Game 74, Mariners at Padres

marc w · June 24, 2012 at 11:42 am · Filed Under Mariners 

Hector Noesi vs. Edinson Volquez, 1:05pm

Hector Noesi will again attempt to avoid 0-2 meatballs, and Petco Park should probably help him if he slips up and grooves a slider or two in pitcher’s counts. He faced this line-up in Seattle and turned in one of his better performances of the year, so hopefully he’ll have some confidence heading into today’s game. John Jaso gets a rare start at catcher with the righthander Volquez on the mound for San Diego. Volquez pitched well enough to win in Seattle on the 14th, going 6 2/3IP and giving up just one run on four walks and 6 strikeouts. Volquez pitched away to the lefty-dominated M’s line-up; his command isn’t good enough to hit the outside edge, so he gave up some walks, but he also avoided mistakes. It’s something that Noesi could learn from. He could also learn from Volquez’s great change-up which he uses nearly 30% of the time against lefties, getting whiffs on over a quarter of them this season. It can be a real weapon, and it explains Volquez’s lack of platoon splits (technically, he’s been better against lefties in his career).

The line-up includes Figgins. I’m not going to beat around the bush here. He’s playing today, and Kyle Seager’s sitting. Let’s just move on:
1: Ichiro (RF)
2: Jaso (C)
3: Wells (LF)
4: Smoak (1B)
5: Saunders (CF)
6: Ackley (2B)
7: Figgins (3B)
8: Ryan (SS)
9/SP: Noesi

So Danny Hultzen’s AAA debut was a mess, with 5 walks and 5 runs in 3 IP. Sure, he got blooped to death in the first inning when he gave up three runs, but he also had a three-run HR overturned by the umpires. He pitched in probably the worst park in AAA to start off, not only because the ball flies, but because breaking pitches often don’t have the same movement. Anywa, Danny: it gets easier.

The stunning debut of the day was actually turned in by Anthony Fernandez who threw a complete game shutout for the Jackson Generals in his AA debut. That was the first CG shutout for the M’s AA affiliate since 2009.

Go M’s!

Comments

140 Responses to “Game 74, Mariners at Padres”

  1. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:29 pm

    “Justin Smoak-like strength”?

    Is that really the best we could do, Sims? From what we have seen so far, Smoak’s not particularly strong.

  2. msfanmike on June 24th, 2012 3:31 pm

    The red soz “dumped” next seasons salary for Youkilis. He is under contract for one more season.

  3. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:31 pm

    Miguel Olivo – THAT dude is strong. Jesus Montero is strong. Michael Saunders… not sure if he’s particularly strong or just has a really fast bat nowadays.

  4. Rainiers_fan on June 24th, 2012 3:32 pm

    Justin Smoak-like strength = warning track power

  5. msfanmike on June 24th, 2012 3:32 pm

    Sox

  6. msfanmike on June 24th, 2012 3:33 pm

    Solid move having Miggy hit against a right hander, don’t you think?

  7. fuggin_figgins on June 24th, 2012 3:33 pm

    I think salary dump is probably the correct term, they now have $7M off the payroll. In reality they didn’t dump anything other than about $1M with the 2 sub par guys coming over in the deal.

  8. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:34 pm

    Olivo is, without a doubt, much faster than Montero.

    But yeah – it was a weird move, Mike.

  9. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:35 pm

    Seager!

  10. stevemotivateir on June 24th, 2012 3:35 pm

    Welcome to the game Kyle!

  11. groundzero55 on June 24th, 2012 3:36 pm

    Oh, the guy who should have been in the lineup. Yea.

  12. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:36 pm

    Come on Smoak, PLEASE.

  13. fuggin_figgins on June 24th, 2012 3:36 pm

    I thought I read Youk has a $1M option next year but not under contract but I could be wrong.

  14. Rainiers_fan on June 24th, 2012 3:37 pm

    Just wondering about that Mike. Olivo’s .530 OPS versus rightys indicated things would play out exactly as they did.

  15. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:37 pm

    CRAP.

    And yeah – COTs has Youk with a $1 mill buyout in 2013.

  16. californiamariner on June 24th, 2012 3:38 pm

    Stinkin shift got us

  17. msfanmike on June 24th, 2012 3:39 pm

    I was going to say, at least Skoak can’t hit into a DP (with Seager on 2B).

    Wrong again … Although that one is on Seager.

    Smoak has put a couple of good swings on the ball today, actually

  18. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:39 pm

    Mike – maybe Wedge was facing the wrong way and saw the pitcher in a mirror?

  19. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 3:40 pm

    Olivo… pinch-hit for JASO.

    Against a righty.

    Somehow I blanked on just who Wedge put Olivo in for. What an idiot.

  20. vetted_coach on June 24th, 2012 3:41 pm

    No excuse for not looking over the defense. Mariners have been horrible running the bases this season. 3B coach shares the blame, but it’s Seager’s job and Seager’s career.

