-so-much Heroes
Wilson Valdez went 2-for-12 (.167/.231/.250).
Friday against Boston, Joel Pineiro lasted just 3.2 innings. It took him 81 pitches to collect 11 outs, and just half of those pitches he threw for strikes. He walked 4, allowed 2 home runs and struck out none. The Mariners scored 14 runs and won the game. Go figure. He was sent to Tacoma.
Coming to a Stadium Near You
The homestand continues with interleague play beginning this weekend (already?). Like the Christmas decorations at Wal-Mart, interleague play seems to come earlier and earlier each year. Maybe it’s just me. The Mariners host “archrivals” San Diego Friday-Saturday-Sunday. The Padres currently lead the NL West, ranked 3rd in the National League in runs scored and 9th in runs allowed.
The Mariners get a Monday day-off while they travel to the east coast for a three-game set against the heavy slugging Orioles. The O’s are 2nd in the league in runs scored and 6th in the league in runs allowed. Just because the Yankees and Red Sox are leaving town doesn’t mean a reprieve from the heavy-hitting offenses.
Return of Borders
From MLB.com transactions:
Acquired C Pat Borders from Milwaukee affiliate Triple-A Nashville in exchange for cash considerations and assigned him to Triple-A Tacoma.
This has been hashed out in a previous thread, but to sum up:
– Wow, it’s come down to the return of Borders
– He comes cheap
– He knows the team, the team knows him, and if they decide to push Wiki when he returns, Borders will head down to Tacoma without throwing a tantrum
– Once he’s up with the club, this will free Rene to return to catching regularly and hopefully developing as a prospect (whether that’ll work…)
Pat Borders has done everything in baseball — he’s won a World Series and been on teams that fell apart on the way there, he’s hung out in the minors, and he’s been catching professionally since 1982 (Medicine Hat, Pioneer League). Many of our fine readers here aren’t even that old. I have a lot of respect for Borders, and I hope that comes through. We can acknowledge that we wish the Mariners had other options (say, that they didn’t have Wiki on the roster and had been free to stash a Mike Rose-type guy in Tacoma) and still tip our caps. May Borders instill some of his work ethic and hard-worn experience into Olivo.
Tonight’s baseball fix
May I recommend Nashville at Tacoma, 6:05 start? Featuring the fine play-by-play of Mike Curto and available on the internet.
Otherise, your only game is Arizona @ Houston if you’ve got MLB Extra Innings. The Bob Melvin-led Diamondbacks are 24-17 and got to Clemens early.