Game 82, Rockies at Mariners
RHP Byung-Hyun Kim vs. RHP Joel Pineiro, 7:05pm.
Kim has turned his career around after a disasterous 2004 season in which he posted a 6+ ERA (albeit in limited action). This year he’s at 4.31 through 11 starts, and despite pitching half his games at Coors Field, has only surrendered five home runs on the year. He’s also on something of a roll right now, having allowed no runs and nine hits in 13 innings over his past two starts.
Then you have Pineiro. It’s been a month since his last good start, when he held Kansas City to one run over seven innings. In the four starts since then, he’s allowed 31 hits, ten walks, and has fanned just 12 hitters in 21.2 innings, all good for a Boeing-friendly 7.47 ERA. Ugh.
Yes, the thread is up a bit early. Please play nice.
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You’d think it was 2001.
Ah…I haven’t had this much fun watching M’s baseball in a long time.
Indeed, a great game to watch.
I gotta watch the post-game to see if anyone will be able to bring themselves to praise Joel for “keeping us in the game”.
You never know — with baseball players anything’s possible.
Tonight proves that teams can sometimes win in spite of their Managers.
Ichiro’s OPS for July is 3.333
I think he’s going to sustain that.
Wooooooooooo.
I love this team. Baseball is fun again.
Joe… Post #30
Your good 🙂
One game out of first!
I think someone needs to create a new line of delicious desserts–
the Ichiro Bombe, the Sexson Bombe, the Joh Bombe….
#454 – otoh, Krueger nailed Joel to the wall pretty good. No sugar coating there.
“Joe-L will be good next time.”
–Mike Hargrove
“Joe-L will be good next time.â€Â
–Mike Hargrove
In a Red Sox uni…facing us.
463: Nah, Epstien only likes cheap bad pitchers.
My god, we are 1 game out!!!
ONE GAME!!!!
UNO!
I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I believe the SODO MOJO is back/making a comeback.
Let the Mariner Mania begin.
It’s pretty ridiculous. This time tomorrow night the M’s could be sharing first place with the A’s. First place!
And for all the party poopers, we know all the caveats, just keep ’em to yourself for tonight.
What a great game, and an amazing night to be at the ballpark. Took a friend from Los Angeles who was visiting for the first time and couldn’t have asked for a better evening to show off our fair city. She bought a “VOTE FOR ICHIRO” button about ten minutes before Ichi’s homer gave us the lead.
But like everyone else, I’m absolutely puzzled by Hargrove’s decisions in the game, from sending Yuniesky with nobody out and Ichiro up, letting Sherrill finish the eighth instead of Soriano (even if it worked), not pinch hitting for Reed with the bags loaded, etc. And of course this happens on seemingly a nightly basis.
Do Grover and Bavasi even talk about these things after the game? Does Bavasi call Grover into his office and say, “Look, I want to keep my job. Do you? Are you even remotely aware of why that one move was so stupid?” etc.? Can Bavasi really have confidence in Grover? If so, they both should go. I’m not at all saying fire Grover now while the team is riding high, even though I don’t think he deserves the job, but I really just hope Bavasi is smarter than Grover and biding his time to make a switch.
That said, awesome win. Go M’s.
I actually take back my 8th inning pitching criticism. You want Sherrill pitching to Helton in that situation and there’s another lefty right ahead of him. Mateo’s pitching well enough and you don’t want to waste Soriano on just one batter. And I like to imagine that Hargrove knew they’d pinch hit for Sullivan and didn’t care because he knew Sherrill could handle it. So, I’ll leave my criticism for the lack of pinch hitting and for allowing Joel to take the mound in the 3rd. Either way, thrilling game, even just to follow on the internet. This is exciting.
[Pineiro]
I can see the 8th, but I’ll add giving Yuniesky the green light with Ichiro on deck and nobody out to your list of boneheaded moves.
Back from the game. Whoo hoo, I’m starting to have confidence in these guys. The players, that is. Hargrove not so much. I figure he thought about pinch hitting, looked over at Perez, thought he was Petagine, and said to himself “No, he pinch hit a few days ago – probably still tired.”
