Game 147, Devil Rays at Mariners
DMZ · September 15, 2007 at 5:22 pm · Filed Under Game Threads
6:05 start, KSTW. Kazmir versus Horacio Ramirez, who is being given another start because our manager values loyalty over winning games.
However, the defense gets upgraded a little with Jones in left over Ibanez, who DHs, and Vidro gets a start at first. Bloomquist loyalty wins out over Lopez loyalty.
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You gotta go with the lineup that gives you the best shot at winning – that’s what the man says.
Interesting to note that McLaren has never (to my knowledge) framed his choices in terms of loyalty , but in terms of “best chances to win” (must be code for loyalty).
What has Lopez done to earn the disrespect he has received lately. The M’s are down him, but why? It would be easy to put in Cabrera at 2nd, but….. that’s right he was traded to Cleveland last year where he has been starting for them.
Both Raul and Richie have now admitted to injuries that they lied about earlier in the year (for which they should have been on the DH), and yet, they’re “gamers”. Lopez still gets to think about what he’s done wrong. And all this makes us win games how?
I am surprised HoRam is still in the rotation
O wait, no I am not, John Maclaren is the skipper. Has to rely of veterness over talent. I can’t wait until next year, when Brandon Morrow and Ryan Rowland-Smith get to start. I know they might not be ready right away, but practicing in winter leagues should help.
I guess we get to look for Lopez to be in the WS after he’s traded this off-season.
AJ starts? Is this Bizarro-world Mariners?
Whatever, I’ll take it.
2 – Lopez has stunk it up the second half,
especially the last few weeks. He has been
worse than Willie B at the plate, and his
defense has likewise suffered. He does not
look mentally there – dont know if it’s his
brother’s death during the season or something else. I’m not sure if it’s time to give up totally on him though – if the M’s dump him, watch him go somewhere else and pull a Carlos Guillen on us. In the meantime, would prefer someone other than Willie B to replace him. . .
Is this really the reason? The Ms still control Horam for another year don’t they? Is there a sense that the Ms still believe Horam is a legit major league starter? If not HoRam tonight, who would clearly be a better option?
Ummm… MacLaren’s comments after the last outing (see Hicky’s posts on this, if you’re interested) are pretty clear on why HoRam’s getting continued starts.
There may be organizational, secondary reasons (”there’s no one else aieeee”) but yeah.
After all, Mac slept on the decision of whether to start Ramirez. So it’s not like it’s spur of the moment… Just like he slept on the decision to start Weaver again. Maybe if he had insomnia he’d make better decisions.
Lopez doesn’t look too broken up about being benched.
Honestly, I think Rowland would be 1000 times better than ramirez. Against Kaz, we need to be perfect. It is just going to be like last night, we will only get a run or two, unless we can get to the awful Rays pen. And since the Mariners hitters don’t know how to work counts and make pitchers sweat, look for Kaz to go into the 8th. So, HoRam has to be as good as Felix was yesterday… if only Felix could start everyday!
Quiet evening. Not much doing. Just home hanging with my kids and thinking of watching the baseball game, and then I learn it’s another Horacio Ramirez start. Bloody hell.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Just how badly does Willie Bloomquist pitch?
And Felix looked more than a little homophobic
lol
Scouting report: Must recover from career.
“a very loyal man is John McLaren”
“there’s nothing wrong with having loyalty either”
so says Unc-y Dave N
What has Lopez done to earn the disrespect he has received lately.
How about a .495 OPS in 55 games since the All-Star game? That would be 6 XBHs in 179 ABs. I like the guy but he has been just brutal for quite a while now and whatever is going on, he clearly is not performing. So I see no real problem with benching him or giving him some time off which is the effect of benching him. Bloomquist is no answer obviously but it’s time to try something different to get through to him.
Having said that, I don’t think the Mariners are really trying something different but more likely have just given up on Lopez. I wish they would give him at least the first half of next year but at this point I seriously doubt they will, this has all the signs of a guy about to get dumped. Maybe they can swap him for a fringe veteran reliever.
