On the team progress in spring training: The team has come along slow but fast.

On Willie Bloomquist: Son, we’d like to keep you around this season but we’re going to try and win a pennant.

About Rene Rivera: Two hundred million Americans, and there ain’t two good catchers among ‘em.

About the 11 game losing streak: We are in such a slump that even the ones that aren’t drinkin’ aren’t hittin’.

About the prospects for 2007: The Mariners are gonna be amazing.

On Mariner’s management: it’s wonderful to meet so many friends that I didn’t used to like.

On Emiliano Fruto: Mr. that boy couldn’t hit the ground if he fell out of an airplane.

*If* Schmidt was criticized for hitting .250 it was probably because the critics knew he was capable of much better. In fact, in the 13 seasons Schmidt hit 30+ home runs, he hit in the .250 range just three times. Of course, in each of those season’s he drew 100+ walks, including 120 once and 128 another time. That’s DOUBLE what Sexson drew last year. What’s more, Schmidt led the NL in OBP three times and finished in the top 5 sevent times. Sexson’s OBP last year was .338. The only time Schmidt and Sexson should be in the same sentence is when someone is listing players whose names end in the letter S.

I must be the only person on here pedantic enough to be annoyed by misuse of the phrase “beg the question”.

Thanks for pointing that out. I had a feeling I may have misused that phrase. Yet another day I was probably hungover in logic class in college.

The big problem that I have with the M’s batting order is there is NOBODY in it who takes walks, and that’s pretty much true everywhere in the order. The Mariners had exactly zero players who got more than 60 unintentional walks last year

Yes, and that tells you that the brain trust for the team just doesn’t consider that a problem.

Par for the course….

I wasn’t saying that the increased strikeout rate was good or bad, just that it was. I agree that some extra strikeouts aren’t really a big deal.

Batting Sexson 4th is actually reasonable under the circumstances. The big problem that I have with the M’s batting order is there is NOBODY in it who takes walks, and that’s pretty much true everywhere in the order. The Mariners had exactly zero players who got more than 60 unintentional walks last year, and their response was to add Jose Guillen as a fulltime player, who has never seen a pitch he doesn’t like (lifetime high in unintentional walks=32, though he DOES take a lot of HBP, gee, wonder why), and Jose Vidro, whose lifetime high in non-intentional BB’s is 62. The M’s will score some runs when the hitters get hot, but are going to be some nights where it’s just fugly out there, because none of these guys is anything resembling a Ted Williams-style patient hitter. Ironic that a franchise that starred Edgar Martinez for so long has nobody who has anything approaching his style at the plate, all of 3 years later huh?