The Schedule
After Friday night’s frustrating debacle, I decided to take the last two games off. The Mariners, apparently, thought that sounded like a fantastic idea, and followed suit. The road trip that started 5-0 with wins over good teams ends at 5-5 after getting swept by one of the worst teams in baseball. And swept in convincing fashion, a beatdown where the Mariners didn’t put up a fight and were outscored 24 to 7.
By all accounts, the team is exhausted. They have their first day off on Monday since June 7th, and that was their first day off since May 14th. They also didn’t have a game on April 24th, due to a rainout, and they had a normal day off on April 16th, as well as a postponed game in Boston on April 12th. Since the snowout series, the Mariners have played 63 games in 69 days. Tomorrow is the fourth day in two and a half months that they haven’t had to go to the ballpark to prepare for a game. That’s tough.
But, unfortunately, that’s also baseball. Lost in all the talk about the Mariners scheduling around the makeup games is that those games involve another team – the Cleveland Indians. Every time the Mariners jump on a plane to Cleveland, the Tribe also have to come to the park on what was supposed to be an off day for their club. So, for comparison, let’s look at the Indians schedule.
The Indians just played their 13th game in a row and are headed to Philadelphia for games 14, 15, and 16 before an upcoming off day on Thursday. Their last day off was June 4th, and before that, it was May 14th. That was the only day in May that the Indians didn’t play baseball. They also had a day off on April 16th. Since the snowout series, the Indians have played 65 games in 69 days, and by the time they get another day off, it will have been 68 games in 72 days.
The Indians are 40-28, first place in the A.L. Central, having outscored their opponents by 46 runs on the year. They’ve played two more games since the end of the snowout series than the Mariners have in the same amount of days. I’m sure they’re a tired bunch, but unfortunately, I can’t find any quotes in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer to prove it. Maybe they were too tired to give interviews?
Or, alternately, perhaps they’ve overcome their exhaustion and continued to win baseball games because they’re a good team. A playoff team. A team with a well constructed roster able to provide organizational depth when the preseason rotation falls to pieces.
The schedule has been tough on the Mariners. It’s been tough on the Indians, too. One of these teams has shown the ability to overcome the challenge and keep winning enough games to keep themselves firmly entrenched in a pennant race. The other is taking tomorrow off, regrouping, and hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates at Safeco Field on Tuesday night.
Two teams with tough schedules born out of bad weather. One is still in first place, while the other saw their playoff hopes put on life support this weekend. Perhaps it’s not the schedule? Perhaps it’s the roster.
Game 66, Mariners at Astros
Washburn vs Oswalt, 11:05 am.
Jarrod Washburn is a pitch-to-contact guy who relies on his defense and a spacious Safeco Field to succeed. The Mariners haven’t been able to convince MLB to let them take Safeco with them on the road, so when he pitches in other cities, he’s at a disadvantage.
Then, Mike Hargrove does this to him.
LF – Ibanez. One of the five worst defensive left fielders in baseball.
CF – Ichiro. He’s good, obviously.
RF – Broussard. He’s not an outfielder. Making him run for a ball is criminal.
3B – Lopez. 9 innings at 3rd base last night doubled his career total. Not a 3rd baseman.
SS – Betancourt. He’s fine, despite the throwing problems.
2B – Vidro. He has no business ever taking the field.
1B – Sexson. One of the five worst defensive first baseman in baseball.
Ibanez, Vidro, and Sexson are all bad enough defensively that they should be DH’ing. Broussard’s not much better as a first baseman, and he’s horrible as an outfielder. And we’ve got Jose Lopez playing out of position to boot.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to watch the Marlins play defense on a daily basis, this is going to be similar. Good luck Jarrod – between the short porch in left field and your defense, you’re going to need it.
Game 65, Mariners at Astros
Baek vs Williams, 4:05 pm.
I’m going to be honest – I need a day off from this team. With Lopez playing 3rd, Vidro at 2nd, and Baek pitching, today’s as good a day as any.
Game 64, Mariners at Astros
Hernandez vs Rodriguez, 5:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day.
There’s no way to say this nicely – the Astros stink. They have a struggling Lance Berkman, an overrated Carlos Lee, a good rookie in Hunter Pence, and lots of bad players. They can’t really score, they can’t really pitch, and they can’t really field. But other than that, they’re awesome.
However, tonight’s starter for Houston is Wandy Rodriguez, who is actually pretty good. He’s shaved his walk rate by 40% while striking out two more batters per game than last year, and if he could figure out how to leave runners on base, he’d be a borderline all-star. Thankfully for the Mariners, he’s a lefty, so the M’s have a chance to hit him. However, he’s a good pitcher, so no whining about getting shut down by a no-name if this turns into a low scoring game.
