Game 26, Rangers at M’s
Happy Felix Day!
Millwood vs Hernandez, 7:10 pm.
Ichiro, RF
Not Gutierrez, LF
Sweeney, DH
Branyan, 1B
Beltre, 3B
Lopez, 2B
Johjima, C
Gutierrez, CF
Betancourt, SS
Junior has an “inflamed colon”, so he’s out for the game. Sweeney steps in at DH, and Beltre and Branyan flip-flop spots in order to keep a little more L-R-L balance in the middle of the order. I’d bet they’ll switch back once Junior is healthy enough to play again.
Other than that, pretty standard line-up. Remember when Wak was trying to keep everyone guessing with his line-up of the day? He’s basically settled on a generic order at this point. Oh well.
These games feel more important than your normal May match-up against the team that is, probably the worst in the division. Whether this team is “for real” or not, the further they can distance themselves from the rest of the division as early as possible, the better, because there’s a bar that this team needs to be above come July in order to avoid trading away Bedard-Beltre-Washburn. Wins in April and May actually matter more to this team than wins in August and September, because there’s a bonus or penalty that will be enforced on the roster come the summer depending on the team’s win-loss record.
Given that, and with Felix and Bedard pitching the next two days, the M’s have a chance to get a 4+ game cushion over everyone else in the division. That might not sound like a lot, but given the mediocrity of the other three teams in the AL West, a 4 or 5 game lead in May means that you’re almost certainly within a game or two of first place come July 31st. Worst case scenario, you have a melt down and lose 6-8 games in the standings in two months. If you have a 5 game lead over the other three teams, that melt down still probably leaves you in second place and a single series away from retaking the lead.
17-10 going into Wednesday’s games against Kansas City will feel a lot different than 15-12. I know, it’s just May, but these are pretty big games for the M’s. Let’s hope we get Good Felix and Good Bedard and spend Wednesday trying to figure out which prospects we might be willing to part with this summer in order to upgrade the roster.
is Chavez in left tonight?
Yes. Did you think they were going to start Wlad against an RHP and then hit him 2nd?
If I had an inflamed colon, I would pay a fair bit of money to have the team list it as back spasms or a tight hamstring or maybe rabies or typhoid fever. They didn’t just get back from a road trip, so they couldn’t say he tripped over his luggage.
Millwood has pitched well so far this year. It would be nice to put an end to that tonight.
Speaking of trading Washburn, not much chance he manages to make it as a Type B is there? Even if he keeps up what he’s doing this year, last year he only threw 153 innings and had a below league average ERA.
Not to be an alarmist, but John Lackey is rehabbing against the Rainiers tomorrow. 60 pitches.
I have to absolutly agree that these early Games mean a ton.
You look at a division that can probably be taken with 90 Wins this year and getting out to an early lead is that much more important.
Thats basically 9 or 10 games over .500 for the season. Which means that if the M’s can go on a 3-4 game win streak now, they only need to play .500 ball for the rest of the season to have a legitimate shot at taking the West.
I know it’s early but just saying.
Ken Griffey JR out with an inflamed colon. Could this be at all related to the great clubhouse chemistry in 09?
“Chemistry” as in they’re eating a lot of rich foods when they celebrate all these wins no one was expecting?
I agree with JM– no matter how big a team player I’m trying to be, I’d use my superstar power to influence the injury report when I’m suffering an inflamed colon.
How much longer do we have to wait to see Cedeno starting at SS??? Supposedly he is 100% healthy and all Yuni does is create a black hole at SS. At this point we could just put a AAAA filler at SS and still be better off. I never wish ill upon a player but can’t Yuni get sick or maybe strain an arm muscle so we have to play Cedeno?
In the spirit of clubhouse unity, Junior took on Silva in a chili eating contest. In other news Griffey will sit out tonight’s game with an inflamed colon.
Happy Felix Day!!!!
and unhappy Frank G. back hitting 8th again. So much for trying new things.
So I fully expect all the people who slagged Bedard for being a “wimp” last year to turn the same sort of ire towards Griffey if these sorts of ailments go on… (yeah, right).
He’s due to come back to earth: that 2.13 ERA hides a 4.37 FIP, mostly because of an 86.7% strand rate and .220 BABIP.
He’s not striking many guys out, but he’s not walking people, so the M’s hacktastic offense is a good match to take him down.
No. We are NOT having Saturday night’s game thread all over again. That’s only funny once. In a while…
Rick Rizzs on the pre-game, talking about Griffey’s inflamed colon:
“It’s something they’ll keep an eye on.”