How many other players have had their brother die in tragic circumstances though? Thats gotta be tough to come back from. I just hope we don’t give up on Lopez this offseason and unload him for pennies on the dollar, ala Carlos Guillen.
Three straight lefties at the top of the order.
“Matchups be damned,” laughs Joe Maddon. “We’re facing Horacio Ramirez.”
It begins.
Good to know Horacio Ramirez still sucks.
Extremely short leash tonight, huh Mac?
Much as I hate college football, it is at least keeping me from having to watch the first part of the game. Portland TV has the Ducks and the Beavers on, so no Mariners until after the pigskin. Of course, at this rate, the Mariner’s outcome may no longer be in doubt by then.
Yeah what’s with the short leash.
Hasn’t McLaren ever heard of loyalty?
Thank god Mac’s loyal. Time to put Ho-Bag down like a rabid dog.
Hey, Jose, you look mentally unfocused and seem to be having problems since your brother died and you couldn’t even get down for the funeral. In order to get through to you, we’re benching you for Bloomquist.
Uh huh.
Q: Has HoRam EVER gotten a 1-2-3 inning on his career? I know he must’ve at least once, but still…
I’ve mentioned this before – I’ll say it again.
The Mariners organization really, really, really believe in “chemistry”. They believe that chemistry causes teams to overachieve. They believe that chemistry is what caused the 2001 team to win 116 games. They believe that bad chemistry was behind the funks after 2003. They brought in Carl Everett because they believed that the clubhouse lacked fire – i.e., the chemistry wasn’t right. Part of the reason why they went after Vidro was for his clubhouse character and chemistry.
They would likely point to the teams performance this year (overachieving vs. various predicted winds algorithms) proves their point.
I could go on and on with examples, but the whole chemistry concept has been discussed, dissected, decried, and declaimed adequately.
****
And I think that the veteran “loyalty” is part of their whole belief in chemistry. I suspect that at some level there is a belief that being loyal to the veteran players pays off in enhanced clubhouse chemistry.
I don’t believe for a moment that McLaren is consciously and deliberately choosing loyalty over wins. I think he is choosing loyalty because in his mind (and Hargrove’s before that) loyalty to the team’s core is the path to winning.
Mind you, I think the team is mitaken on the whole chemistry thing. And I also think we are mistaken and deluding ourselves if we allow ourselves to believe that winning is a secondary objective to the Mariners. The differences come from different beliefs about how to get there.
Suckage thy name is HoRam.
I believe this is the last time we will see Ramirez a Mariner.
“The shortest outing of his career without a doubt.”
It’s pretty tough to pitch less than zero innings, but if anyone can do it, I have faith in Horacio.
Where’s killa the Rays fan? I’m curious to see how Rays fans react to being in an advantageous situation.
Is HoRam “injured?” I’ve only got Gameday.
17: Or if they do give up on him, at least get something a little more valuable to the roster than the two crates of sunflower seeds Bavasi usually trades for.
Oh wait, he’s STILL GM…
No injury, unfortunately.
Just no stuff.
I love it when loyalty is rewarded. Anyway, back to my repeated attempts to put my head through my floor. I’m sure it’ll work one of these times.
Unfortunately, a chronic and severe lack of talent does not officially qualify as an “injury”.
I know that’s a horrible way to start the game, but those were all singles right? It wasn’t like Mac saw three straight HRs and reacted…
#32 No, he’s not injured. The league was hitting .333 against him coming into the game. How in the world McLaren could’ve looked past that number (especially after Rarimirez’s last start) is beyond me. Seriously, isn’t baseball a game of statistics?
His “injury” is diagnosed as, Suckatitus.
*sarcasm
At least Yuni can provide some entertainment today. Great play.
Blow just said, “We can close the book on Ramirez now.”
Yeah, that should’ve been done early in the season, Mike!
McLaren is wondering how he can get Rick White into this game to save the day. And if only he could get Richie, mighty Sexson up to the plate, there’d be joy in Safeco yet (my homage to Casey at the Bat).
I think the only known cure for Suckatitis involves repeated electric shock to the privates followed by 10 years under quarantine. Have fun HoRam.
