Game 30, Rangers At Mariners
Dave · May 3, 2011 at 6:58 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Bedard vs Ogando, 7:10 pm.
Running behind tonight, so no snazzy opening paragraphs from me.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Kennedy, 2B
Olivo, C
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Saunders, CF
Langerhans, LF
Ryan, SS
Comments
123 Responses to “Game 30, Rangers At Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
WE’RE ONLY TWO GAMES BACK
I’d literally forgotten that baseball could be a stressful experience.
I love Beltre. Hate his swing on outside pitches…as we all know.
Tonight I noticed for the first time he has SHORT arms. Watch when he hangs his hands down how far they are above his knees. I wonder if that contributes at all to how inept his swing gets when he tries to hit outside pitches.
#WatchingBeltreTooClosely
Great how the M’s pulled out a win despite some terrible play from Saunders, Langerhans, and Figgins.
Well, Langerhans at least did score a tying run.
The bullpen has really been a strong point recently.
I forgot one. Bedard! Lovely. After the cringe inducing first inning, great game.
Nice come from behind win!
Might I propose that for our future viewing pleasure, that Ryan Langerhans and Michael Saunders never “hit” back to back in the lineup ever again. They sure seem to feed off of each other.
Need I remind you of the great running catch Saunders had on the warning track? Just sayin’
Actually Chipanese we do, one death to flying things who is on rehab right now.
First.. a win is a win and I’ll take it and be happy.
That said, man.. I sure hope Langerhans is the odd man out when Guti comes back.
Saunders.. looking more and more like he just isn’t going to pan out into what I thought he could be.
And Brendan Ryan. Uh, I just fast-forward his at-bats now.
I did say they should never “hit” back to back in the lineup. Not a reference to the “D.” Yes, Saunders did make a nice catch. A really nice catch.
Can we call the Mariners the Jekyll and Hyde of baseball? They alternate seasons of not quite playoff baseball, but hope for the future. Then what happens the very next season? They take a big fat crap. Proof:
2006: 78-84, 4th Place; 15 games back
2007: 88-74, 2nd Place; 6 games back (+10PY)
2008: 61-101, 4th Place; 39 games back (-27PY)
2009: 85-77, 3rd Place; 22 games back (+24PY)
2010: 61-101, 4th Place; 29 games back (-24PY)
2011: 14-16, 4th Place; but only 2 games back
Get ready for a terrible 2012.
I feel the same way. He is still young and not quite yet a Langerhans 2.0 type of player, but he is quickly heading toward Langerhans 1.7 (with a bullet) territory. They re-worked his hand position (primarily) in spring training. The swing is the same, the load is slightly different … and the results, eerily familiar with a perpetual 0-2 count when he steps to the plate. He is still young, but he is going to have to start producing.
Can we call the Mariners the Jekyll and Hyde of baseball? They alternate seasons of not quite playoff baseball, but hope for the future. Then what happens the very next season? They take a big fat crap. Proof:
2006: 78-84, 4th Place; 15 games back
2007: 88-74, 2nd Place; 6 games back (+10PY)
2008: 61-101, 4th Place; 39 games back (-27PY)
2009: 85-77, 3rd Place; 12 games back (+24PY)
2010: 61-101, 4th Place; 29 games back (-24PY)
2011: 14-16, 4th Place; but only 2 games back
Get ready for a terrible 2012.
Whatever happened to Franklin Whathisname? Seemed like a nice kid, righthanded batter, played decent defense too. They ought to call him up if he is still in the system.
saintnumberfive, the difference is we’ll be completely free of Bavasi’s legacy in 2012, for the first time in 9 long years! The last of his bad contracts coming off the books, the farm system coming back to life, and Z finally having some money to play with so he doesn’t need to get all these minimum salary busts. 2012 is the Mariners’ year!
Kazinski-
I meant people besides Franklin because he’s gonna be there for a while rehabbing.
It’ll be so refreshing to not only have Guti’s defense back in CF but a decent righty hitter as well. He can’t possibly be worse than what we’re getting from Saunders or Langerhans. He’ll only make this offense AND defense better.
saintnumberfive, the difference is we’ll be completely free of Bavasi’s legacy in 2012, for the first time in 9 long years! The last of his bad contracts coming off the books, the farm system coming back to life, and Z finally having some money to play with so he doesn’t need to get all these minimum salary busts.
You know what? The Mariners will have around 20 million freed up in salary in 2012 when you count all the raises to guys like Felix and arbitration eligible players (unless you want to do things like cut Aardsma, League and Vargas loose to avoid their paydays), if you assume no cuts in payroll (which may not be a safe assumption).
On this year’s payroll, the combination of Jack Wilson, Brendan Ryan, Chone Figgins, Miguel Olivo and Jack Cust ends up being around 20 million. None of those are signings you can credit or blame Bavasi for: they are all Jack’s (and it could be said we’d have been better off just eating Bavasi’s mistake with Silva as opposed to more good money after bad for Bradley). Collectively, they’re all playing horribly in 2012 (all of them have negative WAR, meaning we could call up warm bodies from AAA and get similar production), nearly a quarter of the way into the season. While projection systems say they will all bounce back some, none of them look like they will be particularly good signings of the Russell Branyan variety
So if Zduriencik blows 20 million next year on similarly underperforming players… well, you can forget about contending, even if Ackley and Smoak hit well. While there are some positive things to say about Zduriencik as a GM, his record with free agents/veteran signings to patch holes isn’t a strong point.
He’s scheduled to be back with the M’s next week. I’d say that should be soon enough. Despite Langerhans UZR, I think both Saunders and Langerhans have been doing a good job defensively, and Langerhans has a decent OBP, and wOBA. Supposedly Langerhans has a negative WAR, because of his defense, while Saunders has a positive WAR, because of his defense.
I think Saunders should be sent down when Franklin is back, he needs more time I think in AAA, unless he shows something in the next week.
But I am by no means ready to give up on him, here are two players first 2 seasons in the majors(w/over 10PA) PA/BA/OBP/SLG :
Player A is Nelson Cruz, Player B is Michael Saunders. Saunders has 83PA so far this season with similar results but it doesn’t change my conclusion. Cruz had 1100PA in AAA, Saunders has had only 480PA in AAA, which is even fewer than he has had so far in the majors, so its not a knock on Saunders that he may need a few more.
Anyone who may know-
Who pitches tomorrow for the M’s? Who pitches Friday?
Thanks and GO MARINERS!
2 games from .500, 2 games out of first?!
JUSTIN SMOAK!!!!!
The Mariners are still paying $5.5 million for Silva (plus the $13 million for Bradley) and $1 million for Betancourt this year. My source is here.
Yes, Figgins gives me pause. It was a ton of money for a long time, and he was the primary free agent the front office targeted.
And Jack Wilson was the classic mistake of overpaying for talent that was perceived to be in short supply (good fielding at shortstop, in this case).
If we get more Figgins and Wilsons, ugh.
I have to hope it was a case of good process, bad result.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Guti comes back up. If they’re really talking about next week, though, don’t expect him to go on a tear – this basically is his “spring training”. I’m sure the D will be there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if offensively he sucks for a while.