Game 49, Angels at Mariners
King Felix vs. Jerome Williams, 4:15pm
After last night’s crushing collapse, the M’s send King Felix to the hill to try and get a win. Jerome Williams is a fascinating story, and he’s shown signs of improvement this year. He doesn’t strike many people out, but he’s cut back on walks while increasing his ground ball rate. It’s not sexy, but it’s been enough to run a FIP just under 4 in 53 innings. Garrett Richards, one of the Angels’ better prospects, looked set to take the #5 spot in the spring, especially after Williams suffered an injury in March, but instead Williams has been solid and Richards continues to be both extremely talented and somewhat frustrating in the PCL.
The M’s send their lefty line-up out today which is fine, but Williams has essentially no platoon splits. In over 500 innings, lefties have hit for a .328 wOBA off of him while righties are hitting….328. Righties have hit for more power while his K:BB ratio is nearly even against lefties.
1: Ackley (2B)
2: Saunders (CF)
3: Ichiro (RF)
4: Seager (3B)
5: Smoak (1B)
6: Jaso (DH)
7: Olivo (C)
8: Carp (LF)
9: Ryan (SS)
SP: Felix Hernandez
The big story today is that Brandon League’s lost his job as closer after last night’s meltdown. Doesn’t sound like they’ve named a replacement, but expect to see plenty of Tom Wilhelmsen and/or Steve Delabar for a while. No roster move of course as League’s just bumped to a set-up role, but you’ve got to like Stephen Pryor’s chances to head north in the coming months.
Carlos Peguero hit his 9th HR last night, and Casper Wells went 3-4 with two doubles and a HR against Tucson. The Rainiers are hitting the crap out of the ball, but pitching remains a problem.
The Mariners are playing today in the uniforms of the old Seattle Rainiers – part of “Turn Back the Clock Day” at Safeco. The retro-styled King’s Court adds another section today as well.
James Paxton couldn’t get anything going yesterday against Montgomery and then came out of the game with what’s being called a knee injury. Sounds like it may have been bothering him in several of his recent starts.
Comments
61 Responses to “Game 49, Angels at Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Thanks to Fangraphs’ awesome “shutdown/meltdown” stats, we see that League’s at 5 shutdowns to 4 meltdown. That’s terrible. The Rangers, as a team, have 8 on the year. A good reliever should have as many “SDs” as saves or holds and as many “MDs” as blown saves. Being essentially even is a recipe for a terrible WPA (and League’s WPA is suitably terrible) and for being loathed by the fanbase. Of course, League was even in SDs/MDs in his last season in Toronto.
Presumptive replacement Tom Wilhelmsen actually leads the team in meldown with 5, but he’s got 9 shutdowns to balance that out a bit. The best ratios on the team belong to the lefties Lucas Luetge (3-0) and Charlie Furbush (7-2), which is not something I’d have guessed before looking it up.
So Olivo is being “worked in slowly”… by catching two of the first three games after he’s back?
Maybe it’s just Montero’s turn to have a day off – but at first glance it looks bad.
Good point, Westside guy. I’m guessing they still don’t want Jaso catching after his slight injury, but it’s still annoying.
Guess we need a Miggy Bobblehead Night for Wedge to sit him down…
Kudos to Olivo. That was a perfect throw to gun down Mike Trout.
BTW, these retro jerseys are fantastic.
Though that was a very nice throw…
This is confusing. Turned on the TV late and it took awhile to figure out the red team was the M’s.
Trout’s been caught stealing 3 times this year total (AAA+MLB). Once by Adam Moore, once by Miguel Olivo. Weird.
Man I HATE Vlad Guerrero… er, wait… Albert Pujols.
Hey, Spicholi from “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” is doing color commentary on today’s game.
Albert Pujols is still radical and awesome!
Why does he have to come out of his slump against us? What have we done to deserve this?
And Eric Byrnes needs to go wherever he came from. He was a disgrace to the Mariners uniform and he’s a disgrace to broadcasting.
But didn’t you just hear how eloquently he explained sabermetrics and the more relevant statistics that are used … Like WHIP.