He said this three times. Does he not hear what comes out of his mouth?
Maybe Rizzs thinks what he was doing for Bloomquist last year was a medical procedure?
KIRO was saying Wak gave Silva some sort of ultimatum, either figure it out or, or, well, they didn’t really say what.
Maybe they’re getting ready to cut bait on some problems.
That’s right. It was a Saturday night. Everybody was drunk. And, uh, experimenting.
Plus Lauren doesn’t seem to be around to get it started anyway.
JM-
The Mariners official site has a story on Wak and Silva having a heart to heart.
Mariners Nearing Crossroads with Silva
And if the quotes are correct, Wak has basically told him– perform, or we have to explore other options. Telling him “we believe in your stuff” or we wouldn’t have you pitching ever 5 days, but you’ve got to figure the mental stuff out.
Most refreshing news on Silva yet– this quote by Wak: “…is that rope shorter? Yeah.” Said publicly.
Someone cruel fills out those injury reports. Remember Bedard and his pain in the ass from ST?
Man, who would we be willing to trade? Seems like we have a lot of outfielders. Wonder what we’d get for Halman…
But, but, it’s his stuff that’s the problem. His sinker doesn’t sink. No sink = big stink. What’s there for him to figure out? Are they saying that in bullpen sessions he gets great sink on it?
Drayer, yesterday:
At first I wasn’t sure what Wak could be talking about: Yeah, the pen has been successful, but it’s been a bit of a revolving door lately — it has been “messed with” plenty. But then I saw his point: there’s no end to the trouble an unhappy Carlos Silva could cause. He’s a big mess in himself; demoted to the pen he could be a Titanic-class disaster whose sheer suction pulls the rest of the bullpen under the dark waters of dysfunction. It sucks that he can basically hold the team hostage to his bad attitude, but there it is.
JM-
I think “we believe in your stuff” is simply the best attempt to “positive think” him into pitching better, or else. Wak seems to be a motivational type guy, all the way up to the point where they DFA you.
A guy throwing 88 mph batting practice fastballs coming out of the pen?
There’s really not much else you can do with Silva. He’s untradable, and with his salary and no huge upgrades knocking on the door, we just kinda have to put up with him until a good solution comes along. My suggestion is everyone invite Silva to play street basketball with you and then Rondo his ass every chance you get. His contract will be voided and Mariners fans will rejoice.
I’m sorry, but I keep thinking of Art Thiel being out with an inflamed ;
At least he didn’t lose his full colon
Juneau– is this a quiz?
Batista! (What do I win?)
Seriously though, I’m glad Wak isn’t just giving Silva a free ticket to the bullpen if he can’t stick as a starter. I don’t know what they do with him otherwise, but I still like the attitude.
So Felix is feeling a bit “under the weather.” Normally that would worry me (I’m a worrier) but considering how well Washburn pitched when he was feeling sick, and how well Felix has pitched despite that tweaked ankle, it might not be a big deal. I just hope he can go enough innings to not tax the bullpen.
Hopefully he’s not feeling nauseous. Given Felix talents, projectile vomiting might hit 3 digits on the stadium radar gun. Low, inside, and messy.
Joser–
It might also lead to a wicked slurve…
That second pitch to Blalock was simply sick.
It’s gotten to where I never doubt Beltre will complete the play on a ball in his area. Good feeling. Same for Gutti now too!
Death to Flying Things!
My heart just fluttered like a schoolgirl. Death to Flying Things, indeed.
I ♥ Gutierrez
Our future #2 hitter with a nice catch…
Fast outfielder is fast.
I marked out when I heard Niehaus say that.
“Death to Flying Things” is at it again!
I love that as soon as that ball was hit, I just thought, “OK, that’s caught.”
Death to flying things!
What a catch. Just wow.
Felix giving a hug to “Death to Flying Things” as they come into the dugout.
Looks like the Brewers had an entertaining game in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile the Jays and Indians appear to be trying to duplicate the M’s game from yesterday. Oh, and Matt LaPorta went yard for Cleveland — that didn’t take long. Welcome to the bigs, kid.
UpOrDown, I was thinking of Silva’s ‘value’ in the pen, but yeah, he and Batista can have a girlie hair pulling fight out there to see who gets to come in and toss up some runs…for the opposition.
Damn, that would have been a triple with Raul out there. Why don’t the other teams put old men with rusty wheels in the outfield?
Gutz has crazy wheels out in CF!
Good to see are patient lefty prospects in Tacoma having a good night… 2 HRs for Saunders and 1 for Clement. Not to mention Carp is having another night.
