Week #9 in Review
Legend has it that REM’s 1991 album was named one afternoon when the record label got sick of waiting for the band to come up with a title. Drummer Bill Berry picked up the phone, nodded, looked to his bandmates and said: “we’re Out of Time.”
This morning, so was Peter White, who tapped me to put the finishing touches on the post you are currently reading.
“Jeff,” he says. “I’ve got this almost done, but I have to leave the country on secret business. The post is basically finished. It just needs some spicy color.”
“Peter,” says I, “this looks fine to me as is. And besides that, color, being a visual concept, cannot possibly be ‘spicy.'”
He was most insistent. So I agreed. And as payment for my agreeance, I get the best of all possible worlds: Peter does 99 percent of the work, I add a sentence or two, and I get to play off anything you don’t like with “oh yeah, Peter wrote that part.”
Hope you enjoy. If anything tastes spicy or looks colorful, that was me.
Vital Signs
On this Friday we find the Mariners 18-28. First the good news: The Mariners are not in last place. Now the bad news: They slipped another game-and-a-half behind the leader. They are now 8.5 games behind the Rangers and Angels. The Rangers have been feeding off perhaps the weakest part of their schedule at taken 6 in a row from from Houston and Kansas City. If you think the Mariners aren’t doing so hot, you should check out the Astros and Royals. Yech. And on another positive note, according the third-order
wins, the Mariners are 2 wins behind where the Mariners should be.
The offense ranks 12th in the league, scoring 189 runs, just one behind the Angels and Royals. Their 33 home runs rank 13th in the league and their 127 walks rank 9th in the league. Meanwhile, their .306 on-base percentage ranks 12th and their .376 slugging percentage is also 12th.
The defense has allowed 215 runs, ranked 8th in the league. The gloves are turning 71.2% of balls in play into outs, good for 2nd in the league. The pitching staff is looking league average, with an overall ERA of 4.53. The starters have been well below average with a 5.23 ERA, while the bullpen has remained a strength with a 2.97.
So basically, the team’s strengths boil down to “can catch the ball” and “can usually get outs late in games.” Those are good things, but unless they are complemented with “can hit rotating horsehide spheroid to an uninhabited locale between white lines,” they’re looking at a whole lot of weeks like this one.
It was a 2-4 week. Things looked sharp at the beginning of the week as the Mariners took 2 of 3 from San Diego. However, that Baltimore series was just brutal. Overall, the Mariners were outscored just 20-16. They were out-homered 6-4 (I could have sworn Rafael Palmeiro hit more home runs than that) and out-walked 18-11. But check out that .265 OBP. The M’s were making outs like they were going out of style.
On the minus side, all the free-swinging from players that can’t hit is driving Mike Hargrove crazy. So crazy that he’s already pled in the media for his hitters to be more selective. On the plus side, at least they’re losing quickly, so if Hargrove enjoys golf, he can get in more of it on the road.
Heroes
Jeremy Reed finally had the week we’ve all been waiting for. He led the team hitting .368/.429/.632 with a pair of doubles and his first major league home run. Reed was promptly rewarded by a caller to Thursday’s postgame show suggesting the M’s bench him in favor of Doyle.
[As a sidenote, there is no more depressing spectacle than listening to the postgame show on radio. It’s like a netherworld of random opposite-of-true observations. Sometime, I will endure one, in the interests of science, to document the atrocities in a post. Maybe we’ll ask Evil Rick Rizzs to liveblog it.]
Proving that even blind squirrels can find nuts, Aaron Sele pitched 9 scoreless innings last Friday against the Padres. Of course, his defense played a large part by making 24 of those 27 outs for him.
The next time you get down on this rotation, consider this: how bad would they be performing in front of a below-average defensive team? Then shudder.
Not-so-much Heroes
I’ve been thinking about writing a post about how I can no longer for Bret Boone as an All-Star with a good conscience, and this week gives me more reason (not that one single week should make or break an All-Star). He went 3-for-22.
