Game 23, Mariners at Orioles
DMZ · April 24, 2008 at 5:00 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Loewen v Washburn. 7:10.
Adam Loewen’s a lefty from Surrey, BC, which as I understand it is on the way to Vancouver from here (just kidding! I know you have to turn off at some point).
The M’s are 9-8 against RHP and 2-3 against LHP this year.
Last year, it was 60-61 and 28-13, and interestingly, though you’d think they were vulnerable to lefties, they actually hit better against them – .295/.348/.446 to .284/.333/.419.
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284 Responses to “Game 23, Mariners at Orioles”
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Crap. Clearly a demanding tone is better.
(deep sigh)
Man.
46% of the Orioles wins are against us.
USSM After Dark
Cue the sleazy saxophone music.
The Amen did it. You angered the baseball gods Lauren.
We are for sure going to set a record this year for one run games. Yuck!
God has now made clear his opinion on the Erik Bedard trade.
My own personal highlight of this one: A knee buckling breaking ball called for a strike from Morrow. Pathetic? Perhaps. But there it is.
Superb bullpen and bench management. I enjoyed seeing Sean green pitching to their two best lefties, and seeing Willie hit against Bradford.
Bleh… how depressing.
One of the worst played games I have ever witnessed. I was at the game and kept wondering how we were up 5-1 — with Washburn somehow finagling his way out of jam after jam. We had 5 runs off of 5 hits, and couldn’t bust the game open with bases loaded and no outs (2,3,4 hitters coming to the plate). We look completely terrible, and although I think that trade wasn’t a bad move, I hope Bavasi is feeling the heat after Sherrill picked up his 5th or 6th save and Jones had a clutch 2 out double. Makes me sick watching the hometown 9.
It’s becoming very apparent that the Bedard trade is an utter bust. Jones gets two RBIs late in the game and Sherril gets his fifth save against the lowly Ms. Meanwhile Bedard has done pretty much nothing to this point except collect a paycheck. Another masterpeice by Bevasi!!
I’m not going to call Bedard a bust. There’s still a long way to go for him to make his mark. The big concern is the bullpen with the loss of Sherrill. Our strong point for most of last year is our weakness early on. The bridge from the 7th to the 9th is shaky at best.
Once again,the Mariners waste a good, or winable outing bythier starter. Also it seems to me that they lack the “killer” instinct. It seems that often they get a few runs then seem to want to coast. I guess that I would equate it with the feeling that I know get from NASCAR. They are justout there driving in circles to collect a check.
C’mon, now. I wasn’t a fan of the trade either, but Bedard being hurt shouldn’t change your opinion one bit, especially this early in the season.
is it possible to see how many games we’ve blown already?
this is going to be a long season if this crap continues.
C’mon, now. I wasn’t a fan of the trade either, but Bedard being hurt shouldn’t change your opinion one bit, especially this early in the season.
But weren’t some of the NO votes on the trade specifically saying Bedard was an injury risk? That he’d never thrown more than 180 innings?
Once again,the Mariners waste a good, or winable outing bythier starter. Also it seems to me that they lack the “killer†instinct. It seems that often they get a few runs then seem to want to coast. I guess that I would equate it with the feeling that I know get from NASCAR. They are justout there driving in circles to collect a check.
They’re not coasting. All of them (not just Vidro) are professional hitters. They want every AB to count. The problem is, they just hit too damned many ground balls and don’t have enough speed. We get guys on base and then hit into DPs, or get an RBI on a groundout to second instead of clearing the bases with a double into the gap. Half the regulars are station-to-station on the basepaths, and the other half don’t get enough XBH to make up for it. At the risk of sounding like one of the broadcasters, how many times do you see the opposing team go first to thrid vs how many times do the M’s do it? And this isn’t accidental. This is how the team was constructed. They want hitters who put the ball on the ground because that will “make things happen.” Mostly what it makes happen are outs.
And, yeah, how did we just know that was gonna happen…sigh.
I think a better slogan for ’08 would have been “Mariner Baseball: One step forward, two steps back.” >:(
I like how people think keeping two guys would have kept our bullpen from imploding nearly every game.
I have to agree with JMhawkins. I for one was part of the ‘I’d put money on Bedard getting put on the DL’ group. If their is one thing that you can count on across all sports that goes beyond statistics is that players that get banged up a lot rarely change.
Re: # 238
Salt in the wound. Lincecum who the M’s passed on, wins 1-0. 6.1 4H 9K 1.23 and is 4-0. He and Felix would have been a nice combo
Some other teams passed on him too.
At UW he became the poster boy for pitcher abuse. (He may have amassed more pitcher abuse points in one season there than most MLB starting pitchers do in their entire career.)
