Game 91, Mariners at Indians
Washburn v Ohka. Wait– Washburn’s still here? Um, I mean of course he’s still here! He’s the anchor of this rotation, a much-improved veteran left-hander who combines experience with a newly mastered pitch that exemplifies his dedication to always getting better. Why would the team trade him? Why, if I was a playoff-contending team, I’d pay any price to bring this fine player over before my opponents twigged to the possibility.
Don’t be distracted by Seattle finally getting light rail after… all my life, pretty much (side notes: Light rail! Woooooo! Please get a line over one of the bridges and start doing crazy good, please!). This is where it’s at.
The Angels are beating Oakland as I write this (it’s 8-5 in the 5th) and the M’s are going to have to keep winning if they want to cling to their playoff hopes, which are about 20% right now, depending on where you look.
So win. Win win win.
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We’re all in with a King high… Lets hope the Angels are bluffing.
Drayer:
Some praise for the Mariners and Wakamatsu during the Angels/Oakland game.
Although it looks like the [Angels] will win tonight, the nice thing about the [Halos] game tonight is that Weaver is continuing to come back down to earth in terms of his pitching performances. If I’m not mistaken, that’s 13 ER’s he’s given up in his last 17 innings. Keep it up big guy.
I hope they are showing of The Mole for a possible trade. I’ll start a rumor that he’s going to KC.
“I’ll start a rumor that he’s going to KC.”
That’s what I heard too. And in return it is rumored they are offering Mark Teahen and their best young hitting prospect. *wink wink*
Balentien can go away anytime, thanks.
Hmm.
“Harris Poll: Mariners 10th-most popular team nationally”
I think I just heard Mike Blowers use “sample size” in a sentence.
Golly it is fun to watch him in center.
Can someone please tell me why Balentien is playing against a righty and why johnson is catching again?
“10th most popular team nationally” (also 4th most popular in the AL nationally)
Kind of kills ESPN’s arguments on not covering the M’s well nationally because of lack of interest.
from the Times:
“Wladimir Balentien, who has all but disappeared since Ryan Langerhans joined the team, will likely start tomorrow against right-hander Tomo Ohka.
“But the anomaly is the fact that (Balentien) hasn’t hit lefties very well this year, and we’ve talked to him about this,” Wakamatsu said. “If he wants to play more, there are certain traits he must establish. And Langerhans is hitting higher against lefties than he is against righties. You try to juggle it anyway you can to manufacture runs.”"
“why johnson is catching again”
Three words: Felix, Washburn, Bedard.
(who everyone knows are awful pitchers who belong in AAA if Johnson isn’t catching them)
Wow the Halos are 27th on that list, right ahead of KC and the Jay’s (who are last). That’s surprising. Perhaps they should change their name to the U.S. California LA Angels of Anaheim. I think that would help.
It still boggles my mind that Bartolo Colon was traded for Sizemore, Lee and Phillips. Has there been a rent a player trade that returned more value?
Martinez is a slower runner than I am…
Balentien with the gun (and a slow Martinez)!
Vlad can woof it in there.
Showcasing VB’s arm there, eh?
I guess Wak is just punishing Kenji for getting hits and throwing ppl out.
Vlad the Impaler.
Blowers talking about Washburn not getting certain calls and that the Umpire will hopefully come around as Jarrod’s a veteran and would presumably know where his pitches were.
Without pitch/fx the umpire can go back to his personal strike zone.
GUTI-BOMB!!!
Life to Flying Things!!!
or as Drayer said “Death to flying things” is also “Death to round things”
If PitchFX was being used to call the game and it was down, do you think they would delay the game or let one of the umpires do it? Not having called a game in possibly months or years, I don’t imagine they would do a good job. The umpire of the future might not even have any experience calling balls and strikes.
Branyan should have had that.
Sizemore makes that look way too easy.
Ok, so I was poking around online looking at stats… and found that Gutz has a higher OPS than Sizemore. Knowing that, would you rather have Sizemore?
Did you hear Rizzs on radio refer to Walter Cronkite as Walter Conkrite? He said it twice! My oh my.
They are taking about Catcher ERA on TV.
Sims – Catchers ERA 2.91 for Rob, tell us what that means.
Blow – I think it means a lot.
Sorry. They are talking about cERA. Blowers likes it.
Sizemore has a longer track record of success, but right now, I’m pretty happy with Gutierrez.
Also, boy that Washburn guy is pitching great! I hope some team comes up with a stellar offer to pry such a talented pitcher away from us.
There was a fantastic photo from last year of Sizemore and Gutierrez both airborne at the wall. Sizemore was actually making the catch, but Gutierez was hanging around 6 feet off the ground just in case.