And Felix, man, I don’t know how much more I can write about you. Just pitch like King Felix please.
Random Notes
Haven’t done of these in a while. So, on to the blurbs.
Daily Adam Jones Update: 3 for 5, double, steal. He still belongs in the Mariners line-up.
The M’s recalled Ryan Feierabend from Tacoma after the game last night, shipping Jake Woods back to Triple-A. Feierabend was already with the team in Chicago, as they flew him out Wednesday in case Miguel Batista wasn’t able to go deep in the game. Feierabend is expected to work out of the bullpen until the team finally throws Jeff Weaver overboard.
And, seriously, Jeff Weaver’s still not good. Results based analysis will tell you he calmed down and settled into a groove. It’s not true, though – we’ve talked about Weaver’s batting average on balls in play eventually regressing to the mean, and that’s what happened in innings 2 through 6. When you pitch to contact, sometimes guys will drive the ball and sometimes they won’t. It has a lot more to do with the hitter than the pitcher.
In case we weren’t sure, J.J. Putz has cemented himself as the best reliever in baseball. And, to boot, George Sherrill now has a great argument as the best LH reliever in baseball. Those two are lights out at the end of ballgames. Brandon Morrow, not so much.
The M’s should have already been looking forward to facing a bad Astros team this weekend. Well, that bad Astros team just got even worse – defensive wizard Adam Everett collided with Carlos Lee and predictably got the worst of it, breaking his leg, and is now on the DL for the next two months. Taking the best defensive player in the game off a team that was already going nowhere makes this an even easier series for the M’s. They really should take 2 of 3, and a sweep wouldn’t even be much of a challenge. Houston’s a bad baseball team.
I mentioned that Dan Fox was doing some really cool work with the advanced gameday data from MLB.com, and that he was going to have some great stuff about Felix shortly. The article I was referring to was published at BP yesterday. If you’re a subscriber, it’s required reading. If you’re not, here’s the basic summary – everything we’ve said in the Charting Felix series is demonstrably true, and Felix’s velocity and movement is significantly down from his opening day start against the A’s. The pitches just aren’t breaking like they did in his first start, and he’s not throwing as hard. It’s something to be concerned about, honestly.
Game 63, Mariners at Cubs
An early 11:20 start. No M’s TV broadcast. WGN’s broadcasting it, though, if you have access to their feed. Jeff Weaver v Jason Marquis.
Is it best that we don’t have television for this one? I’d rather not watch bad Jeff Weaver. Now, if he’s willing to put up another decent enough chunk of innings, that’d be fine. And I’m interested to see how he’s looking, since the back end of the rotation really needs the help.
Lineups posted when I see ’em.
Mariners
CF-L Ichiro
2B-R Lopez
RF-R Guillen
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
SS-R Betancourt
3B-R Willie “The Ignitor” Bloomquist
C-R Burke
(pitcher)
How can a team with both Burke and Bloomquist lost? Also, I like that Sexson’s protected by Betancourt. Pre-season, who’d have thought there’d ever be a lineup turned in like that?
Cubbies
LF-R Soriano
CF-L Pie
1B-R Lee
RF-L Floyd
3B-R DeRosa
2B-L Fontenot
C-B Hill
SS-B Izturis
(pitcher)
Ibanez at DH
In thinking about “how you wedge Jones into the lineup” (see thread below) one of the commonly-mentioned ways is to DH Ibanez and then make Vidro disappear. That wasn’t my solution, but one of the things that’s raised in objection is, as Paul said at Mariner Morsels:
Raul Ibanez also is more comfortable when he’s playing the field, and the potential discomfort he may have could affect his hitting.
Paul doesn’t see these as major risks, but it’s worth addressing.
First, Raul says he prefers to play the field. I don’t think that means much. Bad pitchers want to be starters, or closers. Bloomquist wants to play every day. It’s entirely understandable, but we’ve seen Ibanez DH for the M’s before, and he did just fine.
Second, there’s no evidence that players hit significantly worse or better at DH. We heard similar things about Vidro, but it’s just not there. You can go hunt through those threads if you’re particularly curious, but the short version is that offensive performance isn’t affected by a DH move. What slight decline you do see in some cases is the guy being shifted to DH because of injuries and age.
A player’s preference shouldn’t affect a team’s thinking in a situation like this. If Jones every day in left upgrades the team significantly for the rest of the way, that makes them a better team and more likely to win the division/get into the playoffs/be more competitive when they get there.
