Petition
Due to the resurgent Mariners offense, I’d like to appeal to the governing board of the Julian calendar to please let next month be referred to as June 31st through June 60th. You can return to using “July” next year. Thank you.
Now, onto Dave’s Random Ramblings.
- 1. Due to one of our patented East Coast Thunderstorms Of Doom, I haven’t had any internet access at home since Friday evening. Thus, I missed the entire series with the Padres. Good to see the team wasn’t discouraged by my absence and continued to hit the crap out of the baseball.
- 2. Kenji Johjima is now hitting .290/.335/.454, pretty much exactly what we all expected. In fact, in that roundtable, I wrote: “If he hits .280/.350/.440, which is about where I have him pegged, he’ll be an easy choice for the all-star team.” Amazingly enough, though, not only is he not an easy choice, he’s not even in the discussion. American League catchers have been hitting the tar out of the baseball this year.
Joe Mauer – .368/.436/.506. Jorge Posada – .293/.406/.486. Ramon Hernandez – .285/.346/.506. Victor Martinez – .292/.361/.465. And, while he hasn’t played as many games, Mike Napoli (.294/.433/.578) has already out VORPed Johjima due to his ridiculous offensive performance. Even Gregg Zaun is hitting .328/.390/.555 while playing half the time.
AL catchers – they can hit this year.
- 3. Speaking of us being right about things, Marcus Thames is hitting .310/.378/.655. I’ve been advocating bringing in Thames for years, as he’s the prototypical freely available corner outfielder. He’s been tearing the cover off the ball in Triple-A forever, and he’s finally gotten his shot. He’s nowhere close to being this good, but he’s so much better than Carl Everett, it’s not even funny.
My idea for upgrading left field last offseason was platooning Jacque Jones and Marcus Thames. Jones is hitting .326/.359/.558 vs righties, and Thames is at .286/.355/.571 vs lefties (he’s killing righties, too). Carl Everett – .244/.321/.384. I’m just saying.
- 4. Since I just spent a couple paragraphs saying I told you so, let me reiterate that we were wrong about Raul Ibanez. Again. He already has as many home runs as he had in all of 2004 and he’s posting the highest OPS of his career. Guess those high strikeout rates last year weren’t signs of a loss of bat speed. We were wrong about Raul when they signed him, and so far, we’ve been wrong about the decision to give him a contract extension. Ibanez has been a major bargain since the day he arrived. Kudos to the M’s on that one.
- 5. J.J. Putz has faced 141 batters this year. 50 have struck out, 45 have hit ground balls, and 46 have done anything else. His Fielding Independant ERA is 1.38. He’s almost certainly not going to make the all-star team, but he should. He’s been as good as any reliever in baseball this year.
- 6. How much do home runs matter? Take a look at Felix’s line next to Jeremy Bonderman’s:
Felix: 19.2% LD%, 55% GB%, 8.6% IF% 22.7% HR/Flyball 2.7 BB/G, 8.6 K/G
Bonderman: 19.9% LD%, 51% GB%, 14.9% IF%, 8.5% HR/Flyball, 2.6 BB/G, 9.1 K/G
The differences there are pretty minor with the exception of the HR/Flyball rate. Bonderman’s ERA – 3.65. Felix’s ERA – 5.10. They rank #2 and #3 in American League xFIP, by the way.
- 7. The M’s travel to Arizona to play the Diamondbacks who, under the watchful eye of Bob Melvin, have lost 17 of their last 20. And, since I’m bringing up manager quality, we should mention that everything that Mike Hargrove has been doing wrong all year is still hurting the team, and they’d still be better off if he was replaced, but it’s awful hard for a manager to cause a team scoring 6 runs per game to lose, even with crazy aggressive baserunning and awful bunts.
Game 77, Mariners at Padres
Got back from today’s century just in time.
Pineiro v Thompson. Also, the second half of Portugal v Netherlands.
Game 76, Mariners at Padres
Crafty lefty Jamie Moyer vs. RHP Chan Ho Park, who’s making over $15M this year. 7:05pm.
Usual Ichiro-Beltre-Lopez Ibanez-Sexson-Johjima Reed-Betancourt-Moyer batting order.
Beltre, in case you were wondering, is hitting .311/.374/.544 in 90 at-bats (small sample size caveats apply) since moving into the #2 slot. Over the course of a full season, and given his defense, that’s the sort of production which justifies his contract. Sadly, the news isn’t so rosy for Richie Sexson. He’s slugging over .500 in June, sure, but he’s not walking enough to get away with a batting average in the low .200’s.
I’ll come right out and say it — the M’s need a win after dropping back-to-back games. Oakland’s already lost today, and Texas is down 7-0 early at Colorado.
Why are you at a terminal reading this?
It’s beautiful! Get out and run around!
From the Times notebook:
– Guardado’s frustrated
– Everett has some odd views on Ozzie Guillen’s “fag” comment:
Everett believes that Mariotti should be held equally accountable for critical comments he makes in his guise as a columnist and television commentator.
“If you call me stupid, that’s derogatory,” he said. “Don’t just pick a certain word, because the world is sensitive to gay people. You call me stupid, you call me an idiot, people are sensitive to that.
“So don’t just single out a couple of words. You’ve got to take everything as a broad spectrum. You call a player stupid or ignorant, you just touched a subject you shouldn’t be touching. But they give you the right to say it because you’re media. Bull.”