Pitch FX can go out of alignment. At Petco the weight of a full crowd can depress the stands enough to throw the cameras out of whack and require them to re-register them. (Fortunately sellouts are rare enough in San Diego it’s not a frequent problem). So there are still some bugs they’re working out.
MLB will never do it, but my suggestion is to wire a “HUD” into the ump’s mask — five LEDs in a cruciform pattern with a green in the middle and red at top, bottom, left, and right. This would display data provided by an encrupted wireless link direct from PitchFX, to indicate either a strike or ball high, low, outside, or inside (or combination). The ump could still call his balls and strikes, but he’d know before he made the call whether he was departing from what pitch FX detected.
According to Fangraphs, Gutierrez is worth 14.4m so far this season, second to Matt Kemp at 18.4. Sizemore is at 4.2m, so yeah I’d say that Gutierrez is better than Sizemore right now, and it isn’t even close.
But Sizemore does have more of a track record, he’s the same age as Gutierrez and has 4 staight years of > 20hr and has 124 for his career vs Franklin’s 33.
My gut feeling says this is Washburn’s last game pitched as a Mariner.
Even if we are winning right now.
Had a three-hit shutout through five. Not hurting his stock very much, is he?
My gut is that Washburn only gets traded for an upgrade at SS. I don’t see that happening before his next start.
Remember that WAR is an accumulated stat, and Sizemore was out of the lineup on the DL for several weeks, depressing his value. Of course, if you’re talking about which guy you want this year (and you assume Sizemore would’ve been hurt either way) you definitely want Gutierrez. But it can mislead you a bit if you’re projecting their value forward. ZIPS projects Sizemore to have .379 wOBA for the rest of the season, vs just .338 so far; Gutierrez is projected to go .331 vs .346 so far. On the other hand, Gutierrez may be maturing as a hitter, so it’s possible his output so far really is indicative of a new level of performance for him rather than just being a career year. Time will tell.
I’ve always thought they should also introduce instant replay into all non-balls/strikes scenarios (balls/strikes being taken care of by pitchFX).
To do it without interrupting the game too much, allow the managers a certain number of times in a game where they can argue a call. Or have some penalty if they argue and they were wrong instead.
Anyways, then add one umpire to each crew that sits up in the broadcasters booth area. This umpire has access to all the video feeds and someone to call up any feed he/she wants and all that (basically like the broadcasters have available). All the umps on the field then wear an earpiece and mic so they can talk to this ump that has access to all the video feeds. This to me would make umpires happy because there would be one more umpire job per crew and they would always call a game correctly (which umpires all want to do).
Generally within about 15 seconds of a close call being made the broadcasters have whether or not it was a correct call or not. So this ump would have it by then as well and could relay it to the on the field umps. So normally during this time a manager would be arguing like crazy (delaying the game more than 15 seconds). With this system the field ump could know if they made the correct call by the time the manager gets out to them and can change the call or keep it accordingly. And given the call would then always be right, the managers would have no real reason to continue arguing and delaying the game.
To me the way they do instant replay with HR’s right now is idiotic and needlessly delays the game. Though I think Selig probably likes that, because the current system could never be extended to other types of instant replay in baseball due to it’s slowness. And he is of course extremely against instant replay in the game.
I’m not sure why we don’t try and sign Washburn. If we get rid of both Washburn and Bedard, our starting pitching goes from a relative strength to a relative weakness. We’ve seen what happens when Felix is our only good starter. And a lack of decent starters around Felix is going to give him more incentive to leave when he’s a free agent.
We’ve been winning with pitching and defense, and teams don’t seem to succeed without great starters. I know it will cost money, but the M’s have shown a willingness to spend when they need to. I guess the best argument for trading is to restock our farm system and pick up an SS, but who knows how long we will have Ichiro and Felix playing like they are.
7TH:
Boy, Balentien didn’t get a good jump on thta ball, but he makes the out.
Wash is starting to get tagged. The breaker’s not breaking.
I held my breath on that one but Wlad is playing left field well today, he must not like the bench. That was a impressive walk he had earlier too, there laid off two pitches that are generally Wladbait to get the walk.
Gutierrez makes that look way too easy.
Wow, he was out! TERRIBLE CALL!!
If there are any Mariner fans out there that still doubt the value of range, speed and glove in the outfield they just haven’t been paying attention to Gutierrez. The man’s a lithe young god.
Johnson moved his foot away from blocking the plate.
Yeah he was way out
I forgot ‘arm’ in that list.
Don’t forget, Sizemore’s defense has been deteriorating since his peak in 2006.
He was OUT.
The fact that Rob Johnson didnt block the plate has nothing to do with how bad that call is. Im sorry, Rob Johnson coulda tagged him out Allen Iverson between the legs style, he was clearly, clearly out.
