Game 34, White Sox At Mariners
Dave · May 7, 2011 at 5:00 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Fister vs Floyd, 6:10 pm.
Well, I have good news – Miguel Olivo is not hitting clean-up. That’s probably because he’s not playing – Chris Gimenez gets the start behind the plate, giving Olivo a long overdue day off. The new cleanup hitter? Adam Kennedy. It’s hilarious that this team has won 8 of their last 10. Fun, but still hilarious.
Also, Free Luis Rodriguez!
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Bradley, LF
Kennedy, 2B
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Ryan, SS
Saunders, CF
Gimenez, C
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Wait, what’s that in the air guys? I think it’s a CONDOR
Condor!!
Thanks mike. I just thinkt hat he has a shot to perform and really, compared to people like Liddi or Saunders or Peguero or even Ackley who could benefit from a little more time in Tacoma, it seems like his skill set is basically as strong as they can make, so lets see what we’ve got you know? If he cant perfomr then we can move him but if he suceeds we have a real DH. It seems like it hurts none of our good players that we are really working on developing on.
Nice catch, Saunders!
Fister has no answer for Rios. He should just roll the ball up to the plate.
msfanmike, I agree. The key is for Ichiro to internalize it, because so much of his game depends on the speed. If infielders can cheat an extra step on him, the infield hits start to disappear.
Dave, their bottom of the order is no reason to get excited
Yeah, Fister’s fooling no one now.
@Edgar4Hall: Definitely no arguments from me. I really thought he had a shot at making the team a couple ST’s ago (’09) when he led the team with 8 HR’s in spring training. Almost immediately after ST he hurt his ankle and missed a lot of time.
When the team signed Griffey, the corresponding move was to remove Wilson from the 40 man roster, but I heard they were really, really happy that he cleared waivers and they immediately re-signed him to a minor league deal. The overriding assumption being that someone within the org remains fairly high on the guy, but still … no love. If he keeps hitting, they will have to call him up. Here’s to hoping.
About time, Wedge. Remember, he essentially gave up a home run this inning, too. You’d think after he gives that up and then the double to Rios that having him face two more guys he hadn’t gotten out once would be a bad idea, but then again they don’t pay me big bucks to manage, so obviously you know more than me.
Fister did keep the White Sox under 15 hits today … so there is that.
I was getting WAR from Fangraphs, cause, you know, Dave Cameron. 🙂
I think he is right now. He’s Eric Byrnes. I didn’t think so before the game, but now I think he’s ready to quit. Of course, he can’t because he wants his salary, so…
I wonder how many teams have released/cut their #3 hitter before the all-star break?
I just noticed that Guti is not playing tonight in the Rainiers game. Does anybody know why?
I am hoping the answer is that he is getting a jump on tomorrow’s rush hour traffic and is currently driving to Seattle so he can start in CF tomorrow … but I have my doubts about that being the reason.
In 2010 Ichiro was clocked as being the fastest player in MLB down the line to first base.
I have no worries about him.
And such an intelligent hitter as Ichiro is, I’m sure he will be able to adjust his game (as he has shown over the past decade) to continue to be highly productive. More bunts would be an easy step.
Definitely quite a feat to keep a team hitting a massive .234 under 15 hits. I take solace.
I think you are absolutely correct!
I would pay him 2/3 of this years salary to leave now. Then again, I don’t have to write the checks.
I wonder how many teams have released/cut their #3 hitter before the all-star break?
You know, I’ve always wondered why Bradley was considered a legit number 3 hitter. The best season he had was 22 HR’s in a hitter friendly ballpark. He always struck me as a powerful #2 or a decent 5. I know placement isn’t that huge but as a profile in what we normally see, thats what seems what he’s like much more.
Wow a Dan Cortes sighting. I thought they forgot he was in the bullpen.
By the way, this line-up somehow looks worse than yesterday.
As pointed out yesterday, Wedge doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room since 6 or 7 of his hitters are close to replacement level.
But Olivo still has a mirage of having some power, so when he’s replaced by Gimenez and Gimenez is hitting in front of Ichiro, it looks bad.