Everett shared the enmity of his former manager toward Mariotti.
“Yeah, Ozzie talks a lot,” he said. “But at the same time, Jay Mariotti has a big mouth, too. If you want to tell people to be quiet, take his butt to sensitivity training.”
– some guy from some band I listened to a long time ago visited the clubhouse
In the PI notebook:
– Guardado again
– the players voted
– an abridged version of Everett’s opinions on the Guillen/Mariotti thing
Game 75, Mariners at Padres
Meche v. one of my favorites, Jake Peavy. 7:05pm.
And speaking of favorites, Mike Cameron is batting leadoff and playing center for San Diego tonight.
Ichiro-Beltre-Lopez-Ibanez-Sexson-Johjima-Reed-Betancourt-Meche.
Game 74, Mariners at Dodgers
Felix v Lowe!
I wonder how much of the team’s interleague success is due to losing the DH.
Standard lineup of the last couple weeks: Ichiro/Beltre/Lopez/Ibanez/Sexson/Johjima/Reed/Betancourt
Dave on the air
Late notice, I know, but I’ll be joining Pat Dillon in about an hour to talk about the M’s on the Everett Aquasox pregame show. The interview should air around 6:50 pm pacific time. You can listen live thanks to Aquasox.com or turn your radio to AM 1380.
Also, since I haven’t plugged Pat recently, if you’ve never listened to him call a game, make it a point to do so. He’s great.
This is fun
Do you remember the last time rooting for the Mariners was this enjoyable? The game was on ESPN last night, so I endured the 10:10 pm first pitch for a chance to watch the game on a real tv. A month ago, I would have been in bed. But this team, playing this way, is a joy to watch. Even when Washburn gave up the lead and we trailed 5-2, my first thought was “it’s only three runs, and the Dodgers bullpen isn’t very good.” For the first time in a while, I was anticipating a come from behind win. That’s a nice feeling.
The team is now 13-5 in June. The surge has been almost entirely due to the offense. Take a look at some of these June numbers.
Ichiro: .463/.494/.638. Also 6 SB, 0 CS. Player of the Month.
Ibanez: .348/.421/.682.
Beltre: .303/.369/.579. And just smoking the ball right now.
Those three are carrying the offense. And the guys who aren’t hitting like MVPs are still hitting. Sexson is slugging .522. Betancourt is at .317/.348/.476. Reed, Lopez, and Johjima are putting up good enough lines, considering their positions. Carl Everett is the only guy who is playing with regularity and not hitting.
All this has led to a .295/.352/.498 line for the month and the team is averaging 5.9 runs per game. You score that many runs, you’re going to win a lot. Obviously, they’ll cool off eventually, but we were optimistic about the offense going into the season, and the fact that they’ve been able to hit well for three weeks validates some of that.
This still isn’t a great team. They have some major flaws, and while this season may not end with a championship parade, they’ve made a huge step forward – it’s no longer painful to be a Mariner fan.
Hooray for hope.
Game 73, Mariners at Dodgers
LHP Washburn versus Chaaaaaaaaaaaad Billingsley. 0-0 Billingsley will, as all random starters with no records do, stymie the M’s.
Lopez returns to the lineup:
RF-L Ichiro!
3B-R Beltre
2B-R Lopez
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
C-R Johjima
CF-L Reed
SS-R Betancourt.
Mmmm. 7:10.
This and that
A few random comments on things going on.
- 1. Jeff Clement is being activated from the DL and assigned to Tacoma today. The M’s continue to push their prospects through the system very aggressively. Rob Johnson will likely head to San Antonio once he returns from dealing with his family issues. If you needed another reason to go watch the Rainiers, now you have one.
- 2. The Everett Aquasox have begun their season with a couple of wins over Tri-Cities. Last night saw the system debut of Steve Uhlmansiek, who is still recovering from the TJ surgery he had at the end of his college career. He pitched exceptionally well, but reports indicate that his stuff isn’t all the way back yet. Good to see him on the hill and getting outs, though.
- 3. Speaking of the Aquasox, you really should go watch them play. It’s a good value, a cool place to watch a game, and they have some interesting young talent. Get thee to Everett.
- 4. Adrian Beltre, in June; .278/.342/.556. 10 of his 20 hits have gone for extra bases. I’m certainly not jumping on the “he’s back!” bandwagon after such a small sample, but just for comparison, he had only nine extra base hits in April and May combined. The nicest thing about his current success is that it’s not based on balls finding holes – he’s legitimately hitting the crap out of the ball. Let’s hope some form of this continues, because Good Adrian replacing Holy Crap You Suck Adrian in the line-up would be an amazing upgrade.
- 5. The Mariners have a +9 run differential. The A’s have a +5 run differential. While the rest of the world is convinced the A’s are better than the Mariners, I am not.
- 6. There are some lights out relievers in the American League right now. The Fielding Independant ERA for B.J. Ryan, J.J. Putz, Jon Papelbon, and Joe Nathan, in order; 1.34, 1.52, 1.60, 1.64. Papelbon is the only one of the three not averaging 13 K/G or more.
- 7. The Mariners defense, per the Hardball Times, is +18 on groundballs and -9 on flyballs. The M’s infield is, without a doubt, the strength of the defense. If the team is going to add another arm to the rotation at any point this year, they should emphasize GB rate. Jason Johnson would be a perfect fit at the back of the M’s rotation.