The Red Sox offense just baffles me with how good it is. Today alone, they had eight guys in the batting order with better than a .350 OBP. For comparison, the M’s had four (one of those was Rey Sanchez, so let’s be honest here, the number was really three).
That said, Garcia was awesome. As Dave mentioned, he retired 17 straight after Trot Nixon’s solo homer in the 3rd. He did a very nice job setting up hitters with the fastball and getting ahead in the count, then getting them to swing and breaking stuff down and away. It was particularly impressive to see him fan eight hitters (five straight at one point) — he really hasn’t been a big time strikeout guy the past few years. In any event, that’s now three good starts in a row since his “last chance” to stick in the rotation.
The best moment of the game, by far, was the Soriano-Garciaparra battle in the 8th. Nomar barely had time to go through his little routine before strike three crossed the plate. If the radar gun is to be believed, those three pitches were 96, 96 and 98. Personally I was hoping Melvin would let Soriano finish the game out himself, but maybe he doesn’t want a potential post-season foe to see too much of his ace reliever. Think about it — how much was Francisco Rodriguez helped in last season’s playoffs by the fact that teams hadn’t ever seen him before? Soriano is a “secret” weapon if ever there were one.
I’ll have a new Big Board up this week, most likely on Tuesday. There have been quite a few changes in the minors, particularly at Tacoma, where they’ve turned over two-fifths of their starting rotation in the past few days.
Adam Piatt update: Piatt is still not a member of the Seattle Mariners.
Finally, I’m just going to keep telling myself that the M’s will sign stud CF Carlos Beltran this winter. Please don’t burst that bubble.
Welcome back, Freddy Garcia. Good to see signs of life the past few starts after some horrendous performances in July. Carving up the Red Sox, including retiring 17 straight, is darn impressive. There’s probably still time for him to pitch his way back onto the playoff roster. He is nothing if not streaky, so lets hope this is the beginning of a trend and not an abberation.
Congratulations to Bob Melvin for realizing that Rafael Soriano is the #1 reliever in the pen right now. I can’t imagine more than a handful of major league managers would bring Soriano in to face Nomar with the tying run on second base in the 8th inning at home. Melvin’s usage of the bullpen since the Nelson/Benitez swap has been very good. Like a rookie improving as the season goes along, I’m optimistic that Melvin’s early season weaknesses may be a thing of the past. He may graduate from Box of Rocks status yet.
That said, the line-up today was just ugly. Cameron’s return will make a big difference, but the M’s bench is still wretched, and they can’t afford to go into the playoffs with this sorry group.
Jeff Cirillo homered again today. As soon as he’s “healthy”, he should resume the everyday third base job. Willie Bloomquist still sucks.
Emiliano Fruto got his first win for Tacoma today, taking over for Ken Cloude and tossing 4 scoreless innings. Though it hasn’t been released to the media (which is why I’m still using his listed birthdate on the Future Forty), no one believes the kid is really 19 years old. Age isn’t as significant of a factor for pitchers, but just make sure you don’t get too terribly excited about Fruto being a phenom. He’s got decent stuff and will probably have a major league career of some sort, but he’s no Felix Hernandez.
Speaking of King Felix, he’s going to miss a start as a result of the suspension from last week’s brawl. The order of the staggered suspensions hasn’t yet been announced, but I’ll get that information from Pat Dillon and post it on the blog. Hernandez should get one more start in Everett this year. You really should make an effort to be there, and we’ll give you a few days notice to when it will be. There’s some talk in the organization that Hernandez is going to make the jump to Inland Empire (high-A) next year, with sights on getting him to the majors sometime in 2005.
People have started to ask me about September callups. What I’m hearing is they will bring 7 (maybe 8) guys north. The locks are Aaron Taylor, Aaron Looper, J.J. Putz, and Jamal Strong. Chris Snelling will also join the club if his knee is healthy. Luis Ugueto should join the club after the San Antonio Missions run through the Texas League playoffs. Bobby Madritsch could get a look, though that hasn’t been decided yet. You won’t see Justin Leone, A.J. Zapp, Greg Jacobs, Clint Nageotte, or Travis Blackley. They aren’t on the 40-man roster, and the M’s won’t make a move to clear a roster spot for them to sit on the bench for a month.