And I don’t believe in the CERA thing, because I thought RoJo was a much worse catcher than Jojima, but I have been satisfied by Olivo behind the plate. It’s looking more and more like Rob Johnson not being able to catch the freaking ball played some role in League not throwing his splitter too much last year (although to League’s credit he never mentioned this even while getting roasted by everybody).
And I can’t help remembering two blowout games (including this one) at least, where Gimenez had his rare starts, and wondering if maybe Olivo calls a better game. Well CERA is a slippery slope, but I do feel OK with Olivo behind the plate. (Whereas I hated RoJo even when he was catching Felix and garnering an artificially low CERA while Jojima was catching the lesser pitchers).
Wow, that was a professional swing
Hahahaha
New Movie idea: Whiff it Like Beckham.
Good inning by Cortes, 16 strikes, 5 balls
I remember typing that in a game thread a few nights back… I quickly came to regret it.
That was the worst offensive inning we’ve seen in weeks. Do they all have hot dates tonight?
The funny thing is, as awful as the offensive on this team is, I don’t remember them being shut out much. Will they get that one run that makes it less humiliating?
Suddenly Bradley is a kid´s hero, bipolarity…
Hmm, Bradley ran hard and slid for the catch that time. Maybe he knows what he can do, and does what he can. Which might look like dogging it if you’re just hating.
Of course, I wish he could do more. I wish Guti were back.
I wish Bradley could hit.
A sad trend continues: the higher the attendance at Safeco, the worse the Ms play. Dating back to opening day last season, when a packed house cheered Randy Johnson throwing the first pitch, then groaned as the Ms didn’t score a single run in 9 innings. This season, the Ms again put up their worst showing on opening night in front of a full house, and haven’t won a single weekend game at home since. This trend is killing casual fan attendance, even if there are otherwise good reasons to be excited for the team.
Really? I wish he would just go away.
Or, he was dogging it earlier and picked it up later, for whatever reason.
“Hating” is a rather silly and lazy argument.
Yes, it looked that way to me at least.
I agree that if I was a casual fan I wouldn’t be in a rush to come back for second servings of a game like they showed today.
At least the crowd of 32k (thanks to the Ichiro bobblehead) saw a good win yesterday. Well, if they were there to the end at least.
Man, Cust sure knows how to go out with a bang! He looked like he was actually looking with more intensity than usual – down by six runs with 2 outs in the 9th – trying to work the important walk in a pressure situation, but taking strike 3 right down the gullet, instead.
I think Bradley’s “D” is very similar to his “O” … in that he is fine until it matters. Most of the time, it matters and he is not fine. So, so far from fine.
It was awfully nice of Milton’s publicist Harry to participate in tonights session, though.
I just think he shouldn’t be first in line for criticism. People do it reflexively, because he’s always the goat. Cust, Saunders at the plate, they’re much worse. Olivo… the M’s chose to go out and get him, Bradley is better than having Silva.
Milton Bradley is and has been pretty much useless (cumulative WAR in Seattle: -0.4). We would have been better off designating Silva for assignment back in ’10 instead of choosing to trade white elephants, because then we’d have had a few million to sign an actual useful player. You can make a case that it was a somewhat reasonable risk, but at this point, he’s a warm body, not an actual useful player, and if the Mariners have anything resembling other options (like DFA’ing him to bring up Guti, and using Langerhans and Saunders in LF), I’d be fine with it. We didn’t exactly lose much when we dumped Brad Wilkerson early in the season a few years back, and Bradley is similar in being a player on the dregs of his career, except with no ability to keep his cool.
Chiming in on the Milton Bradley issue, I saw it as a reasonable risk at the time it happened, and dared to believe it could payoff big time (which was really just the thrill of seeing Silva go away). But at this point, the risk has become NOT worth it, over and over again.
Imagine that we ARE a competitive team, in the race in the fall, needing to eek out every win we can– and we have a guy who’s gonna get tossed if he doesn’t like a strike call, or is gonna get in a physical altercation with an ump in the field and get suspended a game in the playoffs.
