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.
Game 72, Mariners at Dodgers
Woah, stayed at work too late, almost missed the start. 7:10. Some guy versus some other guy. Things at stake.
Bloomquist at second again. This is where I like having Bloomquist on the roster: a guy who can sub in for a couple of starts for a regular and not kill you with the glove, isn’t totally helpless with the bat, can steal a base.
Abandoning the catch-up
Moving from Gil “This turnaround is totally not like previous turnarounds” Meche for a minute —
The M’s are 4 and 1/2 games behind the Rangers and the Athletics, who are both 38-32. In terms of runs scored/allowed, the A’s aren’t much better than the M’s, and you’d expect the M’s to be at .500, but the games have been recorded, and that’s where the team is.
So is it possible for the M’s to win the AL West or the wildcard? Should they be holding out hope?
Or, alternately, how is this possibility any better than the previous times this “we’re still in it” horse has been trotted out for us?
It’s not. The M’s chances of getting to the playoffs are exceptionally slim on the face. With 91 games left, they have to make up a game every couple of weeks all season long. It can be done, certainly, but if 90 wins will take the AL West, the M’s need 56 more wins in 91 games — that’s over .600 ball for the rest of the year.
Does this really look like a club that can run that hard for that long? Aggressive baserunning doesn’t build that much endurance.
It would be different if you could look at the team and see a lot of players dramatically underperforming while no one played over their heads. But that’s not what we have at all — well, Ichiro’s over his head, and Lopez has been better than even his supporters (hi! it’s me!) thought he would do this year.
But the underperformers — Kenji’s really fallen down, I see him picking it up a little. Reed we’ve discussed, but until he starts hitting, whatever. Everett’s performance has fallen off dramatically, and at the bottom we’ve got Beltre, who I wish would at least have the courtesy to knock me out before his at-bats, except that he’d probably only swing and miss and break my monitor or something.
Sexson’s a huge problem, though — if Sexson was putting up last year’s numbers, or anything close to them, at this point the team would probably be fighting it out for the division lead.
Really. Sexson’s hitting .205/.283/.382. Having him hit well would probably be worth two games in the standings, maybe more, and then they’re over .500. Of course, we could also say “this aggressive baserunning thing’s cost us at least two games” but manager underperformance is out of scope.
So I don’t think as a unit they’re underperforming significantly, but there’s obviously room where things could turn around.
On the pitching side, it’s the same thing. Meche has been good while Pineiro’s been bad, which is a weird inversion of their usual relative positions, but Washburn’s been the ill purchase we feared. The big underperformer’s obviously Felix.
Take all of that and roll it up: Sexson suddenly starts to hit and Felix starts to pitch. That’s still not a .600 team. Sexson and Johjima start to hit, maybe Reed or someone else warms a little, and we get Felix on a roll, while all the while no one cools off… it could happen. I’d love to see it happen.
What are the chances, though? What are the chances that all of the good things are going to happen but there won’t be any injuries or bad streaks or whatever else might afflict the team? 0%? 1%?
This is not the voice of negativity — if the team continues like this, the season will be a great step forward, with the emergence of some key young players the team can build around, and an end to the endless, abject losing. I just don’t see looking towards the playoffs as realistic, and if that belief prevents the team from (say) punting Guardado for a live arm, or otherwise making moves that’ll help them pursue a pennant in 2007+, it’s harmful.
Off-day distractions
The notebooks are chock-full of tidbits.
The Times has Yuni-Omar, praise for Rivera, and Everett reminds readers he’s still capable of playing in the field.
“I’m a professional, I can deal with it,” he said. “I had a feeling it would go like this when I got to play in the field once in a month in spring exhibition games. But whatever the perception is that I can no longer play defense, that is not my reality. I can still play in the field.”
The PI’s version has the Omar-Yuni bit, plus Moyer-Bonds and Putz’s closer music.
And if you thought traffic getting into M’s games was bad now… well, turns out we’re totally screwed.
Also, I’m quitting my job today, which means more M’s related content for you, at least until they shut my power off.
Game 71, Giants at Mariners
Hey, it’s Jamey Wright! One of those guys who makes you think “he’s still around?” every time you see his name on a lineup card (in Jamey’s case, this is partly because there were two Jamey Wrights for a while, and one of them is gone).
versus Jamie Moyer. Which spelling will prevail?
1:05.
RF-L Ichiro!
3B-R Beltre
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
DH-S Everett
C-R Johjima
CF-L Reed
2B-R Bloomquist
SS-R Betancourt
Johjima pitch calling, Pineiro from the PI blog
Hickey’s got two items that escaped comment earlier this week:
“Washburn takes responsibility for homer” in which Jarrod says he didn’t shake Johjima’s changeup call off and it got cranked.
This is interesting in part because it leads with this:
Earlier in the season, Seattle pitchers were complaining, mostly privately, about the pitch calling tendencies of catcher Kenji Johjima.
But also that Hickey asserts that Johjima leans heavily away from the fastball, which contradicts the complaints that he was screwing up by calling for the fastball all the time, particularly early in the count.
I’ll take it for granted for a second that the pitchers aren’t all that happy with Johjima’s pitch-calling. I’m not sure it particularly matters (studies have shown that despite all the importance placed on this skill, the best and worst catchers don’t get appreciably different results out of pitchers). What interests me is the possibility that part of Felix’s problems (as Dave’s charted) are a result of the team attempting to correct this by having Johjima call more set sequences and get more pitches from the dugout, along with instructing him to “establish the fastball” more.
The other is that Pineiro might get dropped from the rotation. He (supposedly, what outsider can really verify this stuff) has options left and could be sent to Tacoma, but a bigger issue seems to be – who then?
Baek? Really? He’s been pretty good in Tacoma, but it’s not as if he’s turned a corner, and he’s not on the 40-man roster, so there’d have to be some move there. Cruceta’s had some good outings, but he’s not a complete pitcher yet and he’s been maddeningly inconsistent. After that there’s nothing in Tacoma.
Look to the bullpen and promote someone? Same thing — none of those guys are good bets to be appreciably better (as long as Soriano can’t be moved up).
Make a deal? That’s where this gets interesting. I don’t know who they’d move, or where, but if they’re considering moving Pineiro as part of an attempt to close the gap on the A’s, they’re going to need someone who’d be an appreciable upgrade and is available, playing for a team that needs what the M’s can offer.
I haven’t given this enough thought yet, but nothing springs to mind as a good fit immediately.
Game 70, Giants at Mariners
RHP Jason Schmidt v RHP Gil Meche. Also DH Bonds v RHP Meche. 1:05, (vwhoosh!) on Fox (crash!) nationally (wheet! chick-chicka-chicka) which means the whooole country’s going to be checking this out. Good times.
Game 69, Giants at Mariners
Apologies for the delay. Let’s see how many pitches Noah Lowry can throw before getting an out.
Jason Schmidt rumor mill
As Schmidt returns to Seattle this weekend, the mill’s a-grinding.
Seattle Times.
His hometown Longview Daily News. Kitsap Sun. San Francisco Chronicle.
And much, much more.
Morrow signs
From the PI which is running an AP story:
The Seattle Mariners have scheduled a Friday news conference to announce they have signed Brandon Morrow, the fifth overall choice in this month’s major league draft.