Game 2, Athletics at Mariners
Joe Blanton versus Jarrod “The Leader” Washburn. 7:05, KSTW.
Our first Felix Day a rousing success, this is where the season’s long slog starts: the rest of the rotation. I was listening to a spring training report where Peter Gammons talked about the Mariners and could not name a pitcher past Washburn. When Gammons can’t remember who your 3-5 guys are off the top of his head, that’s trouble.
This is why we play the games, though. The Mariners hope that they’re going to get great performances that most reasonable analyst think aren’t going to happen, but we don’t know if Horacio Ramirez will win 20 games pitching in Safeco until he does, or doesn’t. Washburn could be this season’s surprise ace — more unlikely candidates have done better in baseball’s history.
I love Opening Day in part because of that feeling, being able to pull the wool over my own eyes a little and not think at all about what the standings will be like after the last game ends. Knowing that the season is long, and winding, and even if I could nail the win total, there’s no way any prediction about how the experience will be could approach accuracy.
More than anything, I want the Mariners to get into and win in the playoffs. I want to see a championship baseball team. Right now, they’re in first place. They could go wire to wire, it’s happened before.
A’s field
C Kendall
LF Stewart
CF Bradley
DH Piazza
3B Chavez
1B Swisher
RF Kielty
SS Crosby
2B Ellis
M’s go
CF Ichiro!
3B Beltre
DH Vidro
LF Ibanez
1B Sexson
RF Guillen
C Johjima
SS Betancourt
2B Lopez
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That’s what I’m talking about D. We’re going wire to wire. M’s are going to be div. champs in ’07 baby. Yeah!
Right on Derek. Keep those positive vibes coming.
It was great to meet you briefly at the Saloon yesterday. I hope you’re feeling better. Certainly watching Felix deal must have been an effective tonic.
I hope the crowd has a little more energy tonight. Last night was close to a full house and there was a little buzz, but it’s almost like everyone’s waiting for something bad to happen. I guess it will take more than one win to build back confidence.
I’m off to watch the hated Halos of Orange County battle the slightly less hated Rangers. I will be watching the scoreboard too. Go Mariners!
Well put. I am sure that at some point, reality will set in(hell, maybe tonight). Right now I just want to enjoy the afterglow of the game last yesterday and worry about the rest of the season when we have to start worrying about it.
For all we know the M’s will run wire to wire, there have been suprise teams before. Hell Washedup has to have some good games. Here’s to the M’s making it 2-0.
Refuse to Lose, Viva la Mojo, SODO Mojo, YOu gotta love these guys!! Anyone pumped up yet?!! LOL
I love the optimism. Go M’s!
Let’s tie our ’06 win total vs. the A’s tonight.
Blanton is going down.
And break it with a sweep on Wednesday.
Is there a major sport with more reason for everyone to be optimistic at the beginning of the season? There are so many little “maybes” in baseball… a couple of pitchers catching fire and having career years at the same time, a hitter or two coming into their prime at the right time, a division rival succumbing to a series of injuries… there just seems to be a better chance for strange events and happenstance in baseball than in many other sports.
The M’s are going to take this down. I’m excited.
The M’s are finally going to take down Blanton! And it’s on local TV! I’m really excited!
Also, unlike in other sports any team who can make the playoffs, has a real chance to win it all. We won all of five fewer games as the World Champion Cardinals last year.
It’s true that the M’s could be competitive, but that says more about the weakness of the division than the strength of the M’s. This just isn’t a very impressive team. And we don’t know if Hernandez’ arm can hold up over a full season as the #1 starter.
Oh come on, you’re missing the point.
And the West isn’t exactly the strongest division in the book. There’s reason for hope.
I want to be optimistic now. There is likely to be plenty of reasons to be pesimistic later.
No Hitter for Washburn tonight.. Ok thats a long shot but it hasnt happened since Bosio
The west isn’t exactly strong, either. We have a legit chance. Believe it.
okay negitive nancy
All we need is a playoff spot, and we could possibly be the Cardinals of 07.
If Mike Hargrove g uides us to the World Series, I propose a contract extension.
It was a lot more fun when the didn’t though (’95).
Lets recapture some of the magic from ’95 with our roel players. Bring back Strange,Wolcott,Coleman,Cora,Amiral
What a shocking lineup!
