Game 42, Mariners at Rangers
Carlos Silva v Scott Feldman. 11:05.
Clement’s catching, which should be interesting, Kenji goes to DH, and 1B-0 Cairo is still batting second. I don’t feel like saying a lot more about this game if McClaren cares that little about it.
Okay, okay, so here’s the would-you-swap-’em for today.
C – Ennnhhhh… yes, because I think he’s the better catcher. This should not in any way be taken as denigrating Clement, who I think will hit but may not end up catching.
1B- Yes. You believe Shelton stinks? Doesn’t matter even if he does. Yes.
2B- Yes.
SS – Uhhhhhh…. no. Maybe? I don’t like his deal, and his defense is horrible. Is that enough to spike a deal, though?
3B – No. No. No.
LF – I’m going to have to give this some more thought. My initial reaction was “yes” and then I started to backtrack pretty quickly.
CF- No. I don’t care, I’m not trading Ichiro in one of these, ever.
RF – No.
DH – No, but it’s a weird DH thing going on tonight. Cat v Vidro, absolutely.
And Silva for Feldman? Sure.
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ok, time for more happy ponies.
“Steve – You can bet the FO will give him a two year multimil extension.”
I was thinking the same thing … Exhibit A to show that gritty veteran clutchiness saved the Ms collective bacon.
I’m glad they won the game. Just too bad it was Cairo, because now he just earned himself another month batting in the #2 hole.
I hate to say it, but the game today just proves the front office is right. If you get proven, grizzled veterans, they’ll always come through in the clutch. Well, 16 out of 42 times anyway.
This was the turning point in the season! We are going to go 25-15 in our next 40 games, get back to .500, and then play .750 ball in the second half and win the west. Washburn will win the Cy Young, and Vidro will be a silver slugger, and Raul is gonna get his first gold glove. Its true, you can’t mock me for saying this.
Watching Cairo hit in the 2-hole today was probably a lot like watching the Wright Brothers fumble around on their giant kite. You point fingers and laugh until *whoosh* it takes flight and you finally comprehend the genius of it all. The only difference is, this time there was no genius to comprehend – just weird luck because the giant kite is actually a poorly constructed log cabin engulfed in flames.
And true to form, on the post-game broadcast Angie Mentink comparing Miguel Cairo to Stan Javier and Mark McLemore.
Jesus wept.
She’d better be careful, Silva might try to eat her too.
That is terribly depressing. Why does she think she knows things about baseball.
Well, to be fair, that’s her job. She’s not paid to be an analyst, she’s paid to be a pretty and cheerful face on the post-game broadcast.
I don’t mean this as a personal shot at her, but she’s the Mariners broadcast equivalent of a perky weathergirl, so it’s wrong to expect too much.
They should get the girl from King5….she’s wayyyy prettier, and seems to be pretty spunky….
Jeff – you are right, but that type of poison trickles out to our ‘every day joe’ fan to the point where they believe it.
I doubt you see that type of reporting in New York … or Boston.
At least give me Erin Andrews.
In Article today,
hahaha oh how i love ichiro
That’s just not true. Just listen to 15 minutes of a YES broadcast or take a look at Hazel Mae on NESN.
While I love Ichiro too, of course, it’s important to remember that translation from Japanese to English is an approximation at best. The two languages just aren’t structured in the same way.
If you’re not pathologically averse to the idea, watch pretty much anime series and follow the translation of the song lyrics in the opening or closing credits. The translation is usually laughably nonsensical.
So Ichiro was probably saying the Japanese equivalent of “I’m looking forward to it”, but it’s sometimes difficult for the media to resist casting him as a modern-day Charlie Chan; and I think that, rather than getting angry about it, he probably enjoys leading them down that particular primrose path, so he probably semi-deliberately uses tricky turns of phrase.
No I completely understand, I just still find that comment pretty fantastic.
I mean how epic is “I hope he arouses the fire that’s dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul.â€
so epic. so ichi
So last year. That’s from the lead up to Dice-K’s home opener in ’07, when godlike Felix showed up and stole the show.
315 – that was a beautiful game indeed.