41- I hope we never open that book up again too.
You’ve got to watch out for those Devil Rays, they don’t look like much but they’ll sting ya.
42: Yeah, this would be a perfect opportunity for The Gas Can — with Kazmir out there, the game may ALREADY be out of reach.
Now there’s a line for the ages:
H Ramirez 0.0 IP 3H 0ER 1BB 0K -.236 WPA
For a reliever, that’d be a little ugly. For a starter….
You know that disease that Weaver had, that we thought went away but was just in remission? Yeah, well, it’s obviously contagious.
At least the Red Sox put the Spank in the Spankees.
DMZ, I feel bad for J Lopez, and I still think
he has a lot of upside. I hope they don’t dump him. If it’s not right to stick Willie B at 2nd and bench JLo, what should the club do? Should they have continued to leave him out there?
I kind of feel they should have. His lack of focus was frustrating, but there were more glaring failures that were causing the M cave-in.
Yay, three outs!
I think the Ms just want to see how many late inning rallies they can accomplish this year. I bet they have a chart in the clubhouse “Current come from behind wins: 42 – Goal: 50!”
Eh, it’s not Ramirez’s fault he has zero talent. This one’s on management. If someone offered me more than $2.5 million to go throw BP every five days, I’d take it.
Yuni is batting 7th? Is that the first time all year?
I get the feeling that when a player scuffles, they have very little to no idea of how to get them out of it.
Hmph. Hiding injuries. DEFINITELY hurting the team. Why give loyalty to THAT?
I get the feeling that when a player scuffles, they have very little to no idea of how to get them out of it.
Hmph. Hiding injuries. DEFINITELY hurting the team. Why give loyalty to THAT?
47: try 4 Earned Runs. But of course the FO can blame Campillo for letting some of them score.
50 – I kind of thought that many late inning rallies really meant, “can’t hit starting pitching.”
The Ms still control Horam for another year don’t they?
I could be misreading it, but Cot’s says Ramirez is only signed for this year.
http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/seattle-mariners.html
here at the game… I watched horam stretch and even then he was defeated… His body language was horrible.
Could you imagine HoRam ever “pitching” for the Rockies? His ERA at Coors might well be over 100!
Either that catcher has a gun or Ichiro was far below his normal self there. The catcher even hesitated before throwing.
HoRam hasn’t pitched 100 innings for the Ms. Lopez has wore their jersey in an all-star game and plays plus defense at a premium defensive position for an organisation that brags about its infield defense.
I’m having trouble believing loyalty is behind some of these decisions. I think it’s more a mixture of incompetence and cowardice.
61 – I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. Either way, it’s clearly incompetent. But the decision to go with loyalty is made because he’s too cowardly to try something new. I mean, it’s not like the loyalty thing has worked out that well.
At this point, those rally fries signs are more exciting than the game.
By the way, in case you guys were wondering, the only only reason Sexson has sucked is that his leg has been hurt. I’m glad we cleared that up:
http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070914&content_id=2208562&vkey=news_sea&fext=.jsp&c_id=sea
I’d chalk it up to a lack of ultimate resposibility. Ownership just pays the checks. The FO just signs who they like. The Manager just plays who he’s been given. No one is fully and ulitmately accountable. Theo Epstein, Cashman, Beane, etc . . . if their teams succeed or fail they take the credit or the blame. Here it’s nobody’s fault–and, on the other hand, everyone’s fault.
Speaking of signs, did y’all see the Wlad sign behind home? “This is Wlad’s World, we just live in it.”
64 – I liked how they couldn’t quite make it retroactive to the beginning of the season, but they did give it a shot…
#64 Ok, so his leg problems were the reason why he sucked in July and August. What about April, May, and June?
What’s the over/under on how many more outs until Dave N starts with the wacky “Abner Doubleday” style anecdotes?
Hey guys.. I was out for a bit, and I just came in.
You can imagine my horror when I saw HoRam’s final line.. like no one saw that coming.
One last thing on Ramrirez, 9 ERs in his last 1 2/3 innings. That’s veteran stuff. To think, we could’ve had Rafael Soriano get at least 2 innings for us per start I’m sure.
