Game 92, Mariners at Indians
10.
The M’s will be showcasing Bedard today after yesterday’s Washburn focus. If you act now, qualified buyers can get cash back and 0% financing on this starter and easy payment terms including PTBNL and live arms not on the 40-man roster. Bedard is estimated to retain his resale value over the next month if you drop from contention. Plus there’s a limited-time government incentive of $4,500 if you trade in your old starter to be recycled. And if you call today, we’ll throw in the Mariner Moose. That’s right, the Mariner Moose, yours for one homestand to show off to fans, rent out to furry conventions, whatever you want as long as it’s legal or the cops don’t find out.
Larry Stone has a smart, fairly long discussion with Wakamatsu about the Rob Johnson-Johjima playing time split.
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bring your own gingersnaps.
Best game thread preface ever.
I have heard Branyan is going to play today? Anyone find the line up yet?
[don't do that]
Rob’s belief system is the reason he gets playing time? Is Joh an atheist in the church of pitching and defence?
Wak does dismiss ‘catcher ERA’ as a red-herring, and doesn’t at any point claim that Rob Johnson is the better hitter, but there’s a lot of intangible stuff about body language, and belief systems leading to his working well with pitchers.
Yay, more Chris Shelton.
If Felix, Bedard and Washburn all feel more comfortable pitching to Johnson then I’m find with that.
There is another intelligent Rob Johnson discussion going on here.
Appears to be a bit more advanced than the usual dribble.
Uhm, am I the only one that thinks that this line up doesn’t make a ton of sense?
LLRRRRLRR
Today seems like a good day to move Branyan back to the 5 spot, rather than have our current best hitter hitting behind Lopez and Shelton.
Apparently the Johnson thing is going to continue as he will keep catching the “big 3″… But a day game after a night game? Come on Wak! I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
Well, the big 3 is likely to become the big 1, anyways, so Kenji will probably get more catching opportunities when Bedard and Wash move on.
And when the righty comes out of the bullpen, we have Griffey (probably for Shelton) on the bench and Hannahan, I guess.
So I have a lineup question.
I have read comments from Drayer and Wakamatsu lately along the lines of “Player X is obviously not comfortable in the number 2 spot; he’s clearly more comfortable further down in the lineup.”
It seems hard to believe that a batter facing a pitcher would perform measurably differently because of his spot in the order. Is this just baseball mythology?
My apologies to Mr. Baker.
If you want to see the line up, go to the link in the game thread intro.
That Rob Johnson thing @ LL is a troll.
It is the belief the pitchers have in him, not Rob’s personal beliefs, according to Drayer. She said on the pregame that Wak had referenced Joh being at a disadvantage this year due to missing so much of ST for the WBC, plus his time on the DL.
[Piniella]
It seems hard to believe that a batter facing a pitcher would perform measurably differently because of his spot in the order. Is this just baseball mythology?
The only time I could ever imagine it really being a problem is if the hitter changes his approach at the plate based upon the “role” of that spot, for instance goes to cleanup and starts trying to hit home runs every at-bat.
Maybe swaps do make some players uncomfortable, but I would guess it’s mostly just small sample size effects giving the talking heads something to blather about.
It seems that getting to catch the best pitchers might very well have a little bit to do with a cERA.
Can Wak just be honest and say “Listen, Felix, Eric and Jarrod like throwing to Rob better! Okay?!? And they’re pitching their brains out, so I’m not screwing with it. Yeah, I realize Rob couldn’t hit a golf ball over the fence with a driver, but I’m not going to piss those 3 off. So, smeg off, and leave me alone. I’m playing RBI Baseball on the old school Nintendo with Branyan, so I’m kind of busy, okay?”
I would really enjoy that.
When we trade Bedard and/or Washburn, will we package Rob with one of them? Or we could go back to Dave’s idea and send out all three for Hardy.
Wak should just come out and say that he’s too weak-willed to stand up to his best 3 pitchers’ demands to have RJ catch them. Come out and say that he’s unable to convince them that the team has a better chance to win with Joh’s bat in the lineup over Johnson’s.
But instead we get this lengthy speech about not wanting to rock the boat…about some connection RJ supposedly has with them. If Wak was truly about giving the team the best chance to win, about putting the team first, he’d sit wash, bedard, and felix down and tell them that Joh’s bat is going to give them a much better chance of winning.