Pujols is going to petition the scheduler to make sure he gets to play against the Mariners in April for the next nine seasons.
@r-gordon
We joked about an Olivo Chia Head promotion last night being a good idea, especially if it meant Wedge benching him.
Pujols is aggressively regressing.
I’d still take him on my team, minus the ridiculous contract.
Jaso!!
Though it’s not really talked about much, trading a mediocre reliever (Lueke) for Jaso, was one of the better trades that Jack has made. Decent catchers don’t come easy.
If we’d only USE him as a catcher.
So would I. Regression to “his” mean is a good thing for him. And, he is doing it aggressively. He might not leave Seattle with a .300 average for the season, but he is probably going to make a good run at it.
You have to get the runner in, Carp. Get it done!
Good job Carp!
Good job Carp
Wow, guess we created an echo there, mike!
Ryan sucks.
Ackley!
Ackley doesn’t suck
I’m giving Saunders the green-light, to hit it over the fence. For the record, the bunt is OFF!
The non run support for Felix has created a perpetual echo of its own, too. Saunders can silence that echo RIGHT Now
Fuck! No, he can’t.
Wow, I’m having a hard time deciding who’s worse at broadcasting.
Between who and who? Byrnes and Karros? Byrnes and dead air?
Byrnes and Sims
shit
Crap on a cracker….
Sims us so far out of Bynes’ league. Plus he does play by play – in multiple sports, and very well in those sports.
Speaking of “league” is Felix channelling him, presently?
haha, yeah you sure did say he’d scrap, Eric. Now please try to act more professional or shut-up.
And there was the death blow.
Yeah, I’d actually take Sims over* Byrnes any day, Mike, but he’s certainly not my first choice. I’d like Rizzs and Henderson on TV, rather than radio.
Smoak!!! Nice to see him starting to come alive!
Nice job going down and getting that pitch!
Henderson, really? The last thing anybody should be paying him to do is speak (IMO) but he is definitely better than Byrnes
I get a kick out of Henderson! He’s not as dry as Blowers and adds a little humor.
Humor he has. Elocution he lacks.
Wow, did Byrnes really just suggest Dave’s famous words should be applied to the Angels GS?!
Ryan still sucks.
We don’t have a lot of broadcasters to choose from. So yeah, I’d take Henderson along with Rizzs. I like guest appearances as well, such as Buhner and Wilson. Valle, not so much.
The marketing dept won’t let the grounds crew dance? They must be hyper focused on working toward next seasons all important locomotive promotion and cant be bothered with providing people something they might actually like.
This fish is rotten.
Good to see the Mariners walking more lately.
It’s time for a clutch hit, Ichiro.
There is no way we don’t see a pinch hitter here, right? Right!!??
OMG, Next!
Glad I Tivo’ed the game – got through the pain a lot quicker.
Man, Pujols absolutely mauled our pitchers this series. I do think we’ll be laughing at the Angels for that contract – in 5 or 6 years. Right now, though… not so much.
On a side note: I am finding I actually like Saunders hitting in the #2 spot.
I think Ackley Tivo’d the game, too. Man, 4 K’s for our lead off hitter touted for his pitch recognition and contact skills – after a day off to re-energize.
That is all sorts of awful.
Olivo’s presence has sure been a nice spark, though.
Yeah, I’m really curious to see who’s catching (and who’s DH’ing) tomorrow.
Oh, crap – it’s a four game series! I was thinking “thank goodness Pujols is gone”; but he still has another game where he can have his way our pitchers.
But the good news is he probably won’t hit more than two more HR’s this series.
The guy’s in his 30s… Scioscia really should consider giving him a day off tomorrow. He’s been looking kind of tired lately.
They might need him to be at his best later in the season, after all.
Byrnes is as good in the booth as he was on the field. And Dave Henderson is one of the worst broadcasters/commentators I’ve ever heard.
^Go listen to a White Sox broadcast before saying something like that.
Boy what a lousy lineup Wedge has put out today. Figgins in CF and Olivo (human pass ball machine) at catcher.