Kielty in RF? I didn’t realize that platoon was still going down. Especially after his non-existent spring.
20: Don’t forget Ron Villone!
Oh Golly. J-Rod the Washburninator is going to guide us the the WS, where Weaver will take over.
Ah! Evil Rizzs sighting!!!
Anybody figure out what a “FUNK BLAST” is yet?
[Rizzs]
That sounds plausible, hard to quantify though. There’s the Amazin’ Mets, the 1995 Mariners, the 2006 Tigers, plenty of surprises in baseball.
But the NBA has had surprise teams too; for delighful shock value the 1978 Sonics make the 1995 Mariners look like ho-hums (from a fractious disorganized prior season, to a 5-17 start, to a 42-18 finish and all the way to Game 7 of the NBA Finals). The 2005 Sonics also won a ton more games than anyone expected and took the Spurs to 6 games in the second round of the playoffs. In recent years though the NBA Finalists have been easily foreseen among 3-4 western and 3-4 eastern teams.
I have a vague impression that the Super Bowl tends not to feature teams that are big surprises but I don’t follow the NFL closely enough to know for sure. The Seahawks were probably a little bit surprising, but not nearly so much as the 1978 Sonics were in the Finals, or as surprising as just about any Mariners team would be in the World Series, except maybe for some of those strong late 1990s or early 2000s teams.
I suppose one way to quantify this would be to use information theory: find the pre-season Vegas odds and calculate the information entropy (sum of p * log(p) for each team’s probability p of winning). Except that I don’t think Vegas odds’ probabilities sum to 1; Las Vegas follows economic laws, not the law of probability. Also a normalization would be needed to account for the number of teams in a league; it’s easier to predict the winner of a league with only a few teams in it.
–MKT
So it’s a good thing we didn’t pickup Brad Lincoln in last years draft.
He’s apparently having elbow surgery and will miss all of 2007.
25:
Funk: a strong smell; stench.
Blast: a sudden and violent gust of wind.
So it’s a fart.
Morrison has been demoted clear to CW11 duty? Wow.
“Funk Blast” was the name of the old “ride” they had at the EMP. I’m pretty sure they took it out in order to put in the Sci-fi museum.
Almost every team in the NHL gets into the playoffs, though I don’t know how many longshots actually end up winning the Stanley Cup.
If Felix becomes Kevin brown, I’ll be content.
Yeah Funk Blast the Experience is long gone. But we can still imagine Richie with hair like this. And if it means more dingers, play on.
Joe Jih Ma not Joe Jee Ma
So, last year, MLB.tv inserted a 60 second loop of a Tom Petty music video instead of commercials, which, as you can imagine, got old after about 12 of those 60 seconds. You have no idea how happy I was to get real, actual commercials yesterday, with no Tom Petty anywhere to be seen.
Apparently, the people at MLB.tv have no soul, because today, we just met the ’07 version of the Tom Petty music video – a baseball bouncing off the sides of the screen in Pong-like fashion, complete with amazingly annoying 1982 sound effects.
There’s no way I can listen to that thing 60 times a game. If I’m not able to get Extra Innings, I’m organizing some kind of campaign to at least mute that thing. Holy hell is it annoying.
the stadium looks EMPTY
prove me right jarrod. i have faith
It’s not Opening Day anymore
Felix > Washburn
Washedup got out of it, I was scared for a moment.
wow…we have quite the talent drop-off from our #1 to #2 starter..Felix to Washburn…its like once every 5th game we actually get a major league starter
Not sure if I agree with this “Washburn will be a clubhouse leader” stuff. How can a pitcher whose not even a .500 winner be a leader? Don’t see it happening.
MLB.TV MARKET SURVEY
“Because of regional advertising agreements, we cannot show the commercials for the local feed on MLB.tv. What would you, as a loyal viewer, like to see in its place?”
“Well, I really hate Tom Petty, so don’t do that any more. I kind of like hearing the announcers when they think they’re off the air, but they say dirty words sometimes and my children are fargile.”
“So what would you like?”
“You know what I’ve always thought would make the Major League Baseball experience better?”
“No, please tell us.”
“A game of pong with a baseball, only with only one player so it’s not really pong, but just a baseball bouncing around the screen making blip sounds.”