I can’t wait for Bedard and Washburn to be moved so this nightmare known as RJ can finally end.
Branyan in the lineup = good call.
So… Branyan. Back’s okay then?
He did trot rather slowly for Russell, though
So far not a great outing for Mr. Laffey
Why, this is the most fun I’ve had racking up runs against an opponent since that 2001 game against Cleveland!
This whole tangent is crazy. Really? Wakamatsu’s managing well because the 7-8-9 guys have hit well, and… other 7-8-9s don’t? And that’s laudable, soooo we should just put Ichiro! in the #9 slot, and Branyan at #8 because it would allow him to “do some things” and… wow.
Also, does Blowers ever disagree with anything?
“Mike, I’ve heard that the sun will be rising in a northerly direction today.”
“Well, I think that’s true, a lot of people around the league will tell you that the sun can come up from the north, north-east even sometimes…”
He tends to defer more to Dave than when he is with Sims.
I’m starting to believe in Ronny Cedeno lately.. Anyone joining me? Anyone?
He certainly looks a bit less lost at the plate, with results to match. I like the result, but a swinging bunt doesn’t exactly blow me away.
Really, Cedeno? Really?
I don’t imagine he did that on his own.
Got to love the aggressiveness.
Why did they send Cedeno? He had about a 0.0% chance of scoring.
He was being waved the whole way. But he did cut third pretty wide… seems like it should have been closer than it was.
Wakamatsu’s explanation for the catching rotation strikes me as vague and clichèe-laden. I think he is stepping around the issue that Felix, Washburn and Bedard prefer to throw to Johnson and that he does not want to upset them.
I am also surprised that Branyan is playing 1B while Shelton is the DH. If Branyan’s back is sore, it would have made sense to swap these roles.
Finally, I note that the Indians don’t have Chief Wahoo on their hats. Is that a permanent move?
Yesterday they said the cream colored jersey and alternative logos are a weekend uniform.
So how many more pitches until a foul tip smacks into Rob Johnson’s throwing hand — rendering moot these debates about his starting more than Joh?
Man, I just can’t get used to this east coast early morning weekend baseball. After all these years you’d think I’d learn, but I just can’t anticipate a game starting earlier than I’m willing to open a beer. And no, I’m not willing to start before noon — the way the team has been these past few years, that rule was the only thing standing between me and alcoholism.
Well, some hitters do hit better with men on base (Jose Lopez, for example) and some do worse.* If you assume the high OBP guys tend to be at the top of the order, then hitting higher in the order increases the odds of hitting with men on base, so…
* This may not be entirely explicable, but it is statistically valid. And it can be understandable in some cases, anyway: if a hitter frequently hits grounders towards RF then having a man on first to keep the 1st baseman on the bag (and perhaps the 2B shading over to cover in case of a steal) may open up a gap for more singles, etc.
Mariners’ managers, 2007 and 2008 – Kowtow to the veterans, who were terrible.
Mariners’ manager, 2009 – Kowtow to the players who are performing well.
I don’t have a problem with this. Winning with Rob v. winning with Joh seems like a “my ice cream’s too cold” sort of argument.
The hats look classy. I hope this is a toe in the water as the Indians ponder moving away from Wahoo entirely.
Don’t all hitters do better with men on?
I agree that I like these Indian hats much better…racism aside the ‘I’ hats look much, much better. Love the cream-colored unis too.
Chris-I’d buy your argument about RJ if he were performing well, but he’s not. He’s not batting better than Joh and he’s not throwing out runners better, either.
Has RJ thrown anyone out at second? I seem to vaguely remember him throwing someone out at third, which led to a vigorous tongue bath by the on-airs, but just like the last stolen base, it’s always something that doesn’t get the out.
Chris’ point is that Wakamatso is following the Pitchers’ wishes.
Oh Damn that was weak sauce Woodward!
Well it looks like Bedard is right on track for another patented 5 inning start.
The Wahoo-less caps and cream colored uniforms are replicas of their uniforms that were introduced in 1915, they, like the Phillies use these replicas as their home alternate jerseys.
