Saunders Called Up
Ryan Divish is reporting that the Mariners have called up Michael Saunders to help give them some depth. No word on the corresponding move yet, but I’m guessing Bradley goes to the disabled list, and they end up giving him two weeks off. We’ll update when the rest of the transaction is finalized.
Update: apparently the transaction won’t be as of today’s game, as Saunders isn’t listed on the M’s line-up card. However, Divish reports that Bradley will go on the restricted list, so perhaps they’ll just issue a new line-up card for the evening.
Radio Spot With Brock and Salk
I’ll be on with Brock and Salk at 12;30 for my weekly Thursday chat with the boys at ESPN 710. Tune in.
Game Twenty-Seven Recap
Boo, 11-16.
I don’t really know if there’s anything much to say about this game. Lee pitched well, but Tampa’s got some good hitters, so a shutout was unrealistic. Matt Garza’s really good, and the Mariners line-up is not, especially without Milton Bradley. Some good hitters hit some good pitches for the Rays, and some bad hitters did not hit good pitches for the Mariners. Thus, the Rays won. It doesn’t take a lot of statistical analysis to offer insight on the result.
So, I guess we’ll talk about Jack Wilson’s durability again. He left the game with a tight hamstring, and while I wish this was a surprise, we knew going in that this is who Wilson was – a guy with chronic leg problems that couldn’t hold up over a full season. Like Bradley, he gets dinged up a lot, and this is just part of his overall package. Unfortunately, they already have Milton on the roster but not really available and Sweeney as a no-position bench guy. Again, the inflexible bench and 12 man pitching staff are proving to be a huge problem.
So, tomorrow, the team has to make another move. They can’t bring Tui back unless they put Milton on the DL (or bereavement list), so that would be the expected move, but this is still a long term problem. The Mariners can’t keep playing without any reserves because they’re relying on brittle guys in their 30s to play every inning. We’ve said it a million times, but a major league team can’t carry both 12 pitchers and two guys who can’t play the field. They have to pick between Sweeney and the seventh arm, or they’ll continue to play short-handed way too often.
M’s try to salvage one game out of the series by throwing Ryan Rowland-Smith at the Rays tomorrow night. He’s going to have to give the team his best start of the season, or the M’s will head into the weekend as losers of six in a row.
Game 27, Rays at Mariners
Garza vs Lee, 7:10 pm.
Yes, there’s a game tonight. No, Milton Bradley isn’t going to play in it.
Lee looks to repeat his ridiculously impressive debut from last Friday, and he might have to be even better than he was then, as the M’s face Matt Garza, one of the toughest righties in the league. Wak jumbles the line-up a little bit to accommodate Ryan Langerhans, who is in left field.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Kotchman, 1B
Gutierrez, CF
Griffey, DH
Lopez, 2B
Langerhans, LF
Wilson, SS
Johnson, C
Milton Implosion #1
We knew this was part of the deal when the Mariners traded for Milton Bradley. He is who he is. And, so now, we have our first Milton Bradley Situation. Per Mike Salk:
According to a source, Bradley yelled at the umpire from the bench before being told by Don Wakamatsu to cool it. Wakamatsu said that he would handle the umpire himself. Bradley responded that someone had to say something and that if Wak wouldn’t, then he would.
According to the source, a few minutes later Bradley walked back over to the skipper and said, “I’m packing my stuff. I’m out of here.” And then he left.Mariners General Manager Jack Zduriencik said Bradley is still a member of the team. “Milton is part of what we’re doing,” he told me this morning. “Anything that happens between a manager and his players should be handled internally. Sometimes tempers flare over the course of a season. Wakamatsu thought it was time for Milton to come out.”
I really doubt Milton is in the line-up tonight.
Prospect Pitching Performance of the Year to Date
RHP Michael Pineda, last night at Huntsville:
7.0 IP, 4 H, 11/1 K/BB, 2/6 G/F, eleven of last twelve retired in order
The Huntsville offense ranks fourth in the league right now in OPS, walks drawn, runs, and RBI. Pineda tore them apart.
