Game 69, Reds at Mariners
RR-S vs. Harang after a couple of hard acts to follow.
RF Ichiro!
2B Figgins
DH Bradley
3B Lopez
CF Gutierrez
SS Josh Wilson
1B Carp
C Alfonzo
LF Saunders
Jack Wilson was activated today, after a Tacoma stint where he was hitting pretty well and was even attempting to steal a few bases. Now the Mariners are going to have to decide whether to play him or occasionally intriguing Josh Wilson and oh my goodness this is one of the more interesting things we have to talk about regarding this team. Tui goes back to Tacoma to work more on defense or something.
We also found out today that Ian Snell has cleared waivers and accepted his outright assignment to Tacoma. A guy that once struck out 177 in 208.0 innings while running an ERA+ of 116 for the Pirates is now roughly on the same level of Jesus Colome and every other reclamation project we had in the past year or so that didn’t pan out. At least we still have Aardsma, right?
Josh Bard has also been seen rehabbing for Tacoma. This is probably good news.
Yay, Tui is finally sent down to look good in AAA again.
And RRS hasn’t allowed a run in a couple innings (it’s now the 3rd)! The old RRS is back… hope hope.
BTW the Reds catcher looks like Thurman Munson.
Are the Mariners on the hook for any salary for Ian Snell? Are there any cost tied to Ian Snell going forward for next season?
Hey Jay is Tenbrink still in AA after his DL stint?
Tenbrink is still around. He hit a home run a few days ago.
We’re still required to pay him the remainder of what was on his MLB contract for this year. As for the rest of the contract, he has a $6.75m option for next year and a $9.25m option the year after. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that neither of those are picked up.
Ok so this game is a snoozer, to more interesting news. Which team will win the Cliff Lee sweepstakes? What young player do you want. I am wishing for Justin Smoke from Texas.
Paperboy sure has had a good stretch.
Jake, there’s a whole thread about that very question up on this blog.
Better topic: Corky Miller’s facial hair. Pornstache or not?
I hate to say it, but I think I’d prefer to see Sweeney get the ABs that Carp is currently getting.
Ok, this could be great, Justin Smoak is a player who can hit 30 HR and with avg of 280, I like this trade
Man, thank goodness we’re playing in the Safe today.
I like the old RRS, Hyphen could be a 3rd or 4th starter the next year,
Felix
Bedard
Hyphen/ Pineda if RRS CONTINUE STRUGGLING
Fister
Vargas
Is a very decent rotation, and all the money of the contracts of Lee, Kotchman and Snell could be for upgrade the offense…
Fister is starting in Tacoma today.
also, getting a player of Smoak’s caliber from a division rival for a rental player is likely a pipe dream.
Jay, do you think Pineda play in major league soon? Next year?
Probably next year. This year might be pushing it considering last season’s arm issues.
Dave Sims always scares me when he does that ‘Yeah, baby!’ thing.
Complete game three? Sadly, I think the starters know the only way to get wins is to pitch the whole damn thing themselves.
I’m with Lalo and the Pineda idea. The M’s have nothing to lose. So focus on the future, I would like to see Ackley get a cup-o-coffee this year, if he continues to improve his hitting. There is nothing wrong with his strike zone management, and he isn’t getting fooled at all. Let’s see what these kids got sooner rather than later, its not like the M’s are contenders.
RRS is pissed he got pulled.
After that start everyone is going to hop on the RRS bandwagon again, I don’t know if I can take it.
Hey, apparently League will throw his nastier stuff when RoJo’s not behind the plate – I’m just sayin’…
With Josh having a career year, if you look at what has changed and whether it is a repeatable skill, what mostly stands out is he hasn’t had many chances to show what he can do at a major league level. That said the real difference is a higher BABIP this season, but not unsustainably high, and a much higher LD% at 23%. So if he really is hitting more line drives and fewer grounders and fly balls giving him a legitimately higher BABIP, then yes he really is a major league hitter.
But Westside, didn’t you hear the unspoken “Rob is God!” in the factiod that he was behind the plate for the back to back complete games?
Which means if he were out there today, RRS would have gone 9 as well.
Great job League!!
Can’t take him doing well, or can’t take the disappointment of him not living up to expectations? Last season he was a 1.5WAR pitcher in 96 innings. He’s been terrible this year but it isn’t like he has no history of success. If he can get back to last year’s form, I’ll be happy for him and the Mariners.