Most hitters do better with men on because pitchers are easier to hit when they are throwing out of the stretch and worried about baserunners
I suppose he thinks keeping the most important 60% of his pitching staff happy may well be worth more than the difference in Keni’s bat over Johnson’s. That’s hard to evaluate — Kenji, in limited playing time, is already .4 WAR more than Johnson (that factors in whatever defensive catching that Range Factor includes; offensively, Johjima has a .301 wOBA vs Johnson’s .265, though ZIPS thinks Johnson should finish the season closer to .280). But when it comes to pitch calling or any of the other “strategic” properties of catchers, I suppose we have to defer to Wakamatsu (though Kenji seemed capable of that in past years). I do wonder if, as somebody else suggested, Wakamatsu sees a lot of his player-days self in Johnson.
Still, if this is Wakamatsu’s biggest blind spot, I can live with it.
Drayer’s story about Branyan and Ichiro and Nintendo may be the single funniest Mariners anecdote I’ve ever heard.
She also said that Trey Griffey (ie, George Kenneth Griffey III) looked at the Nintendo and said “what the heck is that” since it was older than he was.
I despise it when players slide into first.
Thank you for sliding into first Valbuena.
Trey’s given name is actually Trey– Trey Kenneth Griffey.
Damn, Sims ran out of time to disparage cERA via Wakamatsu on air.
Sumabitch!
If I have to hear that damn C-ERA thing one more time–thank god we got our third out before the RJ tongue bath could start afresh.
Sims talking about catcher’s ERA again, but this time quoting Wakamatsu saying that it’s a very unfair statistic. The inning ended right after that, but I would have loved to hear Blowers agree with him, the day after Blowers said that it meant a lot.
The Rob Johnson thing isn’t so much a troll as it is satire.
Oh, really? Clearly, I did not know that. So that Gatorade (?) commercial where an elderly Griffey watches Ken Griffey IV hit a home run is even more of a fantasy than it appears, I guess. Though of course you can call kids anything you want. (I was trying to convince friends to call their kid “Xanax” or “Propecia”)
Ichiro doesn’t — his stats with bases empty and bases occupied are almost identical:
men on: .332 / .406 / .421
empty: .332 /.362 / .439
Many probably do (I’m not going to do the work to determine if it’s “most” or “some” let alone what the actual percentage is) but some undoubtedly do “more better” than others.
I’ve never understood the rationale for sliding into first…you’re slowing down by not running and increasing friction. Ridiculous but so many announcers call it ‘gritty’, I call it lame.
It says a lot about the Mariners that these games with the Indians are pitchers duels. This team can not score runs even against terrible pitching.
That was a rather interesting out
Anyway, speaking of Ichiro, he seems to think highly of Wakamatsu so that’s good enough for me. (Though of course it would be unusual for a player to criticize his manager, and especially unusual for a Japanese player to do so). Also Ichiro understands the causal relationship between winning and good chemistry (“When you have more wins than losses, things happen. Things come about just from that. So we see the influences of that as well this season.”)
well shit
Lopez, channeling his inner Betancourt. Or Bruckner.
You know, Lopez, if you miss the ball the first time, it’s all right to keep chasing it.
If Wak’s argument is that Joh hasn’t developed a “belief system” this year with the “big three” and will get the chance to at some point, wouldn’t it make sense to start that out by giving Joh a start here and there with members of the Rob Johnson trio? For instance, a day game after a night game might be a good place to start? If he’s not even going to give him that start, then how is he ever supposed to develop that “belief system”? Is he telling Joh he really just needs to hope that Rob Johnson gets injured? That’s kind of what it sounded like.
Further, Joh has caught Felix and Washburn for a few years now. If he hasn’t developed that “belief system” yet with them, then it’s not going to happen.
Was anyone else at least half expecting Bedard to pull a hamstring on that bunt?
Wow what a terrible lack of effort from Lopez…great job Lopez! Thanks for costing Bedard a win.
There are so many ways Jose Lopez is a god awful player.
Sorry, Bedard. If you accept aribtration we should have a real 2B to make that play.
And juneau_fan, I couldnt agree more. Nothing frustrates me more then when infielders fuck up and then sulk about it. I do not like you very much right now, Jose.
Hey guys,
In Jersey, just got in from work and couldn’t get any of the game. How was Bedard looking today?
Lopez needs to be a DH to save us from watching his awful defense. Ugh that was ugly!