“Done.”
My MLBtv has no sound. Period. It uses a codec I can’t and that I don’t have. Three hours with the tech support guy didn’t help either.
that 86 mph fastball that he was showcasing is scary…he’s gonna get worked
So according to the probable pitchers, we’re not skipping the 5th starter slot. The good news is that Felix will get an extra day’s rest. The bad news is that it means one more day without him. The great news is that this means he’ll be pitching on the Sunday KC game and I’m probably going to that.
Dammit, Dave beated me. Shows me for gettig a drink before hitting submit.
Joe Blanton is so fat he could be our DH
if there is a ball down the line and the umpire misses the call they should make Vidro and Blanton run from homeplate to 1st…winner gets the call
39. Me too. I have no problems with sound on anything else. I have to grab the url and stick it in media player to get sound. Except I can’t do it when that Right Guard commercial is on.
Nah. He’d take 3 pitches and strike out as often as Vidro swings at the first pitch and grounds out.
How is it that every other team makes Blanton look like the spherical schmo that he is, yet the M’s make him look like all-star?
Woohoo….. an 11 pitch inning for Blanton!!!
I bet he could still out run Vidro…
Hey, on DTV, they’re blacking it out on MLBtv. Watching it on poor reception on ch. 11.
No dice for me.
Does White make his M’s and major league debut tonight? What about Morrow? I doubt that Washburn makes it much over 5 innings, if that. He might not make it out of this inning.
This throwing-the-ball-outside-the-strike-zone thing that Washburn’s doing probably insn’t going to be good against these patient A’s.
Any Comcast customers in the Seattle area know anything about the “all games in HD” thing? It doesn’t appear to be true today (KSTW 11 and KSTWDT 111 are both SD)… I get the impression it’s only for FSN-broadcast games… true? 664 is showing The Sound and the Fury…
this is painful to watch.
Time for some hot double-play twins action.
We were going to have to score a run to win anyway. Now we’ll have to score a run to tie.
Two errors on that foul.
Damn there goes the season shutout.
that was an ugly run down..but effective i suppose…Yeah..Washburn u stink!
Aggressive baserunning gone wrong.
I don’t know about the HD thing — I posted a news release purportedly announcing all HD home game broadcasts by FSN on 664 a few weeks ago but obviously it ain’t happening. Hoax or corporate shenanigans, I don’t know.
57: Yeah, I dunno either… Ch111 looks different, but it’s certianly not HD. Too bad, because last night’s game looked awesome.
Lucked out on the pick-off. I wonder what the +/- for Washburn’s inning is tonight? Don’t think he’ll make it out of the fourth. Maybe it’s going to be Morrow’s night tonight.
Same here. I’m not surprised that they’d misrepresent that.
thank goodness we have a great field crew to hook us up with some great bounces!
I wonder if they are cheating?
Crosbyball continues. And his fielding freakiness is now infecting others. I need to go check out AthleticsNation — they’ll be going ballistic…
Boop, beep, boop, bop….
FUNK BLAST #2!
Play that funky music, white boy!
FUNK BLAST
Yeah!!!!
Pure power..woooooo
BOOM!
The M’s can eat Joe Blanton for breakfast.
My favorite part of the bouncing ball is how the MLB.TV logo lights up when it bounces off of it.
There is no favorite part of the bouncing ball. That’s incredibly annoying.
Hey, a batter retired on a single pitch.
66, 69–Come on, it’s neither a hoax nor shennanigans. From what I understand, all of the FSN home games will be in HD. This game isn’t on FSN, it’s on KTSW. So, no HD. The great majority of games are on FSN, and will be in HD. Me, I’m thrilled that they’re broadcasting so many in HD, and can survive the occasional SD KTSW game. If it’s a big deal to you, I think you should be counting your blessings that you don’t have more important thnings to worry about.
Back to the game: FUNK BLAST! Richie’s on pace for 162 HRs and about 500 RBI!
My favorite part is when the game comes back on.
ah, come on, you know you love it.
Whoa! Second game in a row the M’s get the lead, then hold the opposition to no runs the next inning. What’s going on here, some real baseball?
Huh? The Mariners scored on Blanton? Who do they think they are? The Padres?