I have to say, I had to step away from the game for a bit in the extra innings, and when I came back I was still a fair distance from the screen, so I couldn’t read the name on the back of jersey of the new M’s closer. I don’t have the numbers memorized (well, beyond 51 and 29 and 34) so I was trying to guess based on the length of the name. Too long for Lowe, too short for the Hyphen. “Damn,” I thought to myself, “If I didn’t know better I’d guess that looks like ‘Washburn'” Finally I got up close and… holy crap.
So McLaren made a bunch of crazy decisions (Cairo batting 2nd? Washburn in to save?) and they worked out. The results-based analysis crowd would claim that McLaren is smarter than we give him credit for. Everybody else will mutter about blind squirrels and nuts and insist he sucks. Then the results-based folks would have to look at the results of 16-26 (and 2-9 in one-run games) and also conclude.. he sucks.
But hey, a win is a win. Even if it is nuts.
Let us all just hope/pray/whatever that this squad will somehow pull it together and make a run. I just need some excitement during this baseball season. In order to even make a remote comeback, this squad will need to crank off a few 6+ game winning streaks.
[this is not a quality comment]
So Putz get the W and Washburn gets the S. Weirdness.
I’d also like to offer Mr. Clement a big welcome to the top of the WPA chart at .360 (though truth be told, if defense factored into it Cairo would take the top spot thanks to that bunt DP). I expect it won’t be the last time we see Clement there (nor the last time we see him with an over-unity SLG).
well, she knows about playing baseball. As we know with most former athletes, talking about it is another thing.
Fox’s broadcast equivalent.
319 – in pic 2 not only is she smokin hot …. but all the guys behind her are checking her out. comedy.
Zaloumis comes out of DC ….
I don’t think it’s appropriate to be knocking Angie. If you talk to her, she knows as much about baseball as any of you. She was a starter for UW softball and was pretty damn good. In FSN’s contract with the Mariners, they are required to look at the bright side and promote the team and its players. So I really doubt she feels like Cairo is a great utility guy, but thats her job to make the players look as good as she can.
323 – i guess eye candy is imperative. Zaloumis is verrrry hot. angie on the other hand … i think some people dig her though.
I do like Elise Woodward on KJR night shows … she has some very intelligent analysis … or at least from what I’ve heard so far.
313.
It’s hard to say, sometimes phrases are impossibly idiomatic, and sometimes the speaker really is saying something offbeat.
I’m reminded of the Japanese admiral before the Battle of Midway, when the Japanese Navy sent out a massive fleet expecting to catch the Americans by surprise and capture Midway. Someone asked “what if the Americans know we’re coming?” and the admiral replied “One touch of an armored sleeve”. Which sounds impossibly inscrutable until you’re told it was a common saying, the equivalent of “we’ll brush them away” or in more modern lingo “we’ll kick their butts and take names”.
For these Ichiro quotes, I don’t know whether it’s hard-to-translate idiom or zen-like Ichiro-ness at work.
P.S. The Americans DID know the Japanese were coming, caught them by surprise, and pummeled them in one of the hugest upsets of WW II. Kinda like what Felix did to Matsuzaka’s home debut last year. 😉
Speaking of Dice-K … who is this new phenom out of Japan … ‘Dice K 2.0’ … Yu Darvish?
Is this guy really going to cost 75 million just to talk to? No wonder idiot GM’s are willing to pay 16.5 mill to Richie
well, Deanna of Marinerds describes him as “the best Iranian-Japanese pitcher in the history of baseball, and the ace pitcher for the Nippon Ham Fighters”
Yu Darvish is a cocky bastard, but he’s a strikeout monster and is posting a sub-1 ERA this season so far with like 10Ks per 9.
On an unrelated note, has anyone noticed Cleveland’s dominant pitching of late? Their starters have gone over 43 consecutive innings without an earned run, and in their 3 game set with oakland have allowed a total of one run.
Absurdly good pitching is the story of this season. Is there a hitter in the AL that has 10 homers yet? Toronto has had similar stretches of excellent starting pitching. Of course neither Cleveland or TO can hit.
331,
Part of that is Oakland is actually a terrible offensive team.
Yeah everybody has noticed the lack of offense in the AL this year.
Oakland might have a terrible offense, but it’s not looking like it: right now they’re third in the American League in runs scored per game.