He couldn’t locate his fastball but had a good curve and he threw a ton of pitches.
I just don’t see some team making an offer for Bedard. Whether its deserved or not, this five inning thing is not confidence-building for a buyer. Of course, maybe if we threw Batista in as his wingman, a trade would work.
All our hopes are on Washburn. He just needs to stop saying how much the defense saves his ass. No, no, Angry Beaver, it’s all your god given talent!
You know what, Chris Woodward? You can go home too. Do you not realize how BAD this teams bullpen is? And you swing at the first pitch two at bats in a row? You suck.
The error by Lopez may end up being the moment we went from buyers to sellers.
I actually hope that turns out to be the case, long shot at the playoffs aside, I want to see this team built for the next couple of years, not for the next couple of months.
He’s reinvented himself.
They said so on the radio.
A lot.
I was worried he was going to get on base on that dropped strike 3.
I’d also toss in that attempt to score by Cedeno. The minute it happened, I had the sense of doom; that we would need the run, bad.
Lefty strikeout pitchers with era’s in the high 2’s have value. Even the ones who only go 5-6 innings.
Bedard isn’t a workhorse, and I doubt anyone will mistake him for such at this point, but to say that there isn’t interest in a guy with his talent is pretty inaccurate.
haha ‘nice play’ by Johnson? He drops the ball and it’s a ‘nice play’?
A walk on 4 pitches. Wow.
On the plus side, we get to see Batista (I know, I know), but supposedly there are a few teams looking at him right now if reports are to be believed. Hopefully he’ll do well here. Value back for Batista, might just top the Yuni trade.
He’s been coasting for so long on his cERA that he has to create additional challenges for himself to keep it interesting.
As you say, some value, but I doubt it’ll be the value that the uninformed fan is going to expect, causing outrage.
Maybe he should throw a bit lower to Branyan so he has a shot at tagging the runner. Closing his lead doesn’t do anything cause Johnson probably won’t make the throw/Cedeno will be standing in center waiting for it.
Oh God.
Good job keeping the run from scoring, Langer.
Someone please put Batista out of his misery
This has a vaguely familiar feel to it . . .
Well, I’d rather see them pitch to Cabrera than Sizemore, but I’d rather Batista not have gotten into this situation in the first place.
juneau_fan;
I agree that shipping out Bedard will cause outrage, but considering what we gave up for two years (and whatever compensation we end up getting for him) that outrage is all but unavoidable. In other words, you can’t please everyone.
However, once (if?) the Mariners fall out of contention, most of the outrage is mitigated, and ignorant fan outcry or not, this team needs to do what is most important for its future.
And that entails getting maximum value for a guy who isn’t going to be a part of this teams long term future.
We aren’t going to get anywhere near what we gave up for him, but given the rather limited pitching market, and the number of teams still in contention, I still think we could get a couple of valuable major league players for his remaining contract time.
Whew. That was ugly but they survived.
Well,
The playoff run was fun while it lasted.
Did Sims reallllly just say “thats a base a ball” in the most racist italian/puerto rican accent ever?
Mirror universe Batista makes it through the inning!
Does anyone know how much the PR and Marketing Depts. are involved in player moves? Obviously, Griffey sells tickets at home, so that is a no brainer, but I think they could turn the average fan on a Bedard trade.
I would think a proactive PR campaign could spin a Bedard trade in such a way that average fans would not give up on the team.
What the hell was that, Branyan!?
I love Russell, but having a guy who can put the ball in play there woulda been real nice.
Maybe Lopez will redeem himself on this at bat.
On the radio it sounds like Rizzs is calling the Indians infielder “Astroball Cabrera”
Good god that was a bad at bat by Branyan…and the average fan turning by a Bedard trade? I doubt it. Not like he’s a long time Mariner, or he gives such great interviews to endear himself to fans.
Yep, Sims, Lopez really made up for that error.
Jose Lopez is trying so hard to pass Carl Everett as my least favorite mariner of all time. I dont think he can do it though. STOP SWINGING AT THE FIRST FREAKING PITCH.
Ok Woodward don’t screw up here.
Is Jose Lopez some mean little joke the organization has been playing on us?
There’s the Mariner offense I remember. Leadoff extra base hit, never sniffs a run.