Here’s what I’ve been doing while watching the last three innings: K-Rod cheating in yesterday’s game. Oh yeah.
Dude. DMZ. Your’e going to destroy your bandwidth.
Karnac makes this prediction for the M’s fourth: Vidro grounds out to second.
81: most of the web articles say “all home games will be broadcast in HD on FSN” (google “mariners comcast hd” or etc) or an extremely similar variant, which is – at best – misleading… but I suppose that isn’t Comcast’s fault. Found this:
Don’t try to write MLB.tv a complaint letter through their contact page – they have a 500 character limit. 500 characters is 100 words, tops. Good luck putting an eloquent objection together in 100 words.
Guess I’ll be making a phone call in the morning.
So what’s the deal? Are we phasing out Niehaus? Sims is OK but I miss Dave already.
a double play. too bad we didn’t need it.
DMZ, just read your about K-Rod, and I’m not quite clear on what exactly the evidence is. Is it just because of all the touching his hat he does? Or are you making a correlation between velocity and touching his hat? Couldn’t he just be incredibly superstitious or something and have a ritual?
Props to Washburn, he’s gotten it together the past two innings….
I hope we’re not phasing out Niehaus. He just said he wants 6000 games.
It’s hard to show with just the stills, but K-Rod repeatedly reaches up to his cap brim, rubs his thumb under it, and then throws an interesting pitch. Watching the video it’s a little shocking how blatant it is.
We’re sacrificing a little Dave for a complete lack of Rick on the TV side. I think Dave was staying on for another full inning the past few seasons, but that’s it. I’m willing to lose that inning of Dave so long as I never have to hear Rick say a word on the broadcast.
If you watch the video, you’ll see him repeatedly rubbing his thumb under the bill of his cap. He’s not adjusting the cap, not moving it around – he’s holding onto it while his thumb grabs moisture/foreign substance from the bill.
He might as well be holding a nail file.
I wonder if this is the first this has happened? And if so, why would he suddenly start?
Jose Vidro hits a grounder up the middle. Crosby takes a few steps, shuffles his feet, throws sidearm… and Vidro’s out by 842 feet. Nice wheels, Turbo.
98: Prediction was pretty damn close with Vidro going to the other side of the infield
101: I love Dave Neihaus, but I’m frankly surprised he’s still announcing at all. He’s been slipping for years… most notably calling players by the wrong name, but also getting the count wrong and other erroneous calls…
He hits to all fields. first ground out down the first base line, now he’s down the third. Now if he could get it to the outfield, that’d be really cool.
Jeesh, what in the world does Bavasi see in Vidro? He brings nothing to this team.
107…if that ball had gotten through I’m pretty sure Milton had a chance to gun him down at 1st
I give it a month before Vidro starts seeing a few occasional starts versus righties.
Dave, that’s impossible. It’s only 90 feet to first base. Surprised you didn’t know that.
Is the quality of MLB.tv ‘premium’ that much more impressive?
Dave, plan on a long “on hold” time. I had to call to figure out how to watch on a MAC in early March, and it was about 20 minutes of waiting then. I’m guessing they’re much busier now…
Uh… obviously I meant someone other than Vidro up there … say Broussard.
Nice job by Washburn so far. 5 innings, 2 hits, 1 run… Even if he only goes 7, he’s done a nice job of settling down.
David*…it was simply a decimal missing…he was out by 84.2 feet.
Dave Sims says “off the fist” (right?) a lot; I’ve never heard that phrase before, and couldn’t find any reference to it other than a player quoted “You get a pitch off the fist and your hands are ringing” in a newspaper article two years ago. Can anyone explain?
No. I can’t tell the difference, honestly. Premium does come with some extra nifty stuff (condensed games rock, for instance), but if you’re going to pay the extra $5/month hoping for better quality video, keep your money.
The player gets jammed and hits the ball with the thin part of the bat just above where the hands are.
Nice job by Washburn so far. 5 innings, 2 hits, 1 run… Even if he only goes 7, he’s done a nice job of settling down.
Three walks, one strikeout. This is the opposite of a nice job. This is bad hitting.
It’s about time Guillen gets a hit.
Wow, a hit other than a weird infield single or a home run.
Condensed games come with normal MLB TV also…
Ok. Let me rephrase, then. Nice job by Washburn, not allowing very many runs or hits so far.