To think that, just a year ago, Mariner Musings mused about Boone’s Hall of Fame chances.
True, we concluded “Slim and none — and slim just left town.” But watching Bret treat ground balls like the Corbin Bernsen character in Major League makes it seem stunning that the question was ever raised.
Shigetoshi Hasegawa hadn’t made an appearance in over a week. It showed Thursday night as he pitched one inning and gave up a 2-run home run to Miguel Tejada in the 8th inning, essentially ending the game.
Remind me why we have a 12-man pitching staff, but no right-handed bench bat that wouldn’t be better off just praying for a walk.
Coming to a Stadium Near You
On the road to Tampa Bay. Yeah. Back to Seattle for Toronto.
Mariner color men: fight! fight!
Last night ended John Marzano’s brief stint working alongside Rick Rizzs. While Rizzs didn’t seem to know what to do with Marzano at times, and Marzano stepped on Rizzs pretty frequently, that’s to be expected for a short stint like this.
I posted this on yesterday’s game thread, but here’s what Marzano said about his brawl with Paul O’Neill:
Tim Davis was pitching. The ball wasn’t even that close, and he started mouthing off like he was going to go out there and beat up Tim Davis. I said ‘Well, I’m right here, you don’t have to go that far’ and that’s when we got into it.
That is some quality color commentary, and a long ways off the clean-and-wonderful Mariner image we often get pushed on us.
Marzano provided a lot of insight and in particular he seemed to be pretty good about guessing pitching approaches (“I’d feed Olivo a change here”). He’s also a big believer in confidence and its viral-like properties, and timely hitting.
Part of what made it interesting was the novelty, I think — if a color man’s got a couple topics they like to wear to death, over three games it’s not that annoying. Over a couple of games, it’s not a big problem.
I’d love to have the Mariners do more of this. Of course, I think they should have Mike Curto do games, or at least rotate in so Fairly doesn’t ever have to do play-by-play.
So kudos to the team for bring Marzano in. It was a worthwhile change, and it made this awful series better.
Doyle interview at Lookout Landing
Lookout Landing’s got a long interview in two parts with Doyle for your listening pleasure, check it out.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve come out of the gate real fast. There’ve been a couple at-bats I’ve wasted…”
.397/.475/.621
Dude.
Also, he thinks he’s striking out too much.
18 walks, 22 strikeouts.
Good stuff: talking about having to teach himself to walk four times
First part’s got a lot of nuts-and-bolts stuff, while the second part features Doyle in the Outback, his intro to the game, the incident at third.
I will point out that the interview starts out with Devin calling Doyle “a little outfielder for the Tacoma Rainiers”.
Site tweaking and comments
Edited: that’s over with, sorry for any inconvenience
Game 46, Mariners at Orioles
I just got back from the dentist’s office, where they ended up shooting my mouth so full of numbing agents I can’t feel half my nose (that’s not a joke). I hope this will increase my enjoyment of this game.
RHP Ryan Franklin v RHP Daniel Cabrera
4:05, KSTW (11) for TV.
It is my great hope that as Sele tossed his complete-game shutout after I wrote a PI article fingering him as the worst in a stinky rotation, Beltre will tear it up for the remainder of the year after today’s examination of his ill start.
As this question seems to come up repeatedly in every thread, let me say that it’s John Marzano in the booth, offering a weird mix of insight and worn-to-transparency cliche.
Hitter’s meeting, PI bit
Hargrove shares our pain. He and Baylor held a meeting to talk about trying to be more selective, get your pitch and drive it or walk — from the PI:
Manager Mike Hargrove said he called the meeting specifically to address the dearth of walks.
“There are certain hitters on any club who aren’t going to draw a lot of walks,” Hargrove said. “We’ve got our share of those. So we’ve got two, three, four guys who should swing most of the time.
“I’m not going to name names, but we had guys tonight swinging at three pitches out of the strike zone,” Hargrove said.