Well look at the box score. We have 3 runs on 9 hits, the Indians have 3 runs on 5.
It’s pretty amazing this series how many “yaaaaaa … ooooohhhh”’s there are from the Indian fans this series. Our outfield defense is awesome!
Any GM that wants Batista needs to have a mental evaluation because they are friggin crazy!
At least Carl Everett wasn’t here for 5 years as Lopez has been.
Ok Guti…do your stuff.
Good start Guti! You almost have to put him in motion. Stringing two hits together at the bottom of this lineup is highly unlikely.
Maybe Johnson will jack another one. Ha, yeah right.
What does win probability say about runner on 1st with no out vs runner on 2nd with one out?
I’ll be happy with moving DFT to 3rd base.
God these long RJ at bats just give them more and more time to dawn all over him…good lord this is unbearable.
Sigh…God at bat, Rob. I still dislike you intensely. Do I like anyone? No.
That was a great AB from Johnson.
“What does win probability say about runner on 1st with no out vs runner on 2nd with one out?”
.953 vs 1.189 if memory serves me
1st B and 2nd B with 0 outs is 1.573 i believe as well (give or take, i might be a tad off, but it’s around there).
Ryno is due
Sorry, i thought you said “run” probability. My bad.
Wow, it feels like we should be in the 11th inning by now. Bedard was slow enough, but Betancourt is crazy slow.
2 in scoring position… Can we plate one at least? C’mon Woodward!
*yawn* is it baseball already? damn early east-coast games.
Has Tango updated this RE chart with more (and more recent) data? (Not that I would expect it to change things except the trailing decimal places).
Good thing Hannahan’s hitting, Woodward wasn’t going to do anything with the runner in scoring position
Clearly, Lauren had a good Saturday night.
Runners* Anyways he did the job!
Yesss!
YES!
joser: Not necessarily. I’m reeeallly bad at getting up before noon on Sundays.
Thank you Jack Hannahan! With assists to Johnson and Langerhans.
Is AA available in the 9th assuming Lowe holds this lead? He’s pitched only 2 days straight, so I’d guess he is, but I don’t remember his pitch counts either night.
And now it’s Ronny “hot bad” Cedeno time.
Alfonso Soirano
Rafael Soriano
Rafeal Betancourt
Yuniesky Betancourt
I don’t know why but that sequence always go through my head whenever one of those guys is mentioned.
Well, good night or not, your arrival in the game thread clearly motivates the team to take the lead.
I’m stupid. And speaking of stupid the M’s are actually winning this game. I feel so casual about a game that has huge implications going forward.
sweet chart joser
Make your league minimum salary Lowe. Let’s close the door on this series
Why is Lowe the setup guy? Can’t Kelley pitch more than one inning?
Sims is outdoing himself with this story about bullriding at Gilly’s. I was making lunch and had to come over just to say that.
Well this is looking promising.
So, I count that as us getting to hear Lopez getting plunked 4 times in 20 seconds.
New record?
Maybe we can blow this open and make the AA question easy to answer
Somehow I got convinced to go play chess at a LA coffee shop. I’m like Kerry Wood right now. I don’t know WTF I’ve gotten myself into.
I’m on Gameday and can’t see it live, but based on the pitch location it looks like Shelton is missing some fat pitches. Can anyone watching live elaborate?
Shelton saw some good stuff to hit, but at 99MPH, and then some good offspeed.
And on top of that, he was so fooled by an offspeed that he lost his bat.
Scoring as only the M’s can. And now RJ’s our savior; great.
AA is going to earn his money today.
Yeah the speed and break functionality is broken on Gameday today for some reason…couldn’t tell much more than pitch location.
P.S. must be fun to be an Indians fan this year with this bullpen
I don’t know if Gameday uses PitchFX, but it hasn’t been working these last couple games.
Is it maybe because the field in Cleveland isn’t set up for it? I know the pitch fx screen with the EQC sponsorship hasn’t been on at all…so maybe its not installed in Cleveland?
Cabrera wasn’t particularly happy about that swing.
Did anyone catch what that guy yelled on the pop up?
Good lord, they can’t stop gushing about RJ can they? Damn they’ve gotten obnoxious about it…
Yeah, but I can’t repeat it.