Speaking of Silva, I just remembered Dave Niehaus’ interview with Wakamatsu yesterday.
Niehaus: “Every time he’s out there you hold your breath, and you have got to wonder how much breath you’ve got left to hold.”
Wakamatsu: “We’re talking about it.”
Speaking of Batista and Silva– A.Rod would have loved playing with those guys, ’cause he wouldn’t even need to tip his buddies on the opposing teams to their pitches– He’d just yell from short “Swing at ‘em all, trust me!”
Beltre makes it look boring sometimes, making amazing plays.
Supposedly, this is something that flares up for Jr every year; frankly, I don’t have a great desire to research this particular subject to see if he’s missed time for it in the past.
and Felix has/had a stomach bug.
Felix looking good so far seems to have good control of all his pitches.
Man, it’d be cool to have a shortstop who can get to that ball Beltre just hit. Fun to watch that be an out for a team.
It would be fun to Beltre watch that pitch be a ball and wait for something to drive.
I love to Beltre in my spare time.
That ball lopez hit is out of alot of ball parks.
Scott-
You should ask your doctor first if you’re healthy enough to Beltre (it says so right on the box).
Making it easy for Millwood. He could go 15 innings if they keep this up.
Yuni…death to double plays.
I wish. More accurately, death by double plays.
Oh wait. I get it now.
even our Ace is gonna give up some runs…
hopefully our offense can get their shit together and put some hits and runs together…
So, it is the Moose costume then.
“Find your stuff, or it’s the hatrack for you.”
Our offense is looking embarrassing tonight. Come on Millwood isn’t THAT good.
Wow. The offense just looks pathetic tonight.
If we get no-hit by Kevin Millwood I’m burning Safeco to the ground.
Quick! Check when his buddies’ birthdays are!
Yeah, ok, I’ll stop now. Just keep it on the down low…
This games over.
Uh, Millwood used to be an ace. I guess a lot of has-beens are gonna look good pitching against this lineup.
That’s what some people said last night.
That’s what pretty much everyone thought yesterday.
Well, that’s one way to break up a perfect game.
All because Dave jinxed the no-hitter on the radio at the end of last inning. Tee-hee.
Scottbrowne – stealing my lines, eh? I mean, you can have em, they haven’t done anything for me.
Dave Niehaus: “I used to have a Camaro”
I bet it was Bitchin’ too.
I realize the last 30+ years, and especially the last couple, have cut deep. But, for fucks’ sake, the only thing more pathetic than the M’s offense tonight is the defeatism expressed by some people during games.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No! And is it over now? Not if Branyan has anything to say about it!
So, Branyan’s nickname is now Otter.
Ok maybe its not over.
Are you sure? Definitely sure? 4-4 seems pretty close… (Granted, Guty hit the dinger while I hit send…)
How many times now has Lopez been too slow to go around 3rd?
OK, rally cap on, I’m headed out to the bar. Hope I come back celebrating a drunken win, or drinking a celebrated win, or uh, something involving a win.
OH SHIT DEATH TO FASTBALL MIDDLE IN (TM MIKE BLOWERS)
FUCK YES FRANKLIN!!!!!!!!!!
Gut God!
GUTI
I FUCKING LOVE YOU
I hope Madwlad left so he missed all the excitement…
Branyan!!!
YES! FRANKLIN!
DFT!!!!!!
I seriously need to get mlb tv
Holy friggen crap man. Every day a little piece of me that expects them to regress dies.
Also..
ICHIRO!
game over? what?
Good call joser!
I-chi-ro!
Your 2009 Mariners: don’t blink, something might happen.
GUTI!!!!!!
And nice momentum carrier Ichi!
Guty with a 3 run dinger on the official “I Have Come To Praise Franklin Gutierrez” post day.
Nicely timed.
seriously, perfect slogan for this team.
You’re right, this game is over…
Oh yea, it’s KEVIN MILLWOOD.
Almost forgot there for a couple of innings.
Apparently the offense likes to wait until people start to give up just so they can make things interesting.
You know, one of the best things about this season is getting to hear Dave Niehaus get really excited again.
Well Was won my heart again with this quote:
Guti’s swing looks soooo much better than it did at the start of the year. He’d been pressing, and it threw his swing off. Now he’s much calmer, and it’s showing.
I knew that by saying the game was over would trigger the offense. that was my plan all along.
woo-HOO! I would like to take this opportunity to say that I hearts me some Gutierrez!!
(And, BTW, I honestly think this guy is probably the next Mariner heart-throb. I saw a woman all but swoon at a bar two weeks ago upon seeing them baby browns…)
Nice to have a guy like Branyan in the lineup too. I’ve been a fan and following him since he was in the Braves’ minors.
