Game 26, Mariners at Orioles
DMZ · April 30, 2006 at 11:52 am · Filed Under Mariners
Caught us all sleeping in, looks like. 10:35? What a dumb time to start a game, time zones or no time zones.
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185 Responses to “Game 26, Mariners at Orioles”
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147 – I think he’s Steve Thornton. For obvious reasons, he doesn’t use his last name anymore.
148. Right…that is the perfect example. Though I am loathe to get into another WFB discussion…the displaced frustration is almost justified when the media guys pull that stuff.
Ibanez couldn’t let Jose have the VORP crown, he had to take it from him. That’s cool.
Raul: .286/.333/.500 We’re getting decent value for $5M. If he’d walk a bit more, it would be quite nice.
couple of things from Drayer on the postgame show–
Blowers noted that Reed’s wrist is still very heavily taped (he said the tape goes way up his forearm) and wondered if it was affecting him, and she opined that it was, and was going to continue to for a while; the team has to/will make the decision about Borchard on wednesday
she says that Lawton is going nuts not playing– he actually threw imself on the mound during the post-game handshake saturday, just because he hadn’t had a dirty uniform in so long– but that Hargrove is not playing his bench, and the only way Lawton prob. will get more playing time is to replace someone
she thinks this team is already closer and doing much more together than in the last two years, the kangaroo court meets when they get to Minnesota, and the fine box has been prominant in the clubhouse and it also goes along on the road, and the ‘new guys’ have been assiduous in calling guys on fineable offences, and bringing traditions in from their old teams
Pittman asked about Moyer & Rivera’s rapport, and Drayer thinks that there is a good relationship there — that they have worked together a fair amount with last year and spring this year, and Jamie likes the way he calls a game, and has been somewhat of an advocate for him
oh, and someone needs to send Pittman WFB’s hitting stats, because he can’t understand why with Reed struggling, if it was a DL issue, they just don’t let Willie start for two weeks in center and maybe solidify that part of the line-up.
Matt Thornton is the first guy out of the pen for the White Sox in a tie game in the 8th inning.
Vlad is due up 3rd. I bet he hits one out.
I was going to say, “if he gets a strike,” but then I rememberd it’s Vlad and he can hit anything.
Oh I wish we’d got him. And Tejada. *sigh*
The anti-Willie, anti-Eddie group-think on this blog has gotten comical. When they do poorly, they are deservedly bashed. When they do well, they are bashed more because (God help us), they’ll play even more! If they play consistently well, better than others on the team, then that is a worst-case scenario because they’d become fixtures. I shudder to think how down and out everyone would be if they had .300 and 40 save seasons.
That kind of group-and-generalize comment is out of line.
Clearly, that’s not true, if only because there are obviously people here griping constantly about how there’s too much Willie-bashing.
They wouldn’t be as much griping if the proportion of bashing was in line with his actual performance, as opposed to his historical or projected performance.
As frustrating and dissapointing another losing month has been, the Ms are only 2 games out of first place. Ill take it.
Of course, “There” would have been the correct word to begin that statement with.
I’m really happy about taking four of the last six. I think it’s big deal. In spite of how poorly so many players are performing, they are only 2 games back and there is potential for improvement.
May Predictions:
Mariners win 19 games in the month.
Felix, Beltre and Sexson take off.
Eddie settles down and starts shutting people down.
All the Willie talk fades away as more important things take precedent, like an unforseen rise in the price of garlic fries due to a garlic shortage in China.
Willie’s historical OPS: .650
Willie’s actual OPS: .653
Willie’s the same bad starter/decent bench player he’s always been; it’s just that he’s had a hot week at the Batting Average Craps Table.
That being said, while April can’t be said to be a success with a below-.500 record, the general sucktasticness of the AL West has kept us afloat, and I also agree things will get better. I’d like to see a team where we haven’t been eliminated in all aspects other than mathematics by Memorial Day for a change, and we have a shot at that with a hot week or three in May.
There wouldn’t be as much griping if the proportion of bashing was in line with his actual performance, as opposed to his historical or projected performance.
There’s a difference between Bloomquist’s actual performance and his historical or projected performance?
If Willie’s next game happens to be an off-day, and he goes 0-for-4, then his line plummets to .267/.303/.267. When a player is one bad day away from looking exactly like his historical performance (or worse in this case), there shouldn’t be any difference between judging that player by what he’s done this season and what his historical or projected performance is.
Also, WFB is hitting just about the emptiest .300 possible.
Batting Average .308
Slugging Average… .308 (i.e. zero power. Every hit a single.)
OBP .345 (one walk and maybe a HBP in 28 trips to the plate – just sucktastic )
But a .653 OPS is about what you’d expect from Willie, so he’s not a “disappointment” in that sense.
On a slightly different note, I expect to see a reference sometime soon on the Simpsons to “Willie bashing”, possibly in the context of a British sitcom…
Maybe we should have a separate thread for Willie-bashing, pros and cons. That would keep the game threads cleaner.
So, you’re saying we should feel schadenfreude just because William Paul Bloomquist isn’t our favorite ballplayer, and it irritates us when Mariner management and broadcasters continually pump him as a better player than is warranted by any objective measurement?
I’ll make a note of it.
WFB hits considerably better against southpaws than righties which is still pretty bad by most standards. Putting him in the lineup is a bad idea to begin with, but giving him 2/3 of his ABs against righties just be a clueless decision.
Yes. Every day we should start two threads, one for the game and one for Bloomquist comments. And then one for Guardado comments, too.