I didn’t want to be a pessimist by saying, 2 outs, two strikes, time for AA to walk someone!
And then it happened.
Strike zone got a little smaller from RJ’s at bat to Choo’s at bat.
Nice Ichiro!
Holy shit! Ichiro, you are so awesome.
ICHIRO!
WIN! 3 of 4. Not too shabby. We get to turn the rotation over Tuesday as well. I like this 4 man rotation thing. Too bad it’s Olsen and not RRS though.
And by the way… ICHIRO!!!
What a selfish little right fielder we have..
I said a very naughty word when that came off the bat….thank you Ichiro!!
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHHAHAHAAAHHAHAAAA!!!!
Really sweet when it happens to some other team.
Cha ching
Ichiro, why are you so good?
“What a selfish little right fielder we have.”
I know. Before that catch I was thinking “nice job again Aardsma”. Now all i can think about there is Ichiro! So selfish always stealing the lime light.
Damn that was awesome!
Another reason for the Cleveland fans to hate Ichiro (and I’ll take it anytime).
Aardsma owes Ichiro!
Even if that hadn’t been a homerun, it would have been a double at least and the whole thing still could have been lost.
Just like Lopez’s error almost lost the game, that catch won it.
Let’s go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’s!! Take down Lackey and those dreaded Angels..
This has been hard playing so well, and actually losing ground the past few series.
That was kinda close. . .
Could Russell Branyan really be the next Mariner to hit 40 home runs? GMZ should start a religion.
On a lighter note, Yuni’s been up twice for KC today with the bases loaded and 1 out, flied out to shallow center once (no run), and grounded into a DP once.
Jen Mueller postgame quote “the Mariners now improve to 21-13 in one run games”…..long pause
Anyone else surprised that RSS was allowed to go 7 innings and Olsen will be starting on Tuesday?
Meh, I wish Yuni the best, except when he plays against us. He has had a really hard life, and hopefully he can figure it out in KC.
Our allstar > their allstar
Ah, all ye of little faith!
As Dennis Green would say, he is who we thought he was.
MLB Extra Innings being free on Comcast this weekend, the Royals are wearing weird powder blue unis. Yuni in a powder blue uni.
Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez both rejected their contract offers.
Lets make this happen!
ESPN’s report on Wilson and Sanchez
I wonder what Bedard thinks of transitioning to the role of closer. Because that may be the logical career move.
It’s time to retire Chief Wahoo. Actually, it was time decades ago. Look to the late 19th century for inspiration…bring back the Spiders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Spiders
The whole Chief Wahoo thing is nuts. Seriously, guys, I realize its tradition, but some traditions just aren’t worth it. Keep the name, if you want, but that thing is awful, on about 35 levels.
The ESPN article is interesting, although if they offered these two guys extensions at $4MM per for two years, they’re living in a fool’s paradise. According to Fangraphs, both Wilson (all by fielding) and Sanchez have more than earned their salaries for this year, and the Pirates have been stealing from them for years. I do hope the idea of only midlevel prospects being what the Pirates will want is true. The M’s have lots of midlevel prospects. It’s top level prospects we lack. How would they like Sanchez for Lopez straight up?
What the hell was that Guti bobble head commercial with the duck?
Who at M’s PR was stoned out of their gourd when they came up with that one?
Sometimes I wonder if the [Pirates] ownership should have their team taken away from them.
Nothing has happened good for them since Sid Bream scored in that playoff game.
And on top of the game-saving (or at least tie-avoiding) catch, Ichiro got 3 hits. I don’t know how much folks have noticed, but not only is he well on track to get over 200 hits again (despite missing those 8 games at the start of the season) he’s actually ahead of his 2004 pace at this point in the season. This is his 85th game played, and he’s at 134 hits; in his 85th game in 2004, he had just 119. Of course, he played his 85th game on July 11, 2004, and he was in a bit of a slump (by his standards) from about the first week of June until mid-July that year, so the comparison has some caveats. He’s not on pace to break his 2004 record both because of the missed 8 games and also because he went on a tear the last couple of months of 2004. But he is on pace for 240, which would be his best season since his rookie 242-hit campaign (and 3rd best overall; arguably 2nd best when you consider the missing games).
(Remembering that Sisler also played just 154 game seasons certainly makes his accomplishment all the more impressive, too.)