Right. But HoRam barely had 4 years of service time going into this season. I guess the Ms could non-tender him this offseason. But consider this: as of this moment the Ms traded 65 well-above average high leverage innings from Soriano for 98 inning of below replacement level innings for their rotation in HoRam. Would Bavasi be able to live down that decision if he simply dumped Horam this off season?
It’s very possible that looking back after ‘08 Soriano will have actually given the Braves more innings than the Ms got from HoRam assuming HoRam is the slop-time guy for the Ms next year.
Wasn’t one of the reasons that the Braves traded HoRam is that he was out of options?
I’ve never heard that one as a justification for targeting a guy….
Did you mean Soriano?
Willie’s OPS post ASB is .657, and his September OPS is under .600. The idea that he “helps” the team by being the everyday second baseman is pretty ridiculous, and if the team thinks that it’s time to give up on a 23 year old who’s 14 months removed from being an All Star so they can play a 29 year old no-hit, mediocre-field utility infielder because this will help them win… well, it’s an indictment of organizational incompetence.
I’m sure Billy Beane or John Schuerholz will be happy to trade them a replacement-level 5th starter for Lopez come the offseason…
Yeah the Ms should not give up on JLo.
Man, the less I see of Willie B the better.
Jones used to be a SS right? Couldn’t they have him starting at 2nd? Yes, I realize he hasn’t played there all season, but if they’re so down on Lopez it would give the lineup more pop (they might even find a way to play Wladimir once in a while then).
I’m on Gameday, so I can’t see defensive plays, but so far the only reason to cheer is that there’s another inning over.
Hey, Jose, you look mentally unfocused and seem to be having problems since your brother died and you couldn’t even get down for the funeral. In order to get through to you, we’re benching you for Bloomquist.
Uh huh.
OK, I suppose “getting through to him” is the wrong turn of phrase. How about trying something different to help him out of his personal and professional doldrums? Continuing to play him doesn’t seem to have helped matters at all and that is what they have continued to do for several months. I can sympathize to his situation but at the same time if it is not improving for him then the time has come for a new tactic in how they deal with him IMO. Playing him isn’t working so I still think they should try their other option of not playing him. I mean whatever, shut him down and send him home to Venezuala if that is what works to get his head right.
Obviously, airing their frustrations with him is not helping matters either and is lame in and of itself.
Benching him for Bloomquist may not make him feel much better or improve his outlook. But I doubt that going to the park every day and having results at the plate that are comparable to what a pitcher would put up is any better. And the fact that the best the Mariners can do as a replacement while Lopez sits is Bloomquist is really a roster construction issue that relates to the overabundance of 1B/DH instead of having a good backup [middle] IF option.
69: Or, his horrible renditions of “The Wabash Cannonball”…
Now I think AJ is just getting hits to show up Mac.
OMG! A rookie got a hit. That must mean he needs more time to get even better. Lets bench him for another week so he can experience the art of warming the bench.
Dave N: “Bloomy has been getting a lot of playing time the last 5 days”
Blowers: “Yeah the team has been winning so Mac just keeps writing his name in the line-up”
No commentary needed.
Way to work the pitcher guys.. another 10 pitch inning. Great.
Catcher is the furthest right on the defensive spectrum….I’m thinking that Johjima IS second base….
#73: Wasn’t one of the reasons that the Braves traded HoRam is that he was out of options?
Being out of options and being under team control are different items. “Out of options” means that he can’t be removed from the 25-man roster (i.e., sent to the minors) without first clearing waivers.
“Under team control” means that the player can’t become a free agent by refusing to sign a contract. If the player doesn’t sign an offered contract, the team can tender the player a standard and take the player to arbitration. The only way a player under team control can become a free agent is if the team chooses to not tender him a contract.
Ho Ram is out of options, but is under team control for at least one more year.
86: Thanks for the explanation. I’m useless when it comes to rights/contracts/years served/etc.
86: Ergo, based on his performance, the correct course of action would be to NOT tender him a contract for next season.