Holy mackeral! I don’t know how effective this is going to be, but I think we can agree that at least Hargrove’s watching the same team we are. Though… only three? Did he mean “clearly out of the strike zone”?
This week’s column in the PI is on the different starts of the two big off-season signings, and my increasing despair over Beltre’s start. Check it out, or don’t… no pressure.
Game 45, Mariners at Orioles
For tonight’s game thread, I would like to call your attention to awamori, the delicious distilled rice liquor from Okinawa.
Like a strong, smooth, sake, the libation is first-rate. Occasionally, though, they change it up a little. As any reasonable person might expect, this involves putting a poisonous habu snake inside the bottle, making habu awamori.
It’s like the joyous combination in a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, with booze and venom in place of chocolate and crushed goober peas. Hey, you got a deadly viper in my alcohol! Hey, you got spirits all over my poisonous, fanged friend!
As a habitual liquor enthusiast, you accept the risk that alcohol may slowly kill you. It’s kind of the price of admission. A venomous viper turning up in your libation of choice — bearing fearsome fangs and a more direct form of poison — is a bit of a shock to the system.
[The effect is even more pronounced if, when drinking with a pal, you switch a snake-free bottle with a snake-full bottle while he or she visits the restroom. Surprise!]
Similarly, we expected bad pitching could wreak havoc with the Mariners’ season. So far, it has. But the hitting hasn’t been any kind of tonic, either. Well, maybe an illness-inducing one. Two great tastes that taste brutal together. Hey, you got Aaron Sele in my rotation! Hey, you got Wilson Valdez in my lineup!
For those keeping score at home: yes, I am comparing the Mariners’ recent pitching and offensive performance to a mind-numbing, tissue-destroying elixir. Lately, it seems appropriate.
As for the snake liquor, I have an uncle who enjoys all distilled beverages, the barley pop and other brain cell-murdering delights. Have you tried that habu awamori? I asked him one night. Yes, he replied. How is it? I followed up.
I’ll never try it again, he said.
There is a lesson in there that I will try to distill while watching Jamie Moyer take on Rodrigo Lopez. 4:05 p.m. TV: FSN. Radio: KOMO.
Fink on friends for reduced sentence!
The “Drug Free Sports Act” has a crazy 2-year penalty on first test, but skip that for a minute.
From the Associated Press article:
The legislation offered by Davis allows for reduced penalties if a player can prove in an appeal he didn’t know he was using a prohibited substance or if he were to provide information on someone else violating the drug policy.
First, how do you prove that? Produce a tainted supplement? Couldn’t you just taint it yourself?
All kinds of problems there. But the really disturbing part —
if he were to provide information on someone else violating the drug policy
This has so many possible unintended consequences that it’s crazy. The first thing I thought of was that it would behoove a player to get their friends to violate the drug policy so you could fink on them. Then I started to think what you should do is fink on someone for something they didn’t do — using a drug with a really short cycle, for instance, or something undetectable like HGH.
It’s a huge incentive to lie, cheat, and steal to save your own hide, and a particularly misguided piece of a bad bit of legislation.
The Little Unit
The Little Unit had been pitching in an indy league — and by “pitching,” I mean he had worked in one pre-season game — since being released by the M’s this spring, but the Brewers bought his contract this week and assigned him to Brevard County of the Florida State League.
Here’s a quote from his now-former manager, Ozzie Virgil Jr., “We pitched him this week for an inning in a spring training exhibition game against the San Diego Surf Dawgs and he was unhittable with his fastball at 93-94 and a curveball that should be illegal.”
I’ll, uh, believe it when I see it. And even then I probably won’t believe it.
(Dave asked that I clarify — it’s not that I don’t believe the radar readings, but rather that he’s pitching at all. It’s been so long that it’s hard to imagine, that’s all.)
