Game 99, Mariners at Rangers
Batista vs McCarthy, 5:35 pm.
The M’s try to salvage one game out of the debacle of the last week before returning home tomorrow. Feel the excitement of pennant race baseball.
McLaren changes the line-up again, and if you can figure out the logic behinid this, you win a prize. Beltre now hitting 2nd, Vidro drops to 5th. Ibanez still hitting 3rd, of course. God forbid we mess with his awesomeness.
Adrian Beltre is the team’s best power hitter. The only players hitting for less power than Jose Vidro in the major leagues this year are Luis Castillo, Jason Kendall, Reggie Willits, and Nick Punto. That’s a 2B/leadoff hitter, a C/9th hitter, a LF/leadoff hiter, and the Twins version of Willie Bloomquist. Every other major league hitter is hitting for more power than Turbo. Regardless, Vidro now hits 5th.
I’ll always be grateful that John McLaren’s presence helped the team keep Ichiro, but man, his line-ups and bullpen usage have been pretty terrible. That might be an understatement, actually. This line-up defies logic and reason – it’s the baseball version of throwing crap at a wall and hoping something sticks. Every day, this team gives me new reasons to think that the people in charge should be doing something else with their lives.
Also, for those who want to hear me talk way too fast again, I’m doing another radio interview 10 minutes before the game starts – this time, it’s Fox Sports Radio 790 in Spokane. They have an online stream, but it requires registration, so it will take some work on your part to hear me hyperventilate today. If that’s too tough for you, you can wait until the KJR gig with Grosby on Friday afternoon.
The Felix Thing, Revisited
I’ve got a whole bunch of different posts that I’m working on but haven’t finished yet, so if you’re upset that you want to talk about a specific Mariner topic, have patience, the post is probably coming.
Until then, you can read about us. Kind of. Keegan Hamilton wrote an article for the Riverfront Times, the St. Louis version of the Seattle Weekly, about the whole Felix pitch charting thing. I believe it’s scheduled to run in the Weekly next week, so if you prefer a paper version, you can pick it up then, or you can read it online now.
Adjust Or Fiddle
The M’s have now lost 5 games in a row, wasted a great opportunity to make up ground in the standings, and have dug themselves another hole that will take a lot of work to get out of. The season isn’t over, and losing four one-run games in five days doesn’t mean that this team is a huge failure. They’d won more than their fair share of squeakers during the first half, and regression to the mean said they were going to lose some.
However, this five game losing streak should be enough to break the hold of the myths that have frozen this team from making the necessary adjustments. This team doesn’t “just know how to win” any more than any other baseball team does. They aren’t really a .580 ballclub, even if they had a .580 winning percentage last week. This isn’t a team that qualifies for the If-It-Aint-Broke-Don’t-Fix-It exception to roster maintenance. This team has some issues that need to be addressed if they’re going to make a playoff run. They’re not a secret to anyone. They also can no longer be ignored.
The Mariners have a choice – they can continue to hope a solid but flawed team can overcome four better baseball clubs and sneak into the playoffs, or they can make the obvious internal moves that everyone on the planet knows would increase their chances of winning baseball games.
Promote Adam Jones and give him the everyday left field job. Let Jose Vidro and Raul Ibanez fight over the DH at-bats (Raul should never again face a lefty in any close game), and when Raul plays, hit him no higher than 6th. Play Ben Broussard at first base against right-handers more often. Show some willingness to use Sean Green and George Sherrill as more than situational guys against same-handed hitters, extending the high leverage innings into the hands of the team’s best relievers. Stick Chris Reitsma, the worst reliever on the team, as far from close games as possible. Or, heck, just admit that was a mistake, call up Kam Mickolio to take his place, and move on.
This team has talent, and it can still make the playoffs. But it won’t as currently constructed. You can adjust, or you can fiddle while Safeco burns. It’s up to you.
Game 98, Mariners vs Rangers
Washburn vs Loe, 5:30ish
Game two game thread.
Game 97, Rangers at Mariners
Feierabend vs Rheinecker, 2:05 pm.
Game 1 of the double-header features two emergency Triple-A starters. Both are lefties. Both teams hit lefties better. The ball flies in Texas, especially in the afternoon. Expect a football score.