Wow. The A’s defense is legitimately not so good.
Wow was that an awful play in RF.
The A’s need to go back to spring training and work on fielding.
I know two games is an extremely small sample size, but the As defense has looked awful
I don’t even know what to think about baseball anymore. There’s been a lot of sloppy play this series.
Even on that play they looked bad, letting us replace the runner.
Could someone tell the Ichiro Hit Meter person that Ichi got an infield hit yesterday? That 0 is annoying me.
I guess it could be measuring something else but I doubt it.
Also, I give it a month before Hargrove gets pissed at Lopez for doing a whole lot of nothing before he starts giving Willie some starts.
Make that a 2 now please
2 out hitting with RISP..wahoo
Ichiro!!!
*blink* The Mariners are hitting Blanton like he’s Joe Blanton. Did the equipment guy for the A’s forget to pack the Cy Young costume?
Perhaps forgotten in there was Betancourt’s hustle getting to second on his comebacker. That was nice to see, and it lead to a run.
*sigh* Looks like the optimistic fantasy draft of Beltre is a bust.
Nice… 2 out base hit to drive in the run. Nice. Wonder if Vidro will gorund out to first leading off next inning? 50/50 chance it happens.
I’m not complaining about the A’s defense. Keep it up guys.
It is so nice to see Ichiro when the camera cuts to center field.
If Yuni didn’t get to second on that rundown, we probably wouldn’t have scored that run. Nice.
I’m guessing Washburn will finish this inning and call it a night…he will probably be over 100 pitches, maybe 110
So, who is warming up?
89 MPH belt high fastballs are generally a bad idea.
Ichiro always looks like he’s about to fall over when he catches flys.
Betancourt’s range helps make up for the fact that Ibanez runs like he has a Jose Vidro on his back.
Mate-uh-oh warming up…
Dude. Why are we warming up Mateo? Bring in Morrow.
Why was Washburn so excited?
Wonder if we’ll see Rhodes and Sasaki tonight? Oh wait, only one of those guys is still around.
Its good to see some emotion outside of Felix on the mound, and Bloomquist running out to the batters box to ground out (but hustle)
When I want to protect a two run lead, I turn to Julio Mateo.
And then I cry.
Probably because he knows he’s through for the night.
Sure glad we got rid of the Soriano kid so Vidro could take the place of Everett!
Vidro is now 1-7 with 6 ground balls and a strikeout. Fearsome.
I read somewhere the other day that if Putz had to miss a few games because of his arm, Hargrove would include Mateo in a rotation of possible closers. It seems obvious to me that Hargrove would rather get paid to sit around his house than have to come to the ballpark every day.
Remember opening day last year, when we were mad at Hargrove for not bringing Guardado in for the 9th? Boy, how things changed.
#152 Actually we got rid of that Doyle kid for Vidro. But just as bad.
Whooo boy, I’m not feeling so confident.
101: lol
153: how about Richie Sexson?
Well, I was expecting at least a double by Swisher there … so I’ll take a single.
Time for one of those Mateo Groundballsâ„¢
er 101 should be 150
Is Mateo more concerned with what is in his mouth, or with getting outs?
156: yeah, im retarded…all the offseason runs together…all equally upsetting
“Mateo could use a ground ball right here.” New guy really doesn’t know Mateo very well, does he?
Why am I wearing a rally cap with a two run lead? MATEO.
Hargrove doesn’t seem to know Mateo very well, either.
164 — No, I’m sure he was schooled by Hargrove during the spring on these things.
mateo can’t even do groundballs right.
Whoa Guillen!
UGH gameday stuck on Vidro
yeah, thats a cannon.
Why isn’t Morrow pitching? If we’re going to carry him, we need to use him
Mateo blows.
Damn you, Camel Face. Damn you to hell.
New year; same Mateo
lol, hargrove looked like he was falling asleep while standing there.
Release Mateo..seriously..why does he have a spot on the team? Absolutely no reason to have a spot on any team but the Nationals
I’m expecting a Brandon Morrow sighting next inning…
how on earth can a man be so freakin stupid to think that putting mateo in a close game is a good thing?
UGH.
Please, Julio, just freaking retire. You suck.
Did I mention that Mateo blows?