Then again, I suppose BB will somehow rationalize that we “desperately need” his “veteran presence” to have a shot at being “competitive” next season.
HoRam and Weaver just may be the two most useless
full-season starting pitchers I’ve ever seen on the Mariners.
Oh, I’m sorry, is that disloyal to say?
Based solely on the part of the job that we can see (personnel decisions) Bavasi appears to be a replacement level GM IMHO.
I guess Campillo isn’t that bad after all. I wonder what type of a game it would be if he actually started… maybe we wouldn’t be down 5-0.
But we gotta go with the veterans on a day when the Yankees lose and Seattle has a chance to climb back into the race with a win.
This is a race only in the sense that no one has crossed the finish line yet.
Wow… nice inning there. The 2-3-4 hitters.
3 up.
3 down.
3 strikeouts.
I don’t understand why people don’t think Bavasi wouldn’t part ways with HoRam if he thought he had a better option just to save face: we’ve seen season after season that he’s entirely willing to admit when his moves don’t work out and ship them out/release them/etc. I’m not worried that he’s ever going to make a bad move for concern over his public reputation.
I mean the playoff race terry. The one that the Mariners would be leading if it weren’t for HoRam and Jeff Weaver and Rick White.
The one that we were 3 games up in just 3 weeks ago.
On the other hand, BB is totally capable of finding another washed up veteran to take HoRam’s place on the roster.
This game in particular is really putting me to sleep.
97: True — Kazmir’s grip on this lineup so far has somewhat resembled a Roddy Piper sleeperhold.
ha ha. . wang took a beating. . .ha ha
When I said this:
I wasn’t suggesting his decisions are informed by a concern for his reputation. I was alluding to the actual hit to his reputation as a GM-i.e. will he ever work in this town (or any other town) again. I have no idea if Bavasi has more job security because ‘07 is a winning season but he’s made a lot of decisions in the last 18 months that should cause the powers to be to reevaluate his performance.
RIZZS NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
#101 – Are you completely certain that wasn’t Evil Rick Rizzs?
I don’t think it matters: if his reputation’s already taken a hit for signing HoRam, the hit of tossing him is relatively insignificant.
AJ has been watching Vidro too much with the RBI groundout. . .
#104 That was better than a sac fly, he at least advanced the runner at 1st into scoring position.
Thank God Bloomy is in the line-up.
i cant believe its only the 6th — feels like
forever and a day. . .
Gee, is there any way we can somehow lure Mark McLemore out of retirement? I know he’s like 43 and been retired for several years, but still…
Wonder if Killa the Rays fan is at the game tonight hanging up “K” signs for Kazmir’s strikouts?
Wonder if Killa the Rays fan is at the game tonight hanging up “K” signs for Kazmir’s strikouts?
I’m hanging up K’s at work. I’d prefer an M’s win, but I’ve got fantasy money to win, so I’ll take Kazmir’s strikeouts with a shameful smirk.
Oooh…the Rally Fries grrl is kinda cute!
Yeah where is killa? Surprised he didnt come to gloat tonight. Maybe he has a life? lol
I wasn’t watching at the time. What did Rizzs say to cause Derek to go CAPS LOCK on us??
This is classic…Rizzy and Blow were just saying that “we should be looking at matchups from here on out.”
From here on out? Gah, why weren’t you two advocating that months ago?!
to be fair though this is a long azz boring game.
pretty hard to sustain conversation. . .i know, hard to call that conversation.
Yay…Glover’s in for TB.
Maybe he’ll crap his pants again like he did last night!
115: The term “conversation” between those two is, of course, often loosely defined. It is somewhat above the threshold of what is generally considered “chatter”, yet seldom (if ever) qualifies as true intellectual discourse.
ive been tuning them out the last couple of innings
That was about the weakest inning the 1-2-3 hitters could put together. Seems worse than striking out.
Yeah…all of a sudden, Gary Glover has turned into Mariano Rivera.
Well you cant score 5 in one inning every time.
This loss is squarely on the shoulders of
JMac and HoRam.