Two things to report from the game. First, Joel got boo’d hard. Very hard. Safeco was pretty full, and when he started giving up runs, the fans started booing loud. When Grover finally pulled him, the boos were the loudest I’ve heard in Safeco since A-Rod’s first return. I take back what I said yesterday. I think the fans are through with Pineiro.
Second, remember back when Eddie was the closer? He’d usually start the game in the dugout or the clubhouse, and meander out to the bullpen, oh, about the fifth or sixth inning, since, y’know, as the closer and all he wouldn’t be needed before the eighth or ninth. Well, he ain’t the closer now, but he still started off in the clubhouse and didn’t make his way out to the pen until the fifth tonight. Sigh.
Oh, and it was Ibanez 1, Angry Bees 0 tonight. Great way to start the game!
I agree on the Sherrill comments. That’s his job, and he had to face the first righty since the Rox put him in as a pinch hitter, so you can’t do much about that.
However, as I stated at the time, Soriano should have been used when Mateo was put in (relieving Woods). Of course, it’s not a “hold situation” and we know Grover…
Mateo did well tonight, but quite honestly, we all know that overall he will be a very mediocre pitcher. When you’re in a one-run game (it was 7-6 at the time), with sacks full of Rox, you have to go with your best. Soriano was fully rested. There was no excuse for keeping him out.
Good job Mateo, poor management (good/lucky escape) Groudini.
Good job M’s, pathetic AA BP quality job Piñeiro.
Whoa… Blaine Newnham of the Times, of all sportswriters, is advocating the merits of a young team. No knock on Newnham, it’s just surprising that a generalist sportswriter in his 60’s can see what many of his younger cohorts are blind to when they cart out the same old tired – you win with veterans – cliche.
Short philosophical digression on winning: it can be seen how — for an example — in the World Cup, France suddenly discovered how to be a team against Spain. You could tell they couldn’t really believe it themselves. But then, in the first 20 minutes of the match against Brazil, whatever they’d found, they confirmed, and from then out were able to motor on inner confidence. The Portugese were rooting for France. But now, I’ll bet they’re having second thoughts. When a team comes together like that, they become unbeatable…
Teams come together when they are not only winning, but internalizing what’s making that happen.
I’m hoping that’s what’s happening here. All other considerations aside, what it’ll come down to is for them to be able to take that on the road.
Go M’s!
per Drayer, Hargrove had decided before the game that Perez wasn’t playing — apparently between hearing the news on friday he rented a car, drove his family home to Cleveland from Cincy, slept 2 hours & caught the flight to Seattle around 6 am…
#471– Guardado goes out late every game as he is in the clubhouse finishing the treatments he still does for the rotator cuff injury until about the 3d or 4th inning– he has a series of exercises & stretches pre-game, goes back in during the 2nd & does them again, & then does more after the game.
The way Baek is pitching now you can be very confident that he would be better than Piniero. Same could be said about Cruceta.
Baek’s striking out 5.42 guys per 9 innings pitched in AAA, and his lifetime numbers are around 6. Ryan Franklin has better WHIP, BB/9 and K/9 numbers during his time in Tacoma…and we saw what his true ability was once we got past 2003.
In other words: Baek’s 5.52 ERA in Seattle in 2004 was probably close to his real level of talent and ability, were we to promote him and stick him in the rotation. As such, he’s not much of an improvement on Piñeiro (ERA as of today: 5.88).
Cruceta, on the other hand, has better peripheral stats all around (ovverall minor league numbers), as well as this year. His ERA is significantly higher because Baek’s had more unearned runs scored while on the mound; if you look at runs alone, Baek’s allowed 37 in 86.1 IP, Cruceta’s allowed 39 in 88.1, very, VERY close to identical.
Given that, I take the guy who’s missing more bats. Baek has almost no margin for error for success in the majors, because in the majors he’s going to have a K rate at aroundf 4-5 to 5 per 9 innigs, the floor where you get hit out of the majors; basically, he has to be lucky and have an Elmer Dessens/Ryan Franklin kind of fluke run where he’s carried by his defense and “at’em balls”. The thing is that ANY pitcher can have that kind of run- including Francisco Cruceta. The difference is that Cruceta might strike enough guys out that he can stay around for a while.
That being said, I’m not sold that either of these guys are much of an answer, but if you’re going to make a move with Piñeiro that’s strictly internal, Cruceta’s your guy.