At this point, I don’t expect Rett Johnson to pitch again this year. With the labrum history the M’s have, they’re going to be cautious here.
If Aaron Jensen got a better offer than Scott Maine, I might throw something. That said, I’m all for signing quality arms, and if Jensen is willing to sign, let us hope they get it done.
Gratuitous plug. Gabriel was so “inspired” by U.S.S. Mariner that he started his own blog. Check it out and tell him we said hi.
Box Melvin’s Lineup for the Day:
Ichiro RF-L
McLemore LF-“B”
Boone 2B-R
Martinez DH-R
Winn CF-B
Mabry 1B-L
Sanchez SS-R
Davis C-B
Bloomquist 3B-R
I feel like I’m posting one of those puzzles in the P-I, where you have to spot the 10 mistakes between the two pictures. Here’s the real problem, though — what else is he supposed to do here? Guillen’s still out, Cameron’s out, Cirillo’s out, Colbrunn’s out. The only players on the bench are Olerud and Wilson, who I guess have the day off, and UT Chad Meyers (who, side note, now has two weeks of ML service time). Fortunately, we expect to see Cameron back on Monday, but as long as Glass Guillen is out, this is one thin lineup. Chad Meyers, if you’re curious, played OF/2b at Tacoma, with a little 1b in there, and hit .290/.357/.396, not that impressive for AAA except that doing some quick translations from AAA to the Majors, you figure he’s still going to hit much better than Cirillo was, Wilson is, and probably will hang in there with Bloomquist/Mabry. I know, you’re thinking “boy, and that’s exactly what we need.”
How sad is this: 1b/3b-R Todd Zeile, just released by the Yankees, would be a substantial upgrade on the M’s bench.
Adam Piatt Watch: the Mariners have not claimed OF-R Adam Piatt.
The P-I is reporting that the M’s have signed SS Jeff Flaig, their second round pick in June draft. They’ve now signed their top 14 draft choices. For the full list, you can check out Baseball America. Also, here’s a piece from the Times about negotiations with 19th round choice Aaron Jensen, who the M’s are trying to sign away from a commitment to BYU. They’ve got two weeks to work out a deal before classes start.
Also, the news is (mostly) in on injured prospects Chris Snelling and Rett Johnson. First the better news: Snelling’s MRI came back negative (remember, in the medical world negative is a good thing), but he’s still going to head to Seattle on Monday to go over things with Dr. Pedegana. Now the worse news: Johnson has inflamation in his shoulder and will be placed on the disabled list. There’s a chance they might shut him down for the rest of the year, just to stay on the safe side. He’s already thrown over 150 innings this season, so that sounds like a good idea to me.
Oh, and this just in — Jeff Cirillo hit a homer. No, really.
Congrats to Brian Sweeney on a successful Major League debut this afternoon: 3.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K. He doesn’t light up the radar gun — I think he topped out at 91 MPH — but he did a nice job keeping the hitters off-balance with his changeup. We had wondered if he might head to another organization after this season, but now that he’s on the 40-man roster there’s a decent chance he’ll stick around. Sweeney could easily be Ryan Franklin: cheap, servicable and capable of starting or working out of the pen.
Moose Fugitive on the Loose
A U.S.S. Mariner Investigation
Between innings today, the big screen showed a shot of an aisle on the lower deck, first-base side. A vendor (V) was moving down the aisle between sections 120 and 119, hawking something (peanuts or those mini-Crackerjacks). Then from the concourse, the Moose came down, and took the tray from the vendor and fled down the aisle onto the field. The Moose then proceeded west along the M’s dugout, throwing the stolen food items into the crowd (at locations marked X), and turned north to continue distributing his goods.
The vendor pursued the Moose down the aisle and on to the field, where a security dude (S) stopped the vendor from chasing the Moose. The vendor faked out the security guy only to be stopped by a uniformed Seattle Police officer (C). By this time, the Moose had gotten rid of almost all the evidence. The vendor got by the cop and made for the Moose, who grabbed a red bucket of water (B) and doused the vendor.
