Game 40, Mariners at Indians
Dave · May 21, 2007 at 1:01 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Baek vs Sabathia, 4:05 pm.
The Indians are a good team and Sabathia’s a very good pitcher. But at least he’s left-handed, so there’s a good chance we’ll put some runs on the board. Except that Willie has been so awesome this year, he’s earned a second straight start in left field.
I’m sure Jason Ellison is thrilled.
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‘Scuse me: first batter hit the first pitch. Next two batters both had 0-2 counts, though, and one was a hit, the other, a walk. Methinks he’s done, Grover.
So Baek is over 100 pitches, he’s just allowed the bases to get loaded with nobody out, and the decision is made to leave him in against Garko.
Can’t see how this would backfire.
#142: Defense matters. Morse has no position.
And extreme pessimism wins out again.
da*n: you can almost see it coming. 2 run double, game over.
Bloomquist may not have had a great shot at that ball, but he looked awful, turning in different directions, and making a weak throw.
So nice of KOMO to do the traffic report during a critical part of the game.
Bozos.
After Baek struck out Garko, why didn’t Grover take him out? The M’s lost his game because of Grover, no question about it. He should be fired on the spot.
153 if defense matters, then why not play Ellison today? He is a legitimately good fielding outfielder, not a legendary good one like Willie.
Wow great move Grover, please, next time don’t change the pitcher till the game is well and truly out of reach. I guess this could be 1 of the reasons why the Mariners millions can’t get us some decent pitching.
I agree. I’ve been the biggest Ellison booster here all season.
That was a ridiculously bad throw by the Ignitor.
Ladies and gentlemen, the best team in baseball: The Cleveland Indians. Who don’t they do well?
Vidro 3 for 4, now hitting an empty .311
I get it. He has no power. But if someone behind him did….
… he would still be a poor DH.
Well the good news is that we’ve gotten deep into the Indians’ bullpen, so they’ll be tired for the rest of the series.
Oh wait.
It’s not just the lack of power. It’s the fact that he has zero defensive value and still only has a .349 OBP. If he was say…a slap hitting center fielder with great range, and a good arm, and tons of speed he’d have some value hitting .311.
It’s not hard to find bats in the minors that would be more valuable than him, most of them just aren’t promoted because of questionable defense or being blocked at their position.
Nice first pitch pop-up by Vidro.
There’s your man Auburn, getting the big hits when they count.
well, I was going to ask how long after bases-loaded-nobody-out it would take for them to fail, but in the time it took to pull the page back up, they were already at 2 outs …
bases juiced and 0 out…puke.
ah, well. I got two chicken cut up — half in the freezer, half now cooked– and some stock going in the oven. that’s something, I guess.
Was it me, or was that one of the more depressing games of the season?
Grover screws up by leaving Baek in too long and our anemic line up squanders opportunity after opportunity, including a ninth inning bases loaded with no outs and the top of the order. fantastic
It’s not hard to find bats in the minors that would be more valuable than him
exactly.
without stretching my brain at all i can think of 4 guys on the rainiers alone.
and most of those guys would at least give you something in the field or in pinch run situations if you absolutely needed it.
No, not the most depressing game of the season — all too typical. Maybe that’s why it’s depressing. We’ve seen it before.
So there are 4 guys on the Rainiers who would hit over.300 right now in the show? Bring ’em up!
Lousy baserunning – again. Leaves the pitcher in too long – again. I’m getting real close to jumping on the fire Hargrove bandwagon.
Does a player have to hit .300 to be more valuable than Vidro right now? Can’t he do one or more of the multitude of things Vidro can’t right now? Like do anything besides hit singles or draw the occasional walk?
the bullpen was mostly unavailable, per Drayer, between needing guys for the next 17 games without a break– plus Reitsma unavailable with a ‘stiff elbow’
in better news, Mark Lowe threw on flat ground today, down in Peoria.
So there are 4 guys on the Rainiers who would hit over.300 right now in the show?
No, but there were a number of “free” options this offseason were we not fixated on “must have veteran hitter with proven” whatever.
Well, let’s see. Carlos Pena, available as a free agent, hitting .307/.374/.604.
Hee Seop Choi, who apparently all of MLB hates, posted an OPS of .789 his lat year in the majors… considerably higher than Vidro’s this year. And he’s 28.
Or, think of Bucky Jacobsen 2004. Really, it’s just not that hard to find guys who can give you a .750 OPS.
Or Jack Cust.
So there are 4 guys on the Rainiers who would hit over.300 right now in the show?
Maybe not…but I’m pretty sure that there’d be people who could get you .350 or better in OBP, and a tad better than .400 slugging.
(Really, now…focussing on batting average to the exclusion of everything else is a bit narrow. Who’s more valuable? Someone who hits .300 and gets on at a .330 clip? Or someone who hits .275 but gets on at a .375 clip? The key point here is not to get an out.
lordy, it must have been depressing. This thread died young.