Marlins and Reds trying to duplicate the Mariners game from yesterday. Top of the 14th, and it is 2-2.
siick, felix…
I’m a straight man and I practically swoon when I see them…
Ok, not really. But he is definitely competing with Beltre for my unashamed man-crush.
This game’s over.
Anyone know why Felix is giving up so many bombs?
Not a great night for felix.
Felix… Thanks for helping me in my main fantasy league (what? I got Davis for $3 in an auction league. With his upside, cut me some slack…), but damn that bit hard…
Hopefully, the flu.
Felix has the Swine.
My colon needs for Beltre to hit a home run, like, this inning.
Seriously, is there anyone in the bigs who’s more due??
Dammit zvazda, you beat me to it
madwlad–
say your line… say your line:
___ ____ ____ (worked last time, and I’m not sure zvazda’s version will work)
this game’s NOT over.
so, has felix always chewed? or does his wad just seem bigger this year?
Wrong line madwlad!
Okay fine. This games over.
first pitch popups are so fucking annoying
Darn my line did’nt work this inning.
Time to play comeback again. We don’t want to try it against Frank Francisco.
Cmon Mariners!!!1 THEY need to gets some runners on
Guty has been on fire the last week.
Selfish of Ichiro to drive in that run and steal that base.
Anyone planning on going to the game tomorrow?
Can Branyan come through again?
Millwood threw 10 pitches in the 7th to 5 batters, where a run scored?
And our color commentator can only say “He’s been efficient?”
beltre has got to get his bat goin man, this has been sad
Beltre has some sort of reverse steroid problem. Or is it simply the curse of Richie Sexson? He seems to get good wood on some of these balls and they just sort of hang out there in the outfield and drop well short of the warning track.
Our cleanup hitter is our only starter without a HR.
Elvis Andrus another example of how much of a difference a great defender makes.
The impatience of these guys is maddening.
So is this umpiring.
Well that was a fucking terrible call.
Asshole.
He was safe.
C’mon Guti.
somebody call the cops. m’s just got robbed.
Did the M’s forget to make their payment to the umpire’s union this month or something?…
Geesh.
Fuck. It’s mister swing-o-matic.
edit: 3-0 count, I apologize, just don’t lift the bat off your shoulders. Get to Ichiro.
edit2: Yes!!! you sexy thing, Yuni!!!!
I can’t believe Yuni didn’t swing at that. A miracle….
C’mon guys beat Francisco.
Why isn’t Johjima standing on 3rd with one out? Oh yeah, ’cause somebody didn’t see him beat out the throw AND didn’t see the 1st baseman pull his foot. F***
Wouldn’t it be totally funny if Yuni took his first walk here?
Wow, 3-0 count for Yuni. How many times does that happen?
Another close loss, oh well, We can still win the series.
A walk!
WALK!!!
HE WALKED!!!!!
*heart attack*
Stagger to window to view pigs flying….
The seventh sign.
GO ICHIRO!! PLEASEEE
hahaha first walk of the season represents the winning run!!!
YUNI TAKES A WALK! *bow Yuni, bow*
What the hell?
BETTENCOURT WALKS!!!!!! Well he got walked anyways.
YUNI!!
HE WALKED!!!!!
WTF is the world coming to an end? Yuni walking??
DAMMMMMMMMMIT ICHIRO!!! Why swing at the first pitch.
That ump sucks too!!
Why didn’t Johjima just score on a sacrifice to center… Oh yeah, because (nevermind)…
Alright, that sucked, but I am still filled with pride in Yuni. If only a lesson could have been learned! Oh the humanity!
Christ on a f*cking bike! Yuni took ball four.
Curse you Ichiro(!)
What a way to end the game. Hell freezes over (Yuni walk) and then Ichiro does his best Yuni impression all after the 1B Ump blows a call, two ways. Don’t forget The King looking mediocre and another almost improbable comeback skirted. Great day at the Safe…
first pitch swinging…. what the fuck.
did not expect ichiro to pull that, seems like alot of the other players love to, but damn, didnt expect ichiro to pull that.
That bullshit call at 1st just cost them the game…
I hate it when that happens.
Yeah too bad Ichiro doesn’t have more patience at the plate. Swung at ball 4 Saturday in the 9th and then proceeded to ground out and then 1st pitch swinging tonight. Oh yeah I brought that up but….”He’s Ichiro”.
Yuni walks before Benji Molina does. I don’t know if it was because Francisco has control issues, or that he thought Yuni would swing at that stuff.