McLaren, by the way, bows to platoon splits, knowing that he has to use his bench today due to the combination of 18 innings and the Texas heat. So, with a lefty on the hill, Ellison starts in left, Bloomquist in center, Ichiro DH’s, and Ibanez and Vidro head to the bench.
Also, Mark Lowe will be activated from the DL at the end of the game, with Feierabend heading back to Tacoma. He’ll be eligible to pitch in game 2.
Reimagining The Mariners
I’m stealing Jeff Sullivan’s gimmick here, but he’ll forgive me, I’m sure.
If the Mariners were a second-hand store…
Customer Enters
Dave: Hey Bill – nice to see you again.
Bill: Call me William, son.
Dave: Uhh, err, right, sorry. Mind if I look around?
William: Why don’t I give you the tour instead – okay? Okay.
Dave: Do I have a choice?
William: Let’s start off over here with my pride and joy – my first chemistry set.
Dave: It looks broken.
William: Nonsense. Pat made this thing years ago, but some jerk stole it from him and made all kinds of great stuff with it. Right before he gave me the store, he bought it back from the guy. I haven’t figured out how to do all the stuff it used to do, but just having it around makes me feel like a winner, you know?
Dave: You’ve got some cracked…
William: I prefer the term weathered.
Dave: Whatever. You’ve got, uhh, weathered test tubes in a prime display case.
William: I think they make everything in the store better.
Dave: How?
William: You’re here, aren’t you? Were you here when I didn’t have them? Okay then. Let’s move on.
Dave: Gladly.
William: Over here is my new favorite toy – an awesome IPod.
Dave scrolls through the list of songs.
Dave: It looks like this thing still has someone else’s music on it.
William: I know! That’s the best part. It’s got every hit single you could think of. The Macarena, Mambo #5, Life is a Highway, all of em!
Dave: These songs suck. Why would you load up an IPod with nothing but old singles?
William: It’s an IPod, and these songs got all kinds of radio play. What’s not to like?
Dave: Seems like a waste of a perfectly good technology to me.
William: Hater.
Dave: Hey, is that a crown?
William: Yea, but it’s not all its cracked up to be.
Dave: What? It looks amazing.
William: It was great for a few days, but then it broke. The jewels kept falling out, so I stopped wearing it for a while. I wear it sometimes now, but this thing has some bad juju. It always slips off when I’m trying to impress the girl at the fruit stand outside.
Dave: Have you considered that maybe your head isn’t perfectly shaped for a crown?
William: I’m sorry, but I don’t listen to critiques from locals.
Dave: Uhh, okay. What else you got?
William: Ooh, you’ll like this. This guy from Atlanta sold me this awesome 2005 calendar. Said it helped him remember to do all kinds of things.
Dave: But it’s 2007. That calendar hasn’t been useful in two years. And it looks like it’s been marked on. What did you give him for this?
William: Oh, nothing much. Just my guard dog.
Dave: You gave up your dog for a two year old calendar? That dog was awesome!
William: It’s okay. I felt like he was losing his bark, and I got this cute little puppy to replace him.
Dave: The one that’s peeing on your carpet right now?
William: HEY! STOP THAT!
Dave: How old is it? Three months? What did you expect?
William: He was scaring all the other puppies, so I thought he’d get mean in a hurry.
Dave: That’s logical…
William: So you don’t want the calendar? I know it looks like crap now, but I’ve heard it will look great once you get it home. Only $100.
Dave: I can buy a 2007 calendar, brand new, for $3.99. What were you thinking?
William: The Atlanta guy said it was great for him, and he’s one of the best antique store owners around.
Dave: Probably because he trades used calendars for guard dogs.
William: Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of that.
Dave: You have any good stuff around here?
William: Oh yea. Let me show you the most expensive thing in the store. It’s huge.
Dave: Well, I’m not really looking for something enormous. I just want something that works.
William: Here it is – the worlds biggest umbrella!
Dave: William – there’s a hole in it.
William: It’s okay – I use it all the time. It’s very impressive.
Dave: Don’t you get wet?
William: Well, yea, but can you imagine how awesome this thing would be if without the hole? You could fit 25 people under here!
