Game 99, Mariners at Rangers
Batista vs McCarthy, 5:35 pm.
The M’s try to salvage one game out of the debacle of the last week before returning home tomorrow. Feel the excitement of pennant race baseball.
McLaren changes the line-up again, and if you can figure out the logic behinid this, you win a prize. Beltre now hitting 2nd, Vidro drops to 5th. Ibanez still hitting 3rd, of course. God forbid we mess with his awesomeness.
Adrian Beltre is the team’s best power hitter. The only players hitting for less power than Jose Vidro in the major leagues this year are Luis Castillo, Jason Kendall, Reggie Willits, and Nick Punto. That’s a 2B/leadoff hitter, a C/9th hitter, a LF/leadoff hiter, and the Twins version of Willie Bloomquist. Every other major league hitter is hitting for more power than Turbo. Regardless, Vidro now hits 5th.
I’ll always be grateful that John McLaren’s presence helped the team keep Ichiro, but man, his line-ups and bullpen usage have been pretty terrible. That might be an understatement, actually. This line-up defies logic and reason – it’s the baseball version of throwing crap at a wall and hoping something sticks. Every day, this team gives me new reasons to think that the people in charge should be doing something else with their lives.
Also, for those who want to hear me talk way too fast again, I’m doing another radio interview 10 minutes before the game starts – this time, it’s Fox Sports Radio 790 in Spokane. They have an online stream, but it requires registration, so it will take some work on your part to hear me hyperventilate today. If that’s too tough for you, you can wait until the KJR gig with Grosby on Friday afternoon.
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340 Responses to “Game 99, Mariners at Rangers”
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Three 6 games losing streaks this season and this current one is not even over yet. I suddenly don’t feel so confident about their chances against Oakland.
Please let just one tiny (adamjones) thing come out of this series of unfortunate events…
R.I.P. 2007 Seattle Mariners.
I honestly want to yell at the top of my voice in Bill Bavasi’s ear right now.
Hmmmmmmmm, you lose 5 one run games in a week. Richie Sexson is hitting .200, and Adam Jones is in Tacoma.
Does our GM have shit for brains or what?
This is pathetic, we are 3.5 games out in July and I feel like the season just ended. This isn’t a feeling I’m supposed to get, but it’s hard not to.
When they were panning down the dugout fence with all of the M’s leaning on it, they looked like a team with a completely broken spirit… there wasn’t any fight in them at that point.
It seemed like they had 2 men on base every inning?
“is it ok to hit the panic button now?”
I have this bad feeling that won’t be necessary – that Bavasi will do that for us (ala Woody, 1997). I hope I’m wrong.
Yeah. With two outs.
When the mojo even goes south for JJ, you know things aren’t going well.
Bavasi looks like the effeminate alien “Roger” on American Dad.
Sorry.. I’M PISSED!
Wow. Can’t wait to get out of Texas. We couldn’t buy a break the entire series.
Losing four games to Texas is inexcusable. Losing four games to Texas by one run is criminal. And depressing as hell.
I haven’t believed the M’s were playoff material all season, but there were some glimpses of a team that could at least keep up. Now? They look just as bad as predicted and the unwillingness of the front office to do anything, even the simplest of obvious moves, is disgusting.
Hypothetically speaking, if the M’s are like 5 or 6 games out by July 31st should they still look to make a trade?
Please God, let Bavasi be back on the hot seat after this one.
WOW! The night of unlikely occurences continues:
Bill Krueger actually realizes we need to solve the “8th inning problem” and maybe Sherril should’ve been left in!
Amazing. Simple logic DOESN’T escape an FSN announcer!
How soon until football and basketball start?
Well, 307, if he adds a player that ends up being the best member of our bullpen, I guess it’ll be okay. Still, I see what you mean. Who’s ready for Contreras-mania?
Fwiw, if the 92 mph w/ no splitter Putz is around again, this could get downright depressing. HAD to be a brief aberration, right?
Fwiw you all do remember the big dingers he gave up in 2004 & 2005 I assume.
#316: That player would probably be Mark Lowe or Kam Mickolo. . .
#318: At the reliever will be, the starter would be someone like Jose Contreras.
At least*
Sorry, I’m a little flustered tonight.
Oh F- no…they’re talking about Dontrelle Willis on FSN. Like usual, Krueger says that Dontrelle would be “good” in the Mariner rotation.
Remembering the stat some ESPN guy quoted about the Ms before all-star game. We were +13 games over .500 but with only a +17 run differential. He said that kind of math had to catch up with the Ms. Guess it has in a hurry.
[deleted, tasteless]
I don’t think I liked that Japanese Pearl Harbor joke sir.
323: Replacing Johjima with a questionable prospect is only half as absurd as your attempt at humor.
Can someone fashion another ‘open letter’ to address all the moves that NEED to be made? Seemed to work before…
…or we could just play Burke oh…I dunno…say, uh TWICE a week, instead of once?
323 – Curious, my Japanese wife found your comment amusing, but I didn’t.
323. Sorry, that’s not funny at all.
missed in the Vazquez HR was the fact that Texas sacrificed a man to 2nd. That caused the outfield to play in. Not saying Ichiro would have caught the HR but Texas scrappiness helped it happen.
I want to see Adam Jones in Seattle right now, if only for the fact he hasn’t disappointed me like so many others on this team.
You know, how long can everything go wrong all at the same time? You know it’s bad when Putz gives up a bomb to Vazquez.
Keep the faith, people.
How many Home Runs did we just hit in a four game series at The Bandbox in Arlington?
1
316
That’s not the way I look at it. I was thinking more in terms of Varitek and Lowe for a lousy pitcher who would be out of the league within a few years in a trade that no sane General Manager, and few intoxicated, desperate fans with even a modicum of baseball knowledge would have made.
It’s not that bad people. We’ve lost 6 in a row, but we were in 5 of the 6 games. We’re only 3.5 back of the Angels.
It only hurts this much because we could have made one or two plays and won each of those 5 close games.
Now that we’ve lost 6 in a row with our offense disappearing, perhaps we’ll get to see Adam Jones join the club. If we’d continued to scrape out wins, there might never have been an excuse to bring him up.
Go M’s!
#336: Not to be a Debbie Downer, but sadly you forget who our GM is.
This team is backward enough to pitch Horacio on the road, give Sexson plenty of at-bats and allow Ibanez to play left (and give him plenty of at-bats to boot).
Color me skeptical.
My season-long skeptical optimism has shifted firmly into doubtful cynicism. It’s not just the losing streak – it’s the lackluster play, the apparent lifelessness of the players, the incompetence of McLaren, the lack of good platooning, the unwillingness to call up AJ, etc. Our starting rotation and oft-impotent offense are just too weak to stay in this thing.
330, you’re a madman. Seriously.