I think I know *who* he blows too.
Just release Mateo now. Save us all.
Why is Hargrove leaving him in at this point?
When Mike Blowers says that Jason Kendall “puts the ball in play more often than not”, is he referring to a statistic? If so, nice.
Julio Mateo. Woo.
I hate Mateo
No more Blanton, and more pong: whew!
Man, Mateo was bad. Bring in Morrow and see what he can do.
Oh no you did not just do that, Hargrove.
I Love Crosby
Washburn = +.170 WPA
Mateo = -.222 WPA
Is Hargrove that stupid? I’m a CPA who’s never played a day of baseball in his life (unless you count intermural softball) and even I can tell that Mateo isn’t a guy you want to bring into a close ballgame. There are a few relievers in my memory that scared me as much and one of them was named Heathcliff. The other was Rod Beck at the end of his career. I just like to think that people learn from history.
Yuni!
YUNI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jesus … that was a shot!
See? We don’t need better pitchers. We need a bigger lead.
You Better!
:O
Yuni!
Yuni!
YU-BET!!!!
Youbet! Now please don’t let Mateo come back. You just did something good. Don’t screw it up.
Holy crap, we’re scoring runs!
Mateo could get the W, baseball, what a game.
Mateo is just the latest to torment us. Remember Bobby Ayala
and Sweet Lou’s love affair with Jose Paniagua?
Yuni!
Yu Bet!
Two words: Bobby Ayala
My god…I’ve figured it out. Mateo’s master plan.
He’s going to be a 20-game winner out of the bullpen. That fiend.
Wow, Ichiro triple. That’s the Ichiro we’ve been waiting to see.
When did Kiko Calero start taking pitching lessons from Julio Mateo?
This is what we couldn’t do last year is come back.
Vidro = rally killer
I was hoping for a save from JJ for my fantasy team, but I wont complain …
[Rizzs]
Could it be that we actually have a reasonably exciting team this year?
That was a great inning. I love watching Ichiro run to third.
Normally, I’d say that when a team has a weakness at DH, it would be good news, because it would be the easiest problem to fix. But Bavasi/Hargrove have shown themselves to be painfully unable to fix the problem.
Hating Mateo is like hating a gun. Hate the fool who uses the gun, instead. Then again, I wouldn’t compare Mateo to a gun. Maybe a mud-encrusted rock, covered with wriggling beetles and worms on the bottom.
On a positive note, Ichiro got to 3rd on that standup triple in a New York minute. He’s one fast dude.
Future quote:
When will get the Mariners Baseball My-oh-My commercial that has Jose Video trying to race, say, a glacier, or a sunset, to first base?
Probably not. Go back and read quotes from the first week of games last year … and the year before that for that matter. You’ll see a lot of similar sentiments. It’s just the effect of a new season and the fact that the M’s are winning a game. It’ll fade, just as it has the last several seasons.
So is Mateo now the pitcher of record? – what an injustice.
Washburn didn’t pitch great, but he didn’t pitch as poorly as Mateo.
Reitsma looked pretty good
Washburn pitches a decent game. Then Mateo blows the lead. Mateo gets credit for the win. I know that’s how the game is scored, but I still think it sucks.’
Sims just noted … Morrow MLB debut looks to be about to happen.
I don’t know if anone has commented on this before or not, but do you think that Hargrove thought he could keep his job longer if he grew a Bavasi look-alike beard?
216 – yeah, but this year (it’s looking like) we’re actually going to win a series against the A’s.
I didn’t mention that part about it, but I like the beard. It makes him look very…homeless.
I think Hargrove is hoping that if he grows out that crappy goatee he can steal Sherril’s spot in the lineup, body snatcher style.
Morrow! This will be good to see.
Over on AN, they’re officially terrified of Sexson.
That was entertaining watching Morrow and Johjima talking to each other before starting pitching … seemed to be speaking easily to each other … wonder what they actually said?
Time for JJ
Ok, to root for a double play here or to root for a rough inning (esp if we still win) followed by a demotion?
Cant wait to see them send Morrow back down with his confidence shot after this inning, ala Clint Nageotte.
Seriously though, im alarmed right now that the M’s didnt draw a walk. I hate having this cloud above me wondering how much better our lineup would be with Snelling at DH. Even on his legs, he can outrun Vidro.