Dave: But it does have a hole. How do you plan on fixing it?
William: I figure it will either fix itself, or the chemistry set over there will make it all better.
Dave: Really? That’s the plan? Wait for it to repair itself or hope that the magic chemistry set causes the umbrella to grow a new piece of cloth?
William: Do you have a better idea?
Dave: You could, I don’t know, use that smaller umbrella over there. Doesn’t look like there’s any holes in that one.
William: That one’s no good. Tried it last year, couldn’t figure out how to make it work, and it has already been discarded by several others.
Dave: But it doesn’t have a hole, right? Isn’t it worth giving it another shot?
William: You’re too young to understand.
Dave: Okay, you know William, I like you, and I love your store, but you have to have something around here that’s not useless.
UPS guy arrives
UPS guy: Hey William – here’s your shipment of Wiis. Where do you want em?
William: Stick ’em in the back room. I don’t have any room for them out here.
Dave: Wait! You’re putting a shipment of brand new Wiis in the back because your store is already full of crap? Do you know how fast these things will sell? Move stuff around! I’ll even help you. Here, give me a hand with the chemistry set.
William: No, I can’t. I’ve never sold a Wii before. I don’t know how it will work. What if it doesn’t live up to the hype?
Dave: You realize everyone in the world wants one of these, and every store who has them is putting them in a huge display, right? It’s a lock.
William: Nothing is a lock. I bet big on the pet rock when you were still in diapers, and I got burned. I’ll never forget the lesson from that debacle. When you get older, you’ll realize there’s more to it than just selling the hot new thing.
Dave: I… really? You won’t put the Wii out front because of the pet rock?
William: You gotta respect history. Dad always told me to never get away from the things we do best.
Dave: Didn’t your dad sell black and white TVs?
William: Better than anyone.
Dave: And you don’t think anything has changed since then?
William: Selling will never change. It’s a simple thing. You’ve never owned a store, so you just don’t know.
Dave: Okay, William. I can’t argue with that. Can I see that, uhh, weathered chemistry set again?
Game 96, Mariners at Rangers
Ramirez vs Millwood, 5:35 pm.
The M’s kick off a four-games-in-three-day trip to Texas with Horacio Ramirez on the hill. Sounds like a game where we’ll need to score a lot of runs. Which, of course, has been something of a problem lately. After yesterdays new line-up got shut out, we get the same old Lousy Line-Up of Doom making a return.
Adam Jones went 3 for 6 with a homer today. I’m just saying.
Frustrated? Yes
After yesterday’s meltdown on the mound, a lot of people expressed frustration with Felix, and rightfully so. He got mad that he didn’t get a pitch that he hadn’t been getting the entire game, and at best, he might get 30% of the time. In that instance, he was asking for the umpire to help him out, rather than just doing the job himself, and when he didn’t get that help, he caved, throwing a pair of bad pitches that essentially ended the game.
It was frustrating to watch. It’s the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen – not in a playoff race, not with our best pitcher on the mound.