Be cautiously exuberant.
Game Twenty-Six Recap
Boo, 11-15.
Let’s start with the one caveat – James Shields is really good. He was my preseason pick for the AL Cy Young award this year, so he’s not some random shlub. Even good offenses don’t do much against him, and well, the Mariners don’t have a good offense.
What are we going to say about the offense? The big move to shake up the line-up was flip-flopping Bradley and Lopez so that Milton was back in the cleanup spot, which was the right call. He rewarded Wak with some really bad at-bats, staring at pitches in the strike zone. Pitch selection is only swinging at hittable pitches, not standing there with the bat on your shoulder and letting the ump ring you up on anything that isn’t right down the middle. He was pulled after his third at-bat, in which he left the bases loaded, and I can’t imagine Wak was very happy with Milton’s performance. His second stint as the cleanup guy might not last much longer than the first.
Can’t lay all the blame on Bradley, of course. Junior looked as hopeless as ever, and really, asking him to hit a guy like James Shields at this point in his career is just remarkably unfair. You don’t invite your friends over to watch your grandfather wrestle a brown bear. This is the baseball version of that. Griffey isn’t a major league player anymore, and he’s going to be continually embarrassed by pitchers of Shields’ quality.
The offense wasn’t the only thing that blew, as the defense was uncharacteristically terrible. Jack Wilson made three ridiculous errors, Figgins added another official one and could have been given a second on a dropped pickoff, Kotchman put a guy on base with a bad throw after a nice dive, and Adam Moore tossed in another passed ball for good measure. The team was only charged with four official errors, but they made seven or eight mistakes in the field, and generally looked like a team that just couldn’t play the game.
In more positive news, let’s talk about the only good thing the M’s had going tonight – Jason Vargas. If you’re not on his bandwagon yet, I don’t know what else you need to be convinced. Going against a really good line-up, he racked up a career high eight strikeouts, constantly fooling Rays hitters with his fastball/change-up combination. He gave up a home run to Evan Longoria, but other than that, he was brilliant, despite the ridiculous lack of support he was getting from his infielders. He may have only pitched 6 2/3 innings, but when you factor in the outs that Wilson and Figgins cost him, he basically threw eight innings of brilliant baseball. I know everyone’s in love with Doug Fister right now, but of the two, Vargas is the one who I’d bet on sustaining his success all year.
Of course, once Vargas came out (and we were treated to a random Brandon League appearance), we got to see the prize of the seven man bullpen and the reason Shawn Kelley is back in Tacoma – Jesus Colome. You know, the guy who is so good that there’s no chance he’d clear waivers, despite the fact that he’s been outright released by different organizations in his career. Colome continued to show the same “skillset” he’s always had – no command of his fastball, no outpitch, and living evidence that throwing 95 doesn’t make you a major league pitcher. Supposedly, the M’s coaching staff thinks they fixed him in spring training, but there’s no reason to believe that – he still sucks, just like he always has, and there’s no reason for him to be on this team.
But hey, Cliff Lee tomorrow, and the M’s only have to figure out how to score runs off Matt Garza. I’m sure that won’t be hard.
Game 26, Rays at Mariners
Shields vs Vargas, 7:10 pm.
The kinda sorta new look Mariners take the field against one of the best teams in baseball for the next three days. Will be interesting to see how they handle going up against a legitimate beast for the first time this year. They begin their three-lefties-in-a-row series with Jason Vargas tonight, who will try to hold a good Rays line-up in check. Good luck, Jason – you may need it.
Two line-up changes tonight, as Milton Bradley finally reclaims the cleanup spot, while Jose Lopez drops to 6th against a right-hander, and Jack Wilson hits 8th for the first time all year, with Adam Moore moving down to the #9 hole. Griffey still DH’ing, hitting 5th, Kotchman still hitting 7th. Yup.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Bradley, LF
Griffey, DH
Lopez, 2B
Kotchman, 1B
Wilson, SS
Moore, C
Radio Spot
I’m going to be on with the guys from ESPN Radio 1080 in Portland at 4:05 pm. Tune in if you’re down there or listen live here, though I’ve also been told it’s simulcast in Seattle on Comcast Sportsnet, so whatever that is, if you have that, you can use that too.