And in other news, in Ballard B&GC Teeball, the Mighty Cobras went toe to toe with the Sluggers. Each team recorded a few out, and several balls even left the infield. Now that I think about it, each bunch of seven year olds actually recorded a double play, which is pretty darned impressive.
I have no idea what the score was.
All of this is why the move to acquire Vidro at the expense of Snelling was, in the opinion of this blog, indefensible. Even if you thought Snelling was fragile, guys who can out hit Vidro at a fraction of the price are everywhere. Broussard was on the bench. Wladimir Belentin could probably do it.
It will be fascinating to watch this team in the off-season to see what the owners do when facing the contracts of Sexson, Vidro, Ramirez and Batista. That is a TON of money tied up in counter-productive players.
The list of hitters in major league baseball who have hit for less power than Jose Vidro this year:
Jason Kendall (catcher), David Eckstein (shortstop), Juan Pierre (center fielder), Omar Vizquel (shortstop), Luis Castillo (second baseman), and Jason Bartlett (shortstop).
That’s it. That’s the entire list.
Honestly, if you can’t figure out why it’s a problem to have a DH that has as much power as the lightest hitters of the light hitting positions, I really don’t know what else to tell you.
Jose Vidro is one of the biggest problems on the roster. There’s a vast array of really awesome factual information available at your fingertips, Auburn, and a host of people here who are willing to help you learn more about the game. Posting nothing but “Vidro is hitting .310 now!” taunts is the equivalent to putting your fingers in your ears and sticking your tongue out at people.
The opportunity to learn is there for you. I suggest you take it.
Dave,
I get it. Vidro is not the ideal DH. But he hits a lot of singles and his OBP is pretty good. Pretty much what you want out of your #2 hitter.
Really my only point is this: We have lots bigger problems than Vidro.
If baseball games were won by guys that got singles with no runners on or in scoring postion, and Ohh, yeah didn’t cost 6.5 mil or so, or cost us a good prospect, yes Doyle a prospect since he hadn’t yet or hasn’t yet lived up to his potential even though I like him, then Vidro would be awesome. The reality is the worst team in the N.L. was willing to get rid of him for an underachieving-oft-injured aussie and a AAA arm, that should tell you all you need to know about Vidro. I’ve said before, other that Ichiro, he looks the most comfortable at the plate, but he has no power, playing a position that demands it, and he has no defense skills, and no speed, so basically, as his OBP has shown, he is gets to first every once and awhile, with no RBIs or Rs to show for it.
You want a DH who ‘hits a lot of singles’ and has a fair OBP? I think that too many people look at a +.300 BA and say ‘he’s doing good work!’ when in actuality, BA is one of the poorest ways to judge a hitter, and OBP is not what you want to measure your DH with.
Doesn’t it concern you that Bettencourt has more HR’s this year than Vidro? Or Broussard in 1/5th the plate appearances?
Vidro is absolutely killing the M’s with is lack of power…we don’t need another guy who gets a lot of singles, we need a guy (especially with Sexson performing so poorly) that is going to drive runners in. Vidro slugging for nearly .100 under Ichiro is absolutely inexcusable. Ichiro’s been on base 68 times this season, and has scored just 23 times.
Plus, how many guys named Jose do we need that swing at the first pitch in crunch time?
I’m sure Jose Canseco is looking for a come back.
Wait, I got it, the M’s front office heard the Star Spangled Banner at the begining of every game and thought that they needed a guy named Jose in their lineup.
Jose can you see, by the dawn’s early light………..
buh dum dum tsch
Vidro will continue to hit his singles. I will continue to worry about the rest of the lineup.
And the starting pitching.
And the bullpen getting burnt out.
And Hargrove’s bizarre nonchalance.
nonchalance? where do you get that?
So would a good move for Hargrove be to put Ibañez in at DH (put more power in the DH slot), Adam Jones in Left, and sit Vidro? And start shopping him? Vidro is hitting really well, but not for power. In past years, you could count on “some” power from Ibañez. Given the chance for his body to heal…(by only hitting) might help.
At this point, with this roster construction, we are simply moving the deck chairs about.
There are so many issues that a simple line-up shuffle isn’t going to make a dramatic difference to the win column. They are simply a very average team with far too many below average performances being turned in. Even if everyone was playing at their best, they would be average. I think we can agree that many are not playing at the level they once did. The extreme lack of power on this team is our weakness and no amount of line-up card changes is going to fix this. Combine the inability to score runs with our rotation and what you get is more losses then wins.
#4.
I have a quick question… Now, I understand what the Mendoza Line is, why is it named “mendoza line”? Who’s Mendoza?
Reading this blog a long time… first comment/question. Yeah!
Mario Mendoza:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/mendoma01.shtml
The irony – the season that he hit .198 and the “Mendoza Line” was created, he was playing for the Seattle Mariners.
Thanks Dave. Pretty funny stuff.