Adam Jones sitting atop the WPA chart so far tonight. Sad that .014 can put you at the top, but when Betancourt is the only other batter (barely) in positive territory, it’ll do it. But hey, those veterans bring something else to party. Something utterly unrelated to winning games, but somehow important nonetheless.
I’ve not seen anyone advocate shortening the rotation temporarily during the September skid in order to eliminate at least one of the number 5 starters. I guess with few off days and the tender years of Felix, it isn’t really an option, but if you aren’t going to banish Weaver or Ramirez to the pen and replace them with inexperience, it should have at least been considered as addition by subtraction. Then again, giving Batista and Washburn more turns might not have been a good thing either.
Agreed…I mean, sheez, you’d think on a day when the Yanks got spanked by Boston, Mac FOR ONCE might do something creative like shuffle his rotation so HoRam The Human Batting Cage Machine doesn’t cost us any more ground.
Meanwhile, just prior to Raul’s HR, Rizzy was reminiscing about the 1991 season…AAAHHHH!! >:O
That was a pretty great catch by Young. Vidro had a nice AB there.
the announcers are getting excited way too early.
we’re down 4 runs with 1 guy on! come on
Is it just me, or is Salas another Jose Mesa wannabee the way we were hitting him?
Mac must see the rotation as he does the lineup- play ‘em till they eliminate themselves via injury, as Sexson did.
I went back and looked at the playoff teams that Piniella managed. Even in playoff games he used the whole roster. It helped, of course, to have people who could actually play in secondary roles (Javier, Amaral, McLemore) but he did not insist on a set lineup at all times outside of the obvious core in the middle of the lineup. This is less about how great Lou was than this: if Mac was Lou’s guy for so long, why does he manage like he owes it all to Hargrove?
And that’s that. Can the playoff talk end now?
Well, crap…that wasn’t exactly the “Thrilla in Manila” was it?! >:(
I was following the game on gamecast, but I’m kind of messed up following the Gators’ shellacking of Tennessee. Great game by Kazmir. Despite a slow start to the season, he’s still managed to go 13-8 and is going to finish either first or second in the AL in strikeouts. He’s a stud, and, fortunately, HoRam is not.
128: Too bad in a way HoRam had to be on the DL EARLY in the season instead of now.
I did, however, find the lilting music bumpers that FSN played for Latin Night interesting — though Freddy Fender’s “Wasted Days & Wasted Nights” might have been more appropriate for this game!
131: We were kinda wondering where you were, Killa…like maybe you caught a redeye out here to see the game tonight!
All the “only fan” ribbing aside, your team does finally look like it has some potential for once. Though I probably shouldn’t hold my breath, I wouldn’t mind seeing the FO can keep those guys around for a while and pick up enough extra pieces to make a legit run at the Skanks and HoSox — I’m tired of seeing those two dominate that friggin’ division year after year!
Why the hell does Reed get at-bats over Wlad and Clement?
dkf;lkiadsh fdsa;f
(types randomly in frustration)
It’s always going to be an uphill battle in the AL East, but it isn’t impossible to compete. I love the Rays’ future, IF they can get the bullpen in check.
133 – I agree, itd be nice to see some variation, like in the AL Central, along with other divisions. Maybe they will come to be good, like the indians eventually did with developing that young talent.
After tonight’s outing i’d be surprised if HoRam, not even Weaver can imitate an outing like that. Well maybe he could, but that was just terrible. And against Tampa’s ace too, no chance for the Mariners. I think they gave him too many chances to try to show success and he has mostly failed. Hopefully they pitch him along with Weaver during the off season. Useless. Just wastes space.
136: Hmmm…an appropriate variation of that Freddy Fender song might be “Wasted SPACE & Wasted MONEY”!
OK, I just had to post this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0NO4vSemYE&mode=related&search=
Only in Fenway, folks, and only Sox fans.
My two favorite Mac quotes from today:
and
Since we lost tonight, I don’t know what that means with the WFB good luck charminess. However, since AJ played tonight, I’m assuming he actually lost knowledge about baseball.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070915&content_id=2210372&vkey=news_sea&fext=.jsp&c_id=sea&partnered=rss_sea
139: If Mac were letting a pile of cash ride holding two-pair, he’d think that he had a “hot” hand!
