Game Thirty-Nine Recap
Boo, 14-25.
A lot of stuff happened. A lot of it mattered. But there’s only one thing you need to know. With a one run lead in the 7th inning, two runners on base, and nobody out, Wak went to the mound and summoned Sean White. That’s not the only reason they lost, but it’s reason enough to earn it.
11 games under .500, 7 1/2 games out of first place… If the Mariners don’t make wholesale changes tomorrow, then we might as well just shut the blog down and go do something else for the next four months. This is beyond ridiculous. The season is a few days away from being a lost cause, and the Mariners continue to lose due to staggeringly bad performances from the worst players on the roster, who are repeatedly put into remarkably important situations. Players who don’t even belong in the major leagues.
It didn’t have to be like this. Despite all the slumps and the injuries and the problems, the team could have survived. But they can’t survive another day of DH Griffey, Setup Man White, or Shortstop Tui.
Changes. Tomorrow. Or Fury.
While getting Griffey off the roster would improve the team, treating a hall-of-fame player with respect and dignity is also important.
The best way to help Jr go gracefully would be for Wak to make the best choices for the team. Right now that means benching Griffey. After a month of this, hopefully Jr will get the message and retire.
Since this is a delicate issue, I cut the Mariners some slack on it. However, swapping out RRS for French, White for Kelley, and Sweeney for Nelson isn’t nearly as hard.
How about a new motto: “Believe Bag”. As in wearing a paper bag over our heads at games, New Orleans ‘Aints style.
Sean White – I was playing MLB 2K9 once as Baltimore and Sean White was brought in from the bullpen. He threw 3 pitches. Each one was hit out of the park. I think 2K9 did a pretty good job of replicating him.
Reading (and feeling) all of this ire towards the M´s management team it makes me think of a cool protest/stunt that would be admittedly impossible (or at least really difficult) to pull off.
What if Ussmariner and LL and any other blogs that have any kind of following got everyone organized to buy a ticket to a specific game so that the stadium is as full as possible at the first pitch. Then, following the first pitch, everyone gets up and leaves. Just a long, slow procession of fans out of the stadium in protest.
Obviously, there are major problems with this plan. For example, everyone would have to buy a ticket (some would have to step up and buy the expensive ones at that) and that would be quite a sacrifice for a game you don´t intend on staying for. Also, not everyone who frequents these sites lives in the Seattle area (I live in Chicago, for example). Those two things would make it nearly impossible to get the numbers necessary to pull something like this off.
While I know that something like this isn´t likely, now that I´m thinking about it, I can´t help picturing how cool it would look to have 20 or 30 thousand fans in the stands at the start of a game and have that number dwindle to 2 or 3 thousand by the end of Figgins´at bat. The TV and Radio guys would have to comment. It would certainly end up on Sportcenter and all the other highlight shows. Someone commented above on how fans don´t get any input into the process of running a team, but something like this would definitely send a message.
Again, I´m dreaming here. It´ll never happen. But it would be a pretty cool way to express our displeasure.
I’m constitutionally incapable of booing the following people:
Edgar Martinez
Randy Johnson
Ken Griffey, Jr.
They could dance on a bed of live kittens wearing golf shoes and all I could do would be to yell, “I feel strongly that what you are doing is truly ill-advised!!”
I booed Sexson and Vidro. Especially Sexson who had played with a hidden injury the year before. That shit pisses me off. What Griffey is doing is simply what (nearly) all great players do…failing to understand when it’s time to hang them up. He’s earned at least enough respect not to get booed in his own park.
If something like this was ever organized I would participate, but you’re right it is highly unlikely. More likely is the soon to be rapid decline in ticket sales. Which will still send a very potent message to the ownership.
Wake me up when they win.
Baltimore Orioles fans tried something like this in 2006. Seeing how things remained as they are, I can’t say it had much of an impact.
Is it bad that at this point I kind of want the M’s to lose so that Wak or Z will actually have to do something to fix this club.
C’mon Wak, you can wish an cross your fingers in one hand, an take a shit in another an see which one gets filled the fastest.
Can we add Moose to the 25 man roster? Can we use dizzy bats?
Granted the bats are horrific, but the Mariners’ bullpen is awful. For example, League walking Pennington on four pitches last night was pathetic. I mean, he gets the first guy on two pitches, and then can’t come close to the strike zone. We see this crap from the bullpen over and over again.
So if Cockrell could get thrown under the bus, why not Wetteland too? Game after game relievers enter the game unable to throw strikes, and when they do, it’s meat right over the heart of the plate.
When he cut Cockrell loose, Z said the hitters were “under-performing”. Well, I say the bullpen is under-performing, too.
That´s what makes this idea such a pipe dream. Those few thousand fans in the upper decks is about all you could expect to see for a stunt like this. Not really enough to cause much of a dust-up.
This series against the blue jays can serve for a thing, go bust to the orioles in the last place of the American league and be the worst equipment in baseball with the worst manager.
In his last three appearances, League is 0-2, with an ERA of 20.25 (6.48 ERA for all of May). Sean White has been much better in his last three appearances, with an ERA of 0.00, but carries an ERA of 9.00 for May)
Lowe’s injury was a big hit for the bullpen. It sure would be nice to have George Sherrill in the bullpen as the situational lefty.
Lets just face it, this team is awful from the top right down to the dreary bottom. There is nothing we can do aboit it, and even if there was Z probably wouldn’t do it anyways. Overrated!
That’s why you don’t evaluate relievers using ERA.
I don’t know what game you were watching last night, but Sean White is still terrible. To be fair, “Terrible” could be an upgrade from “Totally Awful” at least.
Show more faith in Tex please Wak, you know, one of the good relievers.
Long time fans know the pattern, but here’s some salt to rub into our wounds (old school stats style!): Carlos Silva is 5-0, Adrian Beltre is hitting over .300 with 21 rbi’s, Russell Branyan has 4 home runs in 59 at-bats, and Brandon Morrow has one more win and two more strikeouts than Felix. At least Kenji isn’t thriving elsewhere, he only has 8 home runs and a .753 OPS in Japan. (And Yuni is hitting better and has half the errors of Jack Wilson.) Thanks for visiting Seattle, Cliff Lee! Stop by and say hello next year.
I like to think that the shot he took to the junk was the baseball god’s way of saying “dumbass”….
I thought it was to say, “Learn to catch”.
I disagree. Releasing Griff right now certainly does free up a roster space, but it only addresses one of several oft-mentioned problems with this team. The big picture right now is far bigger than Griffey, extends through at least two levels of the organization, and is what is actually causing this team to lose. I submit to you that Rob Johnson has done far more to hurt this team this year than Griffey, but I’m not suggesting that one problem has to be dealt with more than another. Both need to be dealt with, and quickly.
As far as my eyes go, I think they are sharp enough to catch the contradiction in your Hanley Ramirez argument. The kid just signed a massive extension. You are suggesting that the Marlins will shop him around based purely on chemistry issues, but you also claim that chemistry is a joke? Why wouldn’t the Marlins approach the situation the same way and keep a blue chip player who just had a run of bad attitude? It’s not as if he has a history of being a problem.
And where is the merit in releasing any player in the hopes of trading for one who is very clearly not on the block? I guess we could pitch Cliff Lee to them as bait, but do you seriously think they’d bite?
I agree, but solving the DH problem is a lot easier than solving the C problem. We have two guys in Tacoma (Carp, Nelson) who could upgrade the DH spot right now, as well as provide at least some defensive flexibility, and if we wanted to go outside the org for a bigger upgrade, it probably wouldn’t cost a top prospect.
But Catchers are harder to come by. I don’t know where we find an upgrade there that doesn’t cost us something.
…and that’s where this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach comes from.
Because this is basically the equivalent of a consumer boycott…and, unfortunately, you usually have to have lots of people on board for that kind of thing to be successful.
“That’s why you don’t evaluate relievers using ERA.”
By almost any measure, League has been worse than White over his last three appearances. A batting average of .385 against League in that stretch, does not give one comfort. Ditto for the 4 BB’s against 3 SO’s, 2 HR’s and WHIP of 3.38.
Am I glad League is on the team? Of course, and he is only 27. Let’s hope they can get put League back together again.
Which is a bummer why Z couldn’t sign Pudge Rodriguez this past off-season. Besides still being able to outhit and outplay RoJo/Moore yet at age 38, you’d also get that oh-so-important “veteran presence” which right now is costing you two roster spots at the alleged “DH” position.
Essentially, if they’d gone after Pudge, they’d have killed three birds with one stone — and may not be as bad off as they are right now.
Stop, please stop. OK, you might as well go through anger and bargaining. Many of us are already at acceptance.
Baker’s post today goes through all the ways in which this hasn’t been a good team. He gives the starting pitching a pass but I don’t think that is correct. Lee, through no fault of his own, missed a month of action and Felix hasn’t been his brilliant self often enough. This team has needed a confidence building performance from someone. Instead we get to wonder about the latest bizarre play (catcher’s interference? missed suicide squeeze? ball lost in the dome?) that will lead to a loss.
In some ways this is like the Red Sox fan experience until 2004 or the Cub fan experience condensed into 1/3 of a season. No matter how close they get to a victory, they’ll find some way to blow it.
One other important item on this idea: It’s a counterproductive statement to purchase said team’s product (tickets) before staging a walk-out. They still got your money.
I vote for NOT shutting the blog down, please.
True that, Gomez.
I think this is the best sports analogy I’ve heard in a long time, in terms of being SO apt. Hilarious. Tip my hat to you, sir.
To solve half the problems all the mariners need to do is fire Don Wakamatsu. It is simple as that. He was a good coach, but is proving this year to be no better than Mclaren. Fire Wak, it is as simple as that. I think one could argue McLaren made a better decision with Vidro placement in the line up vs. Wak with Griffey. He bats Griffey and Sweeney in the middle of the lineup with little proof of power or results. He puts the wrong relief pitchers in for the situation like white consistently and carries no lefties in the pen. The GM handles this with a lot of input from WAK. He has hitters hitting for power like Bradley and Kotchman (at one point) but does not put them in the middle of the order back to back. Then we throw in the give away outs on base stealing and bunts from people who should never do either. How many more games could have been won if we had a sensible and logical coach? Brining in white last night is a perfect example. FIRE WAK!
Wak is not stupid. Why does he keep running the same sad lineup out there (specifically griff)? I’ll bet I know: Armstrong (and to a lesser extent, Z). They are little schoolgirls with a crush on Griffey, or they are afraid of him. Same with Ichiro demanding to bat leadoff.
I think Wak’s hands are tied. Plus he’s not responsible for the rash of injuries or Aardsma’s down year. He can’t hit for the team. I don’t think Wak is the problem. He’s in a no-win situation.
And that’s why you don’t evaluate relievers using their last three appearances.
Changes. Tomorrow. Or Fury.
I’m afraid it’s going to be fury. It’s not possible Wak will wake up today and do a 180 in his evaluation of Tui, Griffey, White, and others and there’s no indication that Wak is going to be axed (though I’d sure do it).
Bradley and Hanahan might be ready to return in place of Tui (AAA) and Sweeney (DL) but I don’t sense any indication that this organization is going to make a change either in field leadership or guidance to said leader.