So, we’ve lost every game this year where Yuni has taken a walk. Just goes to show, the Walk is overrated.
It didn’t cost them the game, but it definitely didn’t help. The game was lost with a first pitch swing and Felix having a mediocre day… but yeah that call sucked!
ugh. another 1 run game…this is aging me too fast. If you told me that we would score 5 runs and lose this game, I would have laughed. Felix..what happened?
justjake–
Ichiro can get away with it. We know he’s not patient. But his BABIP is well above average, as is his BB/K ratio. His slugging has been slightly above league average his entire career despite not being a “power hitter”, and his wOBA is above league average every single year of his career.
He tried “being patient” when, I believe, Molitor was the hitting coach. After ending May hitting around .250, Molitor told him to do his own thing. Ichiro! finished the season over .300. Again.
His plate discipline is allegedly bad, but he has an O-swing% under 25% for his career (although it has jumped significantly the last three seasons…hmm…) and an overall swing% of 47%. OF those pitches he swings at outside the zone, he connects with 73% of them.
In short, Ichiro! is not your average hitter. He just doesn’t work the same way. If his BABIP was around .300 and we saw these stats and new his potential was WAY higher, we’d probably call him on it. But the fact is his potential is maximized with this approach.
justjake: Try not to be more of an asshole than you can help. One person gave a throwaway answer to your question yesterday, but several other people took it seriously and answered seriously. So there’s no need to peddle your martyr line here.
I was hoping that the quality of the umpiring would improve with a new crew for this series. This is BS.
Granted, that totally crap call didn’t cost us the game. The Seattle Super Swingers throughout most of the game cost us the game. But still…it’s hard to recover from a call that terrible.
Got to give credit, where credit is due, I was impressed by the Shortstop defense the last four games, by Cabrera for Oakland and Andrus for Texas. It does matter.
So, at what point does Z go out and get a bigger bat. This offense needs to improve. Soo many one run games… I’m tired of going into the later innings hoping the M’s can stage another great come back. And, who are the big bats that we could possibly get?
This is probably where that discussion of which prospects are worth parting with could come into play….
Big bats we could get? Without a humongous albatross contract tied to them and an enormous prospect price tag?
I’d bet on “not many”.
Too many teams are in it right now to talk some real jive turkey, with bona-fide long-range players for the gettin’.
Is anybody else having grey hairs multiply like rats in summer over all these one-run games??
Guess Felix was battling the flu, so that didn’t help him at all. Although he struck out 9, he just made some mistakes and the Rangers made him pay. Hopefully Bedard has a strong start tomorrow and they can get out of town with a winning home stand.
I doubt any big bats are going to be available for a while.
Beltre hitting would help a lot of the “big bat” problem. When he finally gets back on track, that should help.
This is a year where there will be more buyers than sellers most likely, but if the N.L. west stays as it is, the whole division besides the Dodgers could be sellers. Baltimore has assumed their role as A.L. East backmarkers, but they seldom deal during the season, if they do, Aubrey Huff could be available, gotta assume they are too greedy (Bedard type deal) for Roberts, otherwise he would have already been dealt. Cleveland will probably being wiling to deal. And I think like last year Atlanta will take a realistic approach and look to upgrade for the future, so I would say Kelly Johnson may well be available. Houston might put Tejada on the block. And Washington should already be trading anyone who doesn’t fit into the long-range future so they can develop the best possible young team around that #1 draft pick franchise player falling into their hands. Pittsburgh probably wanted too much for Jack Wilson in the past, now his value has declined and he might be a good bargain pick-up for somebody.
I’m a glass is half full kind of M’s fan, I guess…because I was at this game and it was a decent night at the ballpark.
We had Felix, sick with flu, getting tagged…but also gritting it out and getting strike-outs…
We looked hapless, but we broke up a perfect game in a big way to come back and tie the game–however temporarily.
We get solid relief from White & Stark, keeping us in the game.
We scrap and scrape and stay in the game with a chance to win in the 9th inning…and we don’t just get mowed down 1-2-3 in that 9th inning–we build a credible threat.
Sure, it didn’t pan out the way we wanted…and an Ichiro pop-up is just as frustrating as a Griffey whiff used to be…but for a team that my highest hopes for would have been for a .500 season, we’re going to lose some games…and we’ll definitely lose 6-5 to Texas. But, to always be in these games and always think there’s a chance we can come back to win it…it makes all the difference…it makes it all worth it.
Hell yeah, I’m coming back for Bedard and a Tuesday matinee… This is baseball worth paying to see!