The Bullpen’s Dirty Secret
When the M’s traded for Brandon League to bolster their bullpen, most of us saw a end-game foursome of David Aardsma, League, Mark Lowe, and Shawn Kelley and penciled the relievers in as one of the team’s strengths for 2010. And, I think the perception is still there that the bullpen is one area where the Mariners have an advantage over their opponents. The problem – given how the bullpen has shaken out, it’s not really true anymore. Two reasons:
1. Mark Lowe, setup man.
Instead of mixing and matching the League/Lowe/Kelley trio based on how often they had pitched and the opposing hitters due up, Wak opted to give Lowe the 8th inning job and relegate League to middle relief. This is despite the fact that League is demonstrably better, and better suited to a “fixed inning” role. As we’ve talked about before, Lowe is something of a glorified right-handed specialist.
His career FIP against RHBs is 2.80, but its 5.62 against LHBs, and he’s shown a huge BABIP platoon split as well (.286 vs RHB, .355 vs LHB), exacerbating the issue even further. His problems with lefties are not subtle – they have hit .298/.382/.514 against him in his career, and this year is no different. His fastball/slider combination is effective against righties, but do nothing to fool left-handed batters, and he’s basically abandoned his change-up at this point in his career, so he doesn’t really have anything to throw opposite handed hitters.
This creates some high leverage problems when he’s called upon to give an innings worth of work, which usually requires him to get a lefty or two out. We saw this in the 11th inning on Sunday. He gave up a single to left-handed hitting Julio Borbon to start the rally, and then once Elvis Andrus reached on a bunt, he was able to get right-handed hitting Michael Young to strikeout, but then had to face back-to-back lefties in David Murphy and Josh Hamilton. A deep sac fly and a single later and the game was basically over, as Lowe’s inability to get LHBs out (combined with Rob Johnson’s inability to catch) gave the Rangers a couple of runs.
Lowe has his uses, but he’s not good enough to be handed a strict role and allowed to pitch no matter who is due up. He needs to be selectively used to face mostly right-handed hitters, and the team can’t rely on him to get tough lefties out in critical situations. And yet, as the anointed setup man, that’s what they’re going to ask him to do.
2. Shawn Kelley is no longer on the team.
Because the team decided to go with a seven man bullpen, Kelley hadn’t gotten regular work (a sign that the team didn’t need seven relievers in the first place), and since he had an option left, the Mariners shipped him to Tacoma when Lee returned. The problem, though, is that Kelley is the team’s third best relief pitcher, behind Aardsma and League. His ability to get both lefties and righties out, while pounding the strike zone, make him more valuable than Lowe, even if the stuff isn’t as visually impressive.
On a team without a left-handed reliever, Kelley is a pivotal guy, because he’s the only guy in that bullpen besides Brandon League and David Aardsma who has a demonstrated ability to get good left-handed hitters out. Wak’s obviously not going to bring Aardsma in to get a lefty out in a high leverage situation in the 7th or 8th, so if League has already pitched or is not available, the M’s don’t have any other good options, so they are stuck with Lowe or Sean White. Those guys are below replacement level against left-handed hitters. That’s a bad situation for the M’s.
Right now, with the Mariner bullpen being structured as it is, it’s not a strength anymore. The closer is good, not great, with obvious strengths and weaknesses. They have one really good setup guy, but he’s being used in middle relief. There’s a good right-handed specialist in the 8th inning role, a three guys who are basically replacement level in White/Texeira/Colome, and then a starter-turned-mopup guy in Ian Snell.
It’s getting overlooked because of the offensive problems the team has experienced, but this isn’t a great bullpen, and the Mariners are going to play too many close games to give away wins by keeping it like it is. The team needs to bring Shawn Kelley back, let him and Lowe share the 7th inning duties (depending on handedness of opposing hitters), and make League the setup guy to Aardsma. At that point, they’d have a good bullpen again.
This current group – it’s not so hot.