  21. msfanmike on June 24th, 2012 3:42 pm

    The buyout is paid if the option isn’t executed, correct.

    I did not know that the contract was an “option” year. My bad.

    More of a headache dump than a salary dump, trade – from Bostons perspective. Things were getting dicey and Youk is not exactly a quiet, timid dude – so they paid most of his salary to leave and saves a couple bucks

  22. stevemotivateir on June 24th, 2012 3:44 pm

    Furbush is another name that might be dangled before the deadline, Westy. I’d rather see him stick around, though, and get a crack at the rotation. I think Paxton and Walker are further away than I had hoped.

  23. stevemotivateir on June 24th, 2012 3:46 pm

    Some of these moves by Wedge, really makes me think he has money on this game. Just doesn’t make any sense.

  24. fuggin_figgins on June 24th, 2012 3:49 pm

    Dear Dave Valle,
    Please don’t try and justify base running mistakes as not noticing where the defense is or as trying to get a good jump on a base hit. These guys are bad enough on the bases already, there is no excuse for that.

  25. fuggin_figgins on June 24th, 2012 3:50 pm

    That is not what Ack needed in trying to learn the strike zone, that one is not on him.

  26. stevemotivateir on June 24th, 2012 3:54 pm

    Well, at least Noesi didn’t look bad today. He did his part.

  27. fuggin_figgins on June 24th, 2012 3:59 pm

    It seems like a strange concept that a pitcher’s biggest problem is throwing strikes on an 0-2 count. He is definitely capable of getting people out. It is encouraging, unlike Beavan I don’t think Noesi needs AAA to learn how to get guys to chase pitches out of the zone.

  28. marcus_andrews on June 24th, 2012 4:01 pm

    Just throwing this out there, Zach Stewart was a top prospect right about a year ago. Perhaps the bosox think they’re taking a shot on a post-hype (barely post-hype btw) to dump a guy that they wanted gone anyway. Plus a utility player. They saved themselves a headache and got a pitcher who could be a useful piece. That’s far from nothing.

  29. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 4:09 pm

    Marcus, I don’t disagree with you – but we’ve seen a number of those trades or free agent signings here in Seattle where they bring in a “potentially high upside” guy. More often than not, they don’t pan out.

    So yeah, it’s always possible one of the two may produce eventually for the BoSox… but it’s not a given.

  30. fuggin_figgins on June 24th, 2012 4:26 pm

    Ugh, if there is any one else out there like me who is too lazy to get to the remote after the game you are watching the Root sports Justin Smoak switch hitting tutorial. I can’t believe they are airing this.

  31. stevemotivateir on June 24th, 2012 4:36 pm

    ^haha, I was thinking the same thing

  32. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 5:00 pm

    Fetching the remote – that’s what kids are for. 😀

  33. Westside guy on June 24th, 2012 5:01 pm

    While I know it wouldn’t be marketable, it would probably make more sense to have Figgins give the tutorial. He was quite good at it for a number of years.

  34. fuggin_figgins on June 24th, 2012 5:22 pm

    Haha, I’m not sure what they consider marketable but I might have actually watched the Figgins piece for its pure comedic value. The Smoak thing was just kind of sad. No kids, but I’ve tried teaching the dog to fetch the remote but I can’t seem to get him to do it unless I throw it first (regular occurrence during games). How did people in the old days get the dog to bring in the newspaper, that would be a better tutorial for root to air.

  35. jephdood on June 24th, 2012 11:11 pm

    Is it just me, or are we exhibiting TERRIBLE baserunning this year?

  36. Westside guy on June 25th, 2012 12:22 am

    This isn’t Mariners related – but the Times headline writers had some fun with the Yankees-Mets game:

    Cano, Yankees touch up Dickey

    Follow-up: It appears that didn’t get past their supervisor – it’s been slightly modified (they’ve now appended “in 6-5 win over Mets”).

  37. samregens on June 25th, 2012 7:11 am

    Great catch, Westie!
    That’s hilarious.
    And considering that Dickey used to be a Mariner, we can see that the M’s have had more than their fair share of pitchers with slightly provocative names; Dickey, Furbush, Fister, (Travis) Chick, French, etc.

  38. BillyJive on June 25th, 2012 9:20 am

    Completely offtopic: Let’s bring Jamie Moyer home! He can’t be any worse than some of our other starting pitchers!

  39. eponymous coward on June 25th, 2012 3:28 pm

    I hear Gaylord Perry’s available too, if we’re going to be signing veterans based on them being former Mariners. It would really be back to the 80’s if we did that.

  40. BillyJive on June 25th, 2012 4:30 pm

    I’m not advocating the M’s bringing Moyer back simply because he’s an ex-Mariner, he would cost us nothing and it would be more fun to watch him pitch than most of our starters lately not named Hernandez or Bernandez. Plus he should retire a Mariner.

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