But, reading through some people’s reactions, with comparisons to Freddy Garcia and predictions of a guy who will never live up to his hype, I realized that there’s still a need for some understanding of what Felix’s immaturity actually means for his development. So, the following is a list of performances by the 10 best pitchers in baseball today, as determined by me, during their age 21 seasons:
Johan Santana, Minnesota – 86 IP, 6.49 ERA 102 H, 54 BB, 64 K, 11 HR
Brandon Webb, U. Of Kentucky – 112 IP, 4.58 ERA, 123 H, 41 BB, 123 K, 14 HR
Roy Halladay, Syracuse (AAA) – 116 IP, 3.79 ERA, 107 H, 53 BB, 71 K, 11 HR
Jake Peavy, San Diego – 98 IP, 4.52 ERA, 106 H, 33 BB, 90 K, 11 HR
Ben Sheets, Stockton (A+) – 28 IP, 3.58 ERA, 23 HH, 14 BB, 28 K, 1 HR
Erik Bedard, Delmarva (A-) – 111 IP, 3.57 ERA, 98 H, 35 BB, 131 K, 2 HR
CC Sabathia, Cleveland – 180 IP, 4.39 ERA, 149 H, 95 BB, 171 K, 19 HR
Josh Beckett, Portland (AA) – 74 IP, 1.82 ERA, 50 H, 19 BB, 102 K, 8 HR
John Lackey, Lake Elsinore (A+) – 101 IP, 3.40 ERA, 94 H, 42 BB, 74 K, 9 HR
John Smoltz, Atlanta – 64 IP, 5.48 ERA, 74 H, 33 BB, 37 K, 10 HR
Now, I ask you, 24 hours after getting frustrated with Felix again, which of those players showed major league poise and composure at age 21? Only Santana, Peavy, Sabathia, and Smoltz were in the majors, and none of them were matching Felix’s success – Santana and Smoltz were downright terrible. Brandon Webb was struggling to get college hitters out, Roy Halladay was posting pedestrian numbers in Triple-A, and Ben Sheets, Erik Bedard, and John Lackey were all still in various stages of A-ball. Only Josh Beckett was having anything close to a great year, and he was doing it across three levels of the minor leagues. He did make four impressive end of the season starts… and then watched his ERA balloon up to 4.02 in the majors during his age 22 season.
Felix is ahead of every single one of these guys. All of them. At age 23, where Felix will be in two years, Roy Halladay posted the worst ERA in major league history for any pitcher who was allowed to throw more than 50 innings in a season – 10.67. He was so horrible that the Blue Jays sent him back to A-ball, had him start all over, and forced him to earn his way back to the major leagues. You think Felix is never going to get it because of his start yesterday – what on earth would you have thought of Roy Halladay in 2000?
Is Felix pitching as well as we all want him to? No, obviously not. Is he pitching as well as he’s capable of? No. Is it frustrating to watch? Of course.
But keep in mind that you’d have been frustrated watching any of the ten best pitchers in baseball at age 21, too. After a mass exodus from the Felix bandwagon yesterday, there’s plenty of leg room now. I suggest getting back on board and enjoying the ride, because Felix is still going to be a great, great pitcher – we may have assumed that he’d get there faster than he has, but that’s our fault, not his.
Game 95, Mariners at Blue Jays
Hernandez vs Halladay, 10:05 am.
Happy Felix Day, as well as Happy Awesome Pitching Matchup Day. I love games like this. Felix vs Halladay is the kind of thing that makes baseball so much more awesome than any other sport.
After yesterdays shutout, John McLaren acknowledges that the line-up is struggling right now, and he’s made some changes.
1. Ichiro, CF
2. Lopez, 2B
3. Ibanez, DH
4. Beltre, 3B
5. Broussard, RF
6. Sexson, 1B
7. Johjima, C
8. Betancourt, SS
9. Ellison, LF
It’s a decent overhaul from the standard line-up. Vidro and Guillen get the day off, Lopez and Beltre get moved up in the order, but Ibanez continues to hit 3rd and kill rallies at a disturbing rate.
On one hand, I’m happy to see McLaren acknowledge the need for some changes in the batting order and the awareness that Raul Ibanez shouldn’t be playing the outfield. On the other hand, this line-up isn’t really any better than the one we’ve been running out there. Ellison can’t hit right-handed pitching and Broussard’s a pretty terrible outfielder, so the Ellison/Broussard corners isn’t really an upgrade over the Ibanez/Guillen corners. There’s an obvious answer to this problem, but whatever, Adam Jones is still in Tacoma, and it’s so ridiculous at this point that it’s not even worth talking about.
Maybe today’s line-up shuffle lays the groundwork for some moves that actually make the offense better. Hopefully.
Game 94, Mariners at Blue Jays
Weaver vs Towers, 10:05 am.
As far as non-Safeco matchups go, this one is pretty Weaver friendly. The Blue Jays best hitters are all right-handers, and Weaver’s traditionally much better against same handed hitters. I don’t expect him to dominate, but if we have to start the back end of our rotation on the road, this is about as good a matchup as we can hope for.
Josh Towers is the Blue Jays version of Cha Seung Baek – throw the ball over the plate and see what happens. He’s a bit homer prone, but he won’t walk anyone, so the M’s will have to earn their runs today.