After a moment, the stunned vendor pursued the Moose down the tunnel at the front of aisle 135.
This incident raises a number of disturbing questions:
- Why did the security dude and the cop stand by with the Moose on the field distributing stolen goods?
- Why did the security dude and the cop prevent the victim from trying to prevent the destruction of evidence and the escape of the perp?
- Did the camera know the Moose would be stealing from vendor (perhaps employing some kind of ‘Minority Report’-style crime prediction system), and if so, doesn’t their failure to alert authorities and prevent the crime make them accomplices?
- Since there is usually not a red bucket full of water just outside the visiting dugout, were the Red Sox aiding and abetting the flight of a criminal by providing it to the Moose?
- Will the fans who received and enjoyed the Moose-stolen-and-tossed items be prosecuted for receiving stolen goods?
- How come a nude fat man gets chop-blocked and gang-tackled by security guys almost immediately, but the Moose, having stolen from stadium personnel, is allowed to wander unmolested on the field for several minutes?
- How did the Moose, having committed several crimes in front of a crowd of over forty thousand people in one of Seattle’s best-policed locations, manage to escape capture and re-emerge later to be shown with the Fan of the Game?
What Derek failed to mention is the woman who had a witty one-liner whenever the baby would start crying. For example:
Mark McLemore strikes out.
Baby cries.
Woman: “My sentiments exactly.” or “I feel the same way.”
(As if the baby is crying because McLemore sucks. But hey, maybe he was.)
As you can imagine, that didn’t get old at all after the first five times.
Today’s crowd featured a woman who had a baby that started crying loudly throughout the 9th inning, and for whatever reason, she would not get up and take the kid on the concourse. Because you know what fans want when they’ve sat through a long, tough loss? A baby screaming in their ear. Had this baby not been there, I would found an usher and asked them to locate a screaming child and re-seat them near me.
I’m sure, as an aside, that a child growing up with such a considerate mother will be a fine and outstanding citizen, and won’t be keying my electric car sometime in 2017.
Red Sox fans are next to Yankees fans as the most obnoxious in baseball. They’re poor losers and loudmouthed braggarts in victory, and the share the same sense of superiority, as if their fandom was worth more, and more deeply felt, than yours could possibly be. The only difference between the Red Sox fans and the Yankees fans is that the Red Sox fans pretend their long-suffering is of epic importance, while the Yankee fans are arrogant in their belief they’re entitled to a yearly championship, and all of their players are surely the best — otherwise, why would they be Yankees?
A pox on both your houses.
Dug up this tidbit while replying to an email just now:
Dan Wilson hasn’t thrown out baserunners at a rate league-average-or-better since 1997.
Ben Davis has been league-average or better the last three years (and before that, was bad in 38 games in 2000 and better but still not good in 74 games in 1999).
Just in case anyone harbored a belief that Wilson was having bad luck, or an off season, or something like that.
The Mariners have been in Seattle since 1977. During that time, you’d think they’d have seen a ton of rain, acquired some kind of tolerance to it, like every other person in Western Washington after a month: a brief shower, no big deal. It’s a downpour before most people get out the umbrellas or heavy jackets.
Instead the Mariners have to be the most paranoid franchise in baseball when it comes to closing the rain. I’ve been at the park when it has started to lightly sprinkle from a mostly clear sky on a nice day, and boom, here comes the roof. It’s as if water from the sky might contaminate their precious field.
Tonight, at ten, heading into the top of the ninth, I was sitting in my seat in my shirt and shorts and I felt something. I looked up into the sky to see in the heavy lights of Safeco, tiny specks of rain. I could have gone three hours in that kind of dusting and not gotten significantly wet. I mentioned it to my dad, who hadn’t realized it was raining, and it had already started to ease even further — I could see a third as many specks in the light as before.
So they closed the roof. Nice comfortable night, couple of minutes left to go in the game… no. After the game, it’s clear. Clear on the ride home.
Wimps. If I wanted constant protection from the elements, I’d live in a bunker.