139: Ahh! Brain cells! Murdered! Ahhhhhhhhh! Must! Have! Vengeance! Ahhhh!
140 – Mac sending out a pile of cash to the mound might be more effective than Weaver or HoRam. Lol.
Mac sending out a pile of cash to the mound might be more effective than Weaver or HoRam. Lol.
I honestly feel bad for Horacio Ramirez, or I’d take the oh-so-tempting bait. But I don’t want to bash the guy. He’s probably having a really, really bad night tonight. His career, one that offered the chance to make several piles of cash, is looking kinda shot right now, and I doubt he’ll sleep very well for a few days. I’ve been a huge critic, and am both baffled and infuriated by the M’s boneheadedness here, but tonight I really do feel for Ramirez. I didn’t laugh at Michael Jordan’s baseball career. I’m not going to laugh at Ramirez, or poke fun at him, or anything else. There’s no Nelson Munz in me.
Good grief, why do the M’s need to run a guy into the ground like that?
looks like a good game to have to miss for socializing …
yup. last night during the game I was thinking about Mac’s quote about playing Willie B because he ‘brings energy’ as he hit in to the DP and sucked it up at the plate.
just because the public didn’t hear about the injuries doesn’t mean the team didn’t know about them…
144 – Mac has said with both of those players that they hid their injuries from the staff, and even sounded disappointed when he said it. That should be unacceptable.
144, 145, If the team knew about it it actually makes it even worse, because then more than one person was being stupid. Not that there isn’t plenty of that going around anyway…
Favorite quotes from last night at the PI : (Ramirez) -”I gave up three singles and walked a guy,” Ramirez said. “I was stunned when there was a runner on first and second and I turned around and saw somebody warming up.”
(McLaren) “We try and give our guys a chance to work their way out of it. We don’t have that luxury anymore,” McLaren said. “We’re fighting an uphill battle here.”
Asked what Ramirez’s future would be in the rotation, McLaren became agitated.
“I’m not going there tonight. I’m emotionally upset. I’m not talking about anything else,” he said, before quickly exiting. (end quotes)
Yeah, I guess I could see why Ramirez would be shocked. I mean, he’s sucked all year and not been pulled, so it was probably a shock to him that last night his horrible pitching was finally rewarded properly.
That’s not being a gamer…that’s being selfish. It hurts the team.
Not sitting the players down is selfish and stupid, it hurts the team.
So, this sort of behavior helps the team….how?
msb, jlc (144, 145): If you’ve read Ball Four, it’s no news that ballplayers try and hide injuries. Having said that, where did Mac say that Sexson and Ibanez did hide theirs?
See this article from the Mariner web site.
Well, no player wants to be Wally Pipp. Of course, the Pipp-Gehrig “story” is apparently a myth; but the reality is even more appropriate:
Players learn to play through pain, and know better than to report every little ache. But “veteran leadership” also entails being honest with oneself and the team, and if these guys can’t do that it’s the job of the coaches to notice. Every player has slumps and they’re not always due to injuries; nevertheless, the coaching staff needs to pay attention and determine when they are. And in those cases, it’s in everybody’s best interest to put the player on the DL until he’s healthy again. Yeah, it sucks to bench likeable veterans but if the coaches can’t see performances for what they are and make the hard decisions then the team needs to get coaches who can. We can only wonder where the M’s would be if the powerless Ibanez we saw early in the season, and the punchless Sexson we’ve seen all year, had sat out a month or two in the spring when they were useless anyway and were now back in the lineup healthy and hitting well.
Hear, hear.
The job of the player is to play as hard as they can, up to the edge of pain and injury.
The job of the coaches is to figure out where that edge is, and bring them back when that edge threatens the player or the team.
The coaches have not done a good job of that this year.
Here’s a link to Pentland talking about Raul’s shoulder injury:
http://mlb.mlb.com/content/printer_friendly/sea/y2007/m08/d16/c2152177.jsp