This is a wildcard that ANY manager would find difficult to deal with (much less manage around), and any degree of the manager’s focus that is taken off the TEAM to deal with the random behavior of a single individual, is a needless risk to take on (see: the way the Cubs jettisoned Silva when he became THE SAME GUY for them that Bradley is for us).
Assuming he WAS a good #3 hitter, on a team that was winning and in the race– a guy who exhibited this kind of behavior would absolutely NOT be a tolerable thing (see: Manny Ramirez everywhere, or Randy Moss at the Patriots). So it shouldn’t be tolerated on the team as it is right now either. Not to mention, for younger players, on a team obsessed with trying to instill more discipline and accountability throughout the system, he’s a horrible example of NOT following through on that pledge.
Hopefully something on his body gives out soon, and the decision is made for us. Which I think Wedge also might be hoping for, by having him steal bases (multiple times).
(The other unfortunate piece of the puzzle is Wedge’s history with him, and the fact that he pledged that it wouldn’t be an issue– so he’s probably trying to make the best of the situation MORESO than he would otherwise…)
I’ll take the blame for this one boys. See, the Mariners lose 90% of the time when I am in attendence, they won the last time I went to the ball park, and I was there tonight…no way they were winning 2 games a row with me in the park.
Let me know if theres any particular games you’d like me to stay away from in the future
BTW, someone needs to tell Milton Bradley that its actually NOT against the rules to dive for a ball. Maybe it was just me, but I was right along the thirdbase line, and it looks like he runs for flyballs at about 3/4 speed. Does he have to pay out of his own pocket to get his uniforms cleaned?!?
Also, Cust in person makes me want to punch myself in the eye even more than Cust through a TV.
That is all.
Harry
Are you related to Milton Bradley?
I’m just curious, I have a theory…
I’m in no way a big Bradley fan. It seems obvious to me that he is criticized all out of proportion to how much he deserves it, as compared to other players who are doing much worse. Folks do it because it’s what people do, because it’s OK to dump on him: it’s Bradley, he surely deserves it. I’d think Cust would anger more folks.
I’m a huge Ichiro fan.
Cust has been bad in 2011 (-0.1 WAR), but Bradley’s been worse in 2011 (-0.3 WAR) AND in 2010 (whereas Cust is both younger and had a perfectly acceptable year in 2010), so given that and given his issues, I see no need to waste a roster spot on a 33 year old DH who can’t hit, can’t field, and can’t keep his temper in check.
Is he the only problem with the 2011 Mariners? No, but it’s obvious he’s not a solution to any of their problems, and of the players in the Cust/Bradley/Saunders/Langerhans group, he’s the oldest (thus least likely to bounce back or be relevant to the 2012 team) and biggest potential clubhouse distraction, thus the weakest link as far as I am concerned.
Comparing Cust and Bradley doesn’t make any sense. Bradley has been a replacement level player for over a year now and Cust has had a bad month. We’re also paying Cust less money even if you remove Silva’s portion.
How much longer before we translate those negative WAR numbers into action and start releasing these no-future roster wasters in favor of actual replacements? I like the winning that’s been going on lately in spite of these guys, but too many players on this roster are serious drains on our success and have NO future with this org. Do we have to wait until it’s too late to make much-needed moves? Do we seriously need to try getting our “money’s worth” for these guys? If I ordered a steak at Daniel’s and they brought out a gristly, fatty, tough-as-a-boot piece of cow, I’d rather walk out than eat it just because I paid for it…
You’ll eat your Bradley and you’ll like it!
Ouch. These types of games aren’t fun. Posted up my comments on the Forever Positive M’s site; seattlesonsbaseball.blogspot.com… No one ever went 162-0 for the season… and imagine this… if you started the season and won 2 out of every 3 games you played, meaning you won the series… some initially would think that it would be a so-so season. Everyone wants the sweep, but it isn’t an easy thing to do. If you did win 2 of 3 in each series, you’d end the season at 108-54. NOT BAD AT ALL. Remember, as good as the 2001 M’s were, they did lose 46 games.