Angels and A’s tied going into the 8th (not even 90 minutes game time yet). Brett Anderson just had a perfect game broken up by Abreu, who promptly got picked off first base.
I say it again, let’s go AAAAAAAA’S! I want to gain some ground today.
That’s a heck of a pitcher’s duel: the two starters have given up just 3 hits and one walk combined. And only 5 K each — both defenses must be getting a lot of work. Lackey is under 80 pitches; Anderson is under 90. Whoever goes to the bullpen first loses, I imagine. Unless a dinger or an error makes the difference first.
Well the M’s live to contend another day, though the margin is getting tighter and tighter…
I wouldn’t mind if the Indians kept Wahoo in some form, but for God’s sake change that racist portrayal–It’s not like they didn’t “modify” it in the past.
The Redskins team name may be more insulting, but at least their logo isn’t a complete racist stereo-type.
Honestly, how long would a theoretically comparable team last in this day and age? “The New Orleans Negros” with an equally racist mascot would’ve rightfully been howled out of baseball years ago.
As for the Pirates, anyone with half a jot of an IQ new that this was a token offering in a sham attempt at appeasing their justifiably angry fan-base and feebly grasping at a better position in trade talks. Every GM in baseball knows the Pirates can’t keep them past this season.
The Indians should call themselves the Sockalexis. And then get Lexus to sponsor them.
Abreu takes Andrew Bailey deep in the top of the 10th. 1-0 Angels heading into the bottom of the inning. **Sigh**
And the M’s are still 4 back. Well maybe Texas can lose and we can go into 2nd place at least.
Can you still call the AL West a weak division with Anaheim winning 90+ games?
The Pirates ‘offer’ was an insult to both players, and they will now actively be shopped. The ownership of the Pirates is more about making money than putting a winning team on the field. They take the luxury tax money and stuff it in their pockets, spitting in the face of the long tradition that the Pirates come from.
It’s a shame, as the football in Pittsburgh is the polar opposite of how the baseball team is run.
If we can win the tigers series we have a chance to lose the rangers, who will be playing the red sox.
Oh yes.
Most Indians don’t see Chief Wahoo as an issue:
I know here in Issaquah, when the school board proposed changing the mascot name from Indians, the local Snoqualmie tribe was consulted and they said Indian’s was fine with them. Then the let the student body vote, and the vote was overwhelmingly to keep the Indian mascot, and then the school board changed it anyway. I guess it was an issue for them.
Cool. The Chief Wahoo Wikipedia page led me to the “Chief” Bender Wikipedia page. I had never heard of him, but THIS is freakin’ awesome:
Anyone else surprised that RSS was allowed to go 7 innings and Olsen will be starting on Tuesday?
Wak did say he was going to use Olsen again because he doesn’t want any of his pitchers to feel as if they are pitching for their lives.
I would be surprised if Olsen starts next time IF he faulters this time.
The Penguins are obviously well-run too, as well as Pittsburg’s college teams. If I owned the Pirates amid all those well-run franchises, I’d be embarrassed of myself.
Still, the Pirates are poorly run and I see no reason for Jack Z not to take advantage of that!
The Penguins almost went bankrupt and were saved by the loyalty of Mario Lemieux to the fans of Pittsburgh.
The Pirates are going to discover there is a lot less luxury tax money in upcoming seasons. The cost to the Yankees of new Yankee Stadium comes off the luxury tax. In essence, the Pirates, Marlins, Royals etc. are paying for it (or at least the part the Yankees are responsible for).
…Yeah, it’s not like the Yankees ever earned any money for the Pirates, Marlins and Royals due to the revenue sharing.
I didn’t mean the Penguins had tons of money. I meant they make good moves and have a good team. The Pirates, on the other hand…
It’d be cool to see GMZ make a move and pick up one or both of these guys for a fire sale price. I really love the way our GM operates!
The Yankees don’t “earn” money for other teams; other teams earn money for the Yankees, which they spend against those teams. Revenue sharing is a tiny recompense for that. If the Yankees didn’t like it, they could find some other major league baseball teams to play.
Ichiro, you are so awesome.
A while back, some national sportswriter was eagerly looking forward to attending an Indian game. He wanted to watch JODY GERUT play.
(The Indians were playing the Mariners.)