ESPN has Nathan notching his 9th save of the season. At this rate, he could seriously reach 500. I need to crack open the history books and look around, because I think that could be a record or something.
Can’t we have this kid as a starter? Please?
M’s win!!!
Oh me of little faith.
First time I’ve seen Morrow and this kid has a major league arm. No way you send him to the minors. He should be in the starting rotation by the All-Star break.
2-0!!!!!!!!!
wow, Morrow has good velocity.
I’ll go ahead and write tomorrow’s sports headline:
“Ms match 2006 season win total vs As in 2nd game of 2007.”
Hargrove with his goatee is a dead ringer for Dennis Hopper in one of his recent movies. I can’t remember the name because it looked horrifically bad, I just remember seeing the previews and Dennis Hopper had a beard. Anyone know?
scary relievers other than Mateo and legendary Bobby Ayala (off the top of my head)
Jose Mesa; Paul Spoljaric; Heathcliff Slocumb; or best of all, John Mabry.
Hmm, I appear to have tapped out in the year 2000; someone help me here.
He may have a major league arm, but does he have a major leauge head? Does he know what to do when the lineup turns over and the same batters see him for a second and third time? Does he even have the arm strength for that? Throwing one inning in relief is a very different proposition than 6 innings in a start. You don’t want to squander his talent.
Saw this over at AN:
And we thought Bloomquist could do it all. Swisherific.
Here’s why watching baseball on TiVo is cool. Not only do you have pause, rewind, and slo-mo, but my favorite trick is pausing for about 20 minutes. This lets you fast-forward through 20 minutes of commercials, or something unpleasant, like say Julio Mateo pitching. And fast-forward has 3 settings: Annoyed, “Mateo’s pitching. meh.”; Angry, “He threw it where, now?!”; or Apoplectic, “MY EYES! MY EYES!”
Paniagua was pretty scary too. I just have bad memories of saying “oh no!” whenever he came into games. Kind of like Mateo.
Marrow clearly was not ready, we should have him in the minors, with a possible send up later this season.
bah. it’s his first major league appearance. it’s called nerves. nonetheless, 1H, no runs, is a solid major league debut.
I would rather see him in Tacoma to develop him into a starter.
well, Turbo does bring us a whole new Rizzs Drinking Game– how many times will Rick call Vidro ‘professional’?
on KOMO, Glasgow just broached the notion that the official scorer be given the power to assign the win to the starting pitcher, rather than give it to a vulture like Mateo …
And it’s BrAndon MOrrow, not BrEndan (thank you Dave frickin’ Sims) MArrow ( thank you other DZ)
Honestly, Sims has all the potential to be just another Rizzs-esque cheerleader. If Blowers says ANYTHING at all, he’s there with a “yes, that’s right” or some other sycophantic reinforcement.
vulch (verb)
Applicable only to baseball pitchers. To enter a baseball game, surrender the lead by pitching poorly, then have your team score enough runs to take the lead, after which your team does not surrender the lead, thereby making you the winning pitcher in the game.
Example: Julio Mateo totally vulched the win from Jarrod Washburn on Tuesday.
#250: Sims has the potential to be Seattle’s own “Hawk” Harrelson, minus the major leage experience and Nehru jacket.
“He gone!”
HE HAS NEVER STARTED A GAME AS A PROFESSIONAL AT ANY LEVEL.
Seriously. Do you think that doesn’t mean anything?
If you watch minor league games, you’ll see plenty of kids with major league arms. There are usually good reasons they’re still in the minors.
It’s possible that the Mariners know something about bringing along pitching talent that no other organization knows. Yeah.
250: I will spell it right when he earns it.
I’ll stop kicking your ass about it when YOU’VE earned it.
OFair enough, but we were a bad pitch away from Putz having to bail the kid out.
The kid has great potential, but I would rather see him as a starter in a year, then as a middle reliever now. And pitching an inning once or twice a week is not the way to do it.
249: Nice use of “Turbo”…maybe we could tweak it a bit to “Turdro.” Altough, wait…that has a completely different connotation. I guess we’ll stick with Turbo.
#239 @ Dylan: Land Of The Dead.
Hey!! Extra Innings is coming back to digital cable.