Adam Jones Is Still Ready For The Majors
Coming into today’s game, Adam Jones was hitting .317/.392/.581, in large part due to his surge since the calendar changed to May and he got over the wrist problem that sapped his power in April. Tonight, he continued his torrid June pace, going 4 for 5 with another home run.
Since May 1st, Jones is 56 for 163 with 14 home runs. That’s a .344/.420/.700 line.
.344/.420/.700. 27 of his 56 hits have gone for extra bases. Did I mention that he’s turned himself into a pretty good defensive outfielder? And he can run? Or that he has the best outfield arm in the organization?
He’s better than Raul Ibanez, Jose Guillen, Jose Vidro, Richie Sexson, and Ben Broussard. Better than all of them. If the Mariners are serious about making the playoffs, Adam Jones should be on the 25 man roster. Getting him into the line-up isn’t going to be easy for Mike Hargrove, but he’s not paid to do an easy job, and the Mariners can’t let the 4th or 5th best hitter in the organization sit in Tacoma for much longer.
It’s time for Adam Jones to be a Seattle Mariner.
Game 62, Mariners at Cubs
After last night’s game, the M’s could really use an innings-eating performance from… Miguel Batista? Uh oh. Making this even worse: tomorrow is Jeff Weaver, also not known for working deep into games. It makes me wish for Ryan Franklin who, for all his faults, could always be sent out to the mound in these situations with instructions to go nine innings and could pull it off: pacing himself, giving up runs as he went but taking one for the team.
Anyway, yeah — Batista v Marshall.
John Hickey’s blog entry over at the PI notes that the M’s didn’t make a roster move for reinforcements and brings up the specter of Julio Mateo, pitching in Tacoma.
So the bullpen:
Jason Davis (threw last night)
Sean Green (threw last night, and the 11th)
Brandon Morrow (threw last night, and the 11th)
Eric O’Flaherty (threw last night, and the 11th)
JJ Putz (threw last night, and the 10th)
Jake Woods (ding ding ding ding ding!)
I’m betting one of the “keys to the game” will be the need to go deep in the game and save the bullpen.
Thank you for not managing
We’ve carped about Hargrove’s instruction of Lopez for — well, it seems like years. I still don’t understand why he ever got it into his head that Lopez would be better off grounding out weakly to the right side every time he came up to bat, but I don’t know anyone who followed the whole saga without seeing their blood pressure tick upwards with each out.
We ranted about this repeatedly here — a random sample from this pre-season Q&A:
Q2: How do you see the next couple years for Jose Lopez panning out?
There are two things that happen. Either he keeps grounding out to the right side to Hargrove’s applause and he sucks, or either he rebels or they let Lopez be Lopez and he hits really well. If you get the latter, he’ll be a pretty good player.
Jose Lopez, hitting for some power, is a really good piece of the team. He gets his power when he really turns on a pitch, which is not that frequent – but it’s never when he’s concentrating on grounding out to the right side.
I don’t know if Hargrove’s been distracted, or if at ground-out 100 he patted Lopez on the shoulder, told him he’d proven himself and moved on to other tasks. I don’t really care. Because it’s meant that Lopez, once again yanking balls over the fence and off the walls in left, is a good second baseman. Offensively, he’s in with the second tier of AL second basemen (Hill/Castillo/Pedroia). He’s not Upton, but then he’s not carrying Upton’s glove. Which is good.
At home, all three of his home runs are dead pull, two of his four doubles are in almost the same location (the other two are down the left and down right field lines). And it’s the same story on the road: almost all his extra-base hits are pull. His singles are better-spread out, and that’s always been the case. It’s interesting that the way he’s doing it aren’t much different – his ground ball/fly ball rate’s about the same, he’s not hitting any more line drives than we’ve seen the last few years. But he’s getting more for his contact dollar at the same time the strikeouts are down and he’s walking more.
Even if he’s been a little lucky on the home runs, this is a far, far more effective version of Lopez, one that plays to his natural ability: Lopez has never been a guy who walks 10% of the time, but he’s always had good power potential pulling the ball (, and a second baseman who can field his position well and hit 30 doubles and 15-20 home runs is quite valuable. Certainly more than a weak-hitting ground-out machine who happens to be “going the other way”.
Having Lopez contribute to the team, rather than just make outs, has been a big part of the team’s improved offense. I’ve been hoping that I’d see some quote explaining what’s going on Hargrove or Lopez to look at and test, but I haven’t seen it. So whatever it is – whether it’s negligence or preoccupation or if the team made a conscious decision to let Lopez be Lopez – I’m glad to see it.