You’ve got the cause and effect reversed. Everyone not knowing the meaning of irony was responsible for that song. In fact, the song may be responsible for some improvement, since “irony” was constantly misused before the song — far more often than it was used correctly — and the song was the occasion for a lot of people to learn from pedants what the word actually means, so they could in turn lecture other people who misused the word. It’s like a little bit of remedial high school from top 40 radio.
Cha Seung Baek’s line so far today:
5 1 0 0 1 3
He entered the game with a 2.62 ERA.
I’m 20 years old, so when I refer to “my entire generation,” I’m talking about people who were very young when the song came out. That song is the first time my generation was introduced to the word “irony,” so it really was responsible for a lot of people not knowing what irony was.
So let’s rest Reed and let his wrist heal and put Lawton in Center. Or in Right and move Ichiro to CF.
171: Trust me, I’m 42, and misuse of “irony” was the rule not the exception long before the song came out. If it had never been, your generation would have picked up the wrong meaning (on the whole) just as she did.
Maybe it’s just our fast-food diet … leaves us with irony-poor blood.
Also: I think it’s time for Choo to come back up. There’s nothing more for him to prove at Triple-A. The Mariner brass may have soured on him, but that’s their problem, not his. Duide can play.
Choo = 1.035 OPS (.365/.440/.595) 10 walks, 12 Ks, 67 ABs
Also, top three worst K/W ratios among Rainiers position players:
Morse: 1/20
Jones: 1/18
Rob Johnson: 1/16
If Reed’s seriously hurt to the point where you want to give him a week or two off or face a nagging injury all year, I think you call up Choo — the team doesn’t have OF depth on the 25-man, and Lawton can’t play center effectively. Choo might not be the best option, but even if it means you play a Lawton-Ichiro-Ibanez outfield, you have a competent backup.
Well, D-Rock…if that’s the case, is it then time to admit that Ichiro will never play a game in center field for this team?
He’s already played a game in center field for this team.
Three of them.
and three more in all star games. He even played a game in LEFT in the postseason.
This year? I’m just getting at the obvious. Shifting him to center, moving, plugging Lawton in right is probably the best damage control that could be done if Reed is on the shelf for a while.
That said, I’ve never seen Lawton play in center, so I’m not as familiar with his defensive ability there as I’d like to be. Can someone enlighten me?
Lawton used to be servicable in the field, above average even, but he’s faded along with his career.
Somehow I doubt Grover would move Ichiro to center when he feels he has a perfectly capable centerfielder in the clubhouse, by the name of Willie Boomquist.
This is a perfect example of what I was saying last night – people have a baffling tendancy, even those that don’t overrate Willie, to think he is doing better than he is doing.
You know, I like Adrian Beltre. I like him as a person and I like him as the player he can be. I don’t enjoy reading the posts bashing him every time he strikes out or fails in some way, not fun for me, largely because I don’t like it when he fails so I don’t want to dwell on it.
So you know what I do? I skip those posts if I think they are going to depress me. You know what I don’t do? Complain about the people bashing him. They have every right to. In fact, their stance is likely more logical than mine.
If I want to say something about Beltre, I post some stats I find promising, or observations I find hopeful…. without ever taking the time to ridicule/complain/get irritated by the people that don’t like or are frustrated by Beltre.
But for some reason, people get all worked up about people belittling Bloomquist. Don’t know what it is, but the explanation is no doubt found in the same place that explains why he is so beloved by the organization and the media.
Im so god-damned sick,
of people bashing people,
for bashing people.
🙂
Corey Patterson: yeah, I noticed him also, as I’d put in a word for him as an offseason pick-up in a what-if bandython. I don’t know that he can keep it up, but it’s nice so far. Still doesn’t walk a lick, though.
Beltre: A week and a half back, he really started to take the walk. He was still looking ugly when he swung, but he was clearly trying to lay off pitches, get some kind of read on the ball. His walk rate has become quite good, and occasionally he’s putting a better swing on a better pitch. I’m by no means convinced he’s out of the Dead Zone, but that’s the difference in him that I’ve seen. It’s hard to think he’s going to catch up even to last season’s totals, but . . . I guess we’ll find out, hey?
Jeremy Reed: The first week of the season, he golfed a couple of triples and a couple of doubles, and of different days so it wasn’t just one big day. Didn’t look like he had _any_ problem with his wrist. Now, it’s ‘the wrist.’ . . . Well, maybe. I knew we’d hear this if he was going bad, which isn’t to say that it might not be true. I’m not going into anything more than that, at least until Reed gets up over 100 ABs. He could simply be slumping. The team won’t sit down Beltre, but they might well park JR on the DL for ‘funkiness.’ I have had the clear impression, though, that the team WANTS to keep Borchard; maybe that’s just Bob Fontaine’s vote, but that’s a _big_ vote. Parking a slumper on the DL to snatch Borchard back and give him some PT to see what he’s really got is what _I_ think we’re about to see.
Lawton: Yeah, it’s sad he can’t get in a game—but all the subs are better from the left side. Who’s going to sit for him? Everrett? Raul? Reed, lefty for lefty?; that would be a statement, yeah, but it’s not going to happen. So Bloomers is getting the calls that in theory might go to Lawton because Willie in fact has the platoon advantage. Bet Lawton would _still_ out-produce Bloomquist if he got the same ABs, and wouldn’t be any worse (i.e. not good) in CF, either.
Mateo: Yeah, he’s been throwing like he wasn’t healthy. “Done”? Hurt is more like it. Anyone remember whether his prior injury was an elbow or his shoulder? I’m more than happy to see Sean Green, though.
Guapo: Some time back there was a long discussion, starting with a riff on Alfonseca, regarding just how little talent someone has to have to be ‘effective as a closer,’ in the context of using the best bullpen arms earlier on. Eddie is now the poster child for just how little quality one has to have and still succeed in his role.