Joel Pineiro’s Release Point
Last night, Joel Pineiro gave up one run in 5 1/3 innings, lowering his ERA from 6.75 to 5.93. In some circles, that’s enough to be called a successful outing. Take a look at some of the post-game quotes:
From the Times:
“I struggled the first two innings,” the right-hander said. “Then I got a bit of a feel for the mound and got a rhythm going and I felt much better after that.”
“The first part of that game just drug on,” Hargrove said in his best Texas twang. “We had [catcher Miguel] Olivo speed it up to get Pineiro going a bit. We just had him call pitches quicker.”
In addition, Pineiro started to throw his changeup more in the third, and it worked well.
“I wound up throwing it more than I usually do and maybe that’s one thing I have to do from now on,” Pineiro said. “I felt that what Bryan [Price] and I worked on those 10 days paid off.”
From the P-I
“About the fourth inning, I started getting ahead of hitters,” Pineiro said. “I think maybe not pitching in 10 days affected me the first few innings. But after that I things started to click.”
If you missed the game and just read the recaps, you’d think Pineiro showed some improvement from his skipped start and that perhaps the side sessions with Price led to improved mechanics. It’s just not true, though.
Pineiro was a mechanical mess last night. Jeff Sullivan did the video capture breakdown again for last night, but this time, I don’t think the problems with his delivery can effectively be seen in still frame images. The biggest problem Joel was having was a pretty common one among minor league pitchers: the variable release point.
One of the most fun things to watch about Greg Maddux in his prime was that the point in his delivery when the ball left his hand was almost exactly the same on every single pitch. Fastball, curveball, change-up, it didn’t matter. Whether it was the first pitch or the last, his release point never changed, and that was the key to his impeccable command. The point of release is the cornerstone of command.
Last night, Joel Pineiro had at least five distinctly different release points that I could spot from my television, without any video equipment to slow or rewind the action. In normal live speed action, it was clear that his release point was all over the map, and yet, somehow, this isn’t a concern?
In the first inning, Pineiro was clearly attempting to get more velocity on the ball. Brian Roberts led off the game and saw a 91 MPH fastball up and away, with Pineiro clearly releasing the ball early. The second pitch was nearly identical, a 90 MPH fastball away. The third pitch was a 91 MPH fastball that Pineiro was able to get into the strike zone and actually released the ball at a semi-normal time in his delivery.
He then faced rookie Jeff Fiorentino, and the mechanics went to hell again. Early release, fastball up and away. Early release, fastball up. Early release, curveball up. Early release, fastball away. Four pitch walk.
He wasn’t “missing his spots”. From when he released the ball, it had no chance of being a strike. His fastball was getting out of his hand before his body was in proper position at least 60 percent of the time.
Pineiro had more success with the curveball, allowing his body to rotate before letting the pitch fly, but even still, he was early at least a quarter of the time. Whether it was a clear revelation that his release point was more consistent on the offspeed stuff than with his fastball or not, he threw significantly more of them as the game went on. This helped alleviate some of the command issues he was having early, but also made him, essentially, a junkballer. Joel Pineiro’s not going to get major league hitters out without his fastball.
Now, this is a fixable problem. In my minor league travels, I see this all the time. It’s rare that a kid in Double-A or below can repeat his delivery with any kind of consistency. But, it takes time, and this isn’t the kind of thing that changes overnight. It’s a gradual process of muscle memory and getting comfortable with your throwing motion. Joel Pineiro clearly does not have that. He’s a kid searching for his mechanics, experimenting on the mound, and trying to find something, anything, that works.
If the team knows why he’s lost three MPH on his fastball and is overhauling his delivery to try and get it back, they’re not saying. But right now, the only way he bears any semblance to the Joel Pineiro of 2003 is the tilde on the back of the jersey. He’s basically an entirely new pitcher, and to be frank, not a very good one. The ten days on the side retooling his mechanics did him no good last night. He’s got a long, long ways to go before he can take that delivery and be successful regularly against big league hitters.