The thinking may have been that he was an injury waiting to happen; and that’s why he was still around after eight players had already been drafted.
There aren’t that many people in the bullpen. If they’d had GS, it’s hard for me to imagine how they wouldn’t have performed a lot better over the Putz-DL stretch.
In one sense Jeff Nye’s right…the sample size of one month is too small to evaluate any trade. But the time-frame to evaluate this trade was by definition compressed to twelve baseball months. That’s how long we’re guaranteed to have Bedard. One month of games is a pretty significant portion of the M’s stake in this deal.
So far the Orioles’ benefit from the deal…just this month…is something like five games. Ok maybe not five games…except that they’ve mostly come against the M’s, so it might as well be. In fact, it will be surprising if Bedard makes up for the damage OUR OWN DAMN PLAYERS have done to the M’s this season if he pitches the rest of the year.
I feel pretty generous at this point in saying that Bedard could still make us all feel good about this deal. Because at this point it seems like he’s starting out in a pretty big hole. (And yes I know it’s not Bedard’s fault..we all know who to blame when Jones is ROY, Sherrill is Cy Young and the M’s are in third place.)
Just got back from the game. I only get to a couple of games a year, so I was jazzed until I found out Washburn was pitching. I tried to be confident with the 5 runs we had, but 3 errors and double digit hits is bad for confidence. Fun to see AJ and Sherrill, in a Twilight Zone kind of way. And, OMG, it was cold.
I think the only thing I’ll choose to remember is the double steal. Yeah, that’s the ticket. There was this amazing double steal that was just like the way the pros do it.
After attending this game and then listening to the drivel that passes for the post-game shows on the local radio stations, I am just totally pissed off! All I heard on the way home is the lack of options the M’s have in the bullpen, and how they couldn’t pinch hit for Willie in the 8th because they have no one else to play RF. It’s a total crock, because the bench is the way it is because they constructed it that way, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves. All I heard when JJ was hurt was how we so badly needed him back so everyone could go back to the roles they were comfortable with, and now I’m hearing that because JJ is back, we haven’t figured out which roles to put everyone in! First of all, we’re playing with a 23-man roster at best. Cairo has absolutely no role on this team. Baek has pitched what, 3 times in 23 games. The bench has no left-handed hitters and no one to play the outfield. Half the starting lineup is batting below .210, but we keep trotting the same anemic lineup out there. Where in the heck is Clement, Balentien, or for crying out loud, Reed? Is Jeremy Reed really so bad that we think Willie is a better option in RF?
We’ve about finished April, and have played the AL West, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore. It is by far the easiest month of the year, and we’re sitting at 11-12. May ought to be fun, with Cleveland, Detroit, and two series at New York.
And the worst freaking thing about this situation is that we threw the kitchen sink into the off season, and if the Bedard trade doesn’t work out, we’re screwed and rebuilding for years.
I had to laugh when I heard the “we could trade for Griffey” talk tonight. Do these people think the Reds will give him to us for free?
Off to cool down….have a good night all.
PS…I’m really sick and tired of freezing my tail off at Safeco. Can winter go away already?
Got home from the game. My thoughts:
–The cold. Good lord, was it cold.
–Our offense was its usual anemic self and our bullpen imploded again, which should surprise no one.
–Nobody did the wave, which was a refreshing change of pace.
The only real highlight was the kids running onto the field, with one of the security guards doing his best Lofa Tatupu impression and laying him out.
After another bullpen meltdown, there is one option for Bavasi: BRING BACK RICK WHITE AND HIS DAYGLO GOATEE!
No, Reed is really so bad that Willie is a better option on the bench, because Willie can play multiple positions and Reed can’t, and Reed is only a marginally better hitter. (You don’t need both Willie and Cairo, but that’s another issue.)
I don’t understand where the fascination with Reed comes from at this point. When he was here, everyone wished he wasn’t. Now I guess we’ve forgotten how bad he was. 840-odd plate appearances, .314 onbase, .366 slugging, 17 for 32 as a base stealer, not making anyone forget Mike Cameron in the outfield. He’s a AAA player. Sure, he’s 27, so maybe it’s time for him to have one decent year, convince management that he’s finally reached his potential, get an overpriced contract, and go back to sucking. I figure that’s the best-case scenario.
back-up quarterback syndrome?
from Raul this morning on the Mariner offense:
“I think the key is patience through aggression”
Maybe Willie can play multiple positions, but who the heck cares? He can’t hit. Period. I’m not saying Reed is a panacea for anything, but right now what we need is outfield help. Reed has a lifetime line against RHP of .271/.329/.