You can show me any statistical information you need, the umpiring this year has been attrocious. I can no longer brag about how much better they are then the NBA or NFL (well theyre still better, but theyre no longer good)
Yes intelligently implemented instant replay is very needed in baseball.
I don’t think instant replay should be used…I mean bad calls are half the fun.
I think the officiating in the NFL is by far the best, and doesn’t deserve to be mentioned with the NBA, which is easily the worst of the major sports.
Who has the hardest job though between NBA, NFL, and MLB? I would say MLB umps, but that is purely subjective obviously.
People like you are part of the problem.
Johnson should have blocked the plate better than that, though. He caught the ball too far out in front. Jason Varitek would have camped out in front of home plate, built a fire, roasted marshmallows, then caught the ball and made the tag, without Victor ever coming near the dish.
Only one umpire is calling balls and strikes though, the other three aren’t doing nearly as much.
NBA is the most difficult. It’s why David Stern insists on hiring senior citizens to run back and forth a couple hours and officiate some of the quickest athletes in the world.
Two Balentein catches in one innning.
Why did the Indians spend $10 million on a relief pitcher?
Baseball is the most difficult because every play and every pitch requires a call for play to continue. In the NBA and NFL everybody expects lots of no calls, and if no call is made play continues.
I like Wlad in left field, he adds a lot more excitement to routine fly balls than Langerhans does.
I say NBA is the toughest as well, you have split second decisions as to whether a foul should be called every few trips, not to mention the block/charge decision.
Why the NBA hasn’t developed a good referee in the last 15 years baffles me though. Not to mention that Bennett Salvatore seems to get assigned to every game where a popular or big market team needs a victory.
Not to mention having to factor in whether a “superstar” is involved in the play or not. Adds a whole ‘nother level of difficulty.
Cedeno whiffed on that last pitch, but was completely unaware that the ball was not caught.
DA time. Let’s get the win!
With all due respect to Junior, I don’t care who you are or what historical/nostalgic value you have to this team, if you can’t hit, you can’t start daily, bat 4th, and be the “designated hitter.” Especially on a contending team.
Wilson in as defensive replacement at 2nd! Great call Wak.
Who came up with “The DA” for Aardsma, was it Sims?
Are the Mariners “buyers” yet?
I prefer AA because it reminds me of an aardvark, which Aardsma slightly resembles.
Seeing Kerry Woods, and remembering that he’s alive, I think someone should assume an all angry animal team. He resembles a pissed off mouse. We can put Washburn as the classic furious beaver, and Pedrioa as the angry squirrel. Weasel? Mole?
Well, another win, another day of staying in lock-step behind the Angels in the standings…
I really don’t know how the Halos have finagled as many wins as what they have, with all the injuries/tragedy/stuff they’ve dealt with.
But it’s damn annoying.
I hope the scouts are following Washburn through the box scores, there were a lot of hard hit balls against him today, but the defense was absolutely great. He gave up 8 hits, but no walks.
Anyone else notice the M’s are only 1 game behind the Rangers after today’s win??? It would be nice to get back into second place if we want to catch the Angels.
I was thinking something today as I drove home and was hearing updates about the game. It was mentioned (yet again) that Washburn has had the least amount of run support per game since 2005 of any pitcher in baseball. Using this little tidbit, I formulated a counter to those who suggest that pitchers prefer to pitch to Johnson over Johjima because they like Johnson better and therefore pitch better when he’s behind the plate.
Couldn’t this same irrational thinking be applied to the M’s lineup in its lack of run production for Washburn? They hate the guy, hate how he has absolutely sucked for years with this team, and so in retaliation they don’t hit for him?
Anyways, I thought it was as illogical as the arguments for Johnson catching for Johjima…
No doubt about it.
No. Players may dog it on defense, but they just don’t dog it at the plate. They like to hit, now they may not always take the best approach at the plate, but I don’t think I have ever seen a batter that is just going through the motions while hitting.
And the M’s did play great defense for Washburn today and like I said that is the first place you would see lack of effort for a pitcher.
But they have a reason to play well for Washburn recently; he’ll get traded and some fun, hard-playing young talent may come back for him.
I highly doubt a hitter would purposely NOT hit to get back at a pitcher that has not pitched well for the team. Makes absolutely no sense. Keeping your stats in good standing keeps your value high. I can’t imagine a good hitter would sacrifice his value to get back at a poorly performing pitcher.
GripS-exactly my point…the same people claiming that the pitching staff doesn’t pitch well because of personal conflicts with Johjima is the same exact nonsense.
How many starting pitchers would even qualify to be on this list? (I assume they would have had to been active since 2005 with some minimum amount of IP)
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the pitcher with the lowest run support is going to come from a team that’s had a couple years of poor offensive production.