😀
I would pay good money for a “the whole truth” session from Wak, where he’d be free to honestly and fully answer questions like “Do you really believe that Johnson’s defense doesn’t cost us games” or “Have you noticed that League isn’t willing to throw his best pitch when RoJo is the catcher?”
It’s hard to believe that Wak – having been a catcher – doesn’t know, in his heart of hearts, that Rob hurts the team.
Wow, League goes to that pitch and suddenly he looks awesome. Gotta give Dave (among others)some credit for pointing that out.
Also, I noticed Dave Sims said that League’s sinker was the best swing-and-miss pitch in the league last year. The stats discussed here are slowly becoming mainstream.
This sinker looks unhittable, well for him and the M´s
League read the post by Dave on Salk’s blog I think.
That is why I like Simms, he obviously reads this blog and buys in to the stats!
It’d probably the director/producer – whoever it is that’s talking into his headset.
At least the game are exciting from beginning to end.
Fasten the seatbelts, folks!
He’s the only one that ever mentions saber stats, so I think he actually reads the blog.
Maybe he’s texting w/ Blengino during the games… 😉
Wow, I know it’s small sample size but – we swept the Reds!
Unfortunately we didn’t do it by actually scoring many runs…
Wish we playd in the NL central…
Just saw Pineda was promoted to Tacoma…nice.
Wow, good luck Pineda. I hope his secondary pitches have improved along with your command of the FB.
Ugh… Krueger says “we’re starting to see the pieces come together”. I’m happy we won, seriously I am – but we only scored 7 runs over the three games. No matter how good our pitchers are, it’s just not realistic to expect that to be enough offense.
I would love to get pumped about this sweep, but the fact that the offense remains non-existent and the Reds came into the game with recent offensive struggles have me staying pessimistic…
Wow…the “Big Red Machine” looked more like an old Radio Flyer wagon with a busted wheel in this series. 🙂
MOVE THE MARINERS TO THE NL WEST NOW!!!!!!!
Koufax and Drysdale couldn’t keep this kind of pitching level up. Johnson and Schilling couldn’t, either.
As fun as what the pitching has been to watch the last few days, the simple truth is this is a statistical aberration- not “pieces coming together”.
Not to be the wet blanket, but I KNOW we can’t fire shut-outs for the rest of the year. We’ll be lucky to have under-2-runs-averaged-against for the rest of this month.
But it sure was good to hear the enthusiasm back in Dave Niehaus’ voice. As hard as all this losing has been on us, it’s had to be rougher on him.
We have the option of turning off our radios and TVs (which my brother always tells me I should do more often. Can’t help it, I’m die-hard.) when things are bad…
I think this is a good point. And maybe we should cut Drayer some slack as well – can you imagine how hard it is to be the “clubhouse insider” for a team that’s struggled so much? It’s not like she can really be candid about the problems because, given the role she’s expected to play, she’s got to maintain some level of confidence and camaraderie with the players. If she were to say something along the lines of what LaRue did, her job would probably end that evening.
From Game 68 Thread:
I don’t know about career, but it was likely his best of the year to date. Heck, I should ask for things like this more often.
Okay, here goes…
“Now let’s just hope that 6-14-22-29-53 and Mega Ball 51 really are the winning numbers on the MegaMillions so I can treat all those good people at USSMariner to something nice…”
I was at the game today. League’s first 3 or 4 pitches were fastballs (from looking at the radar speed), and I was thinking, oh no, they’ll catch up to him soon.
But then he got the first out on an offspeed pitch, and after that he mixed them up very well.
A real pitcher’s duel today.
How would you like to be in the Red’s clubhouse? They come in to Safeco really bashing the ball and run into good pitching, good defense, and a ballpark that probably just freaked them out, and they scored 1 run in 3 games.
It will be a crime if Jack get more PT than Josh. How do you keep the second best offensive player out of this lineup?
If League keeps throwing like today, I think Aardsma becomes available to trade. Package up Lee and Aardsma for a nice return.
Josh just gets playing time at 3rd, 2nd, and short, keeping the guys rested and hopefully preventing Jack from getting injured again in the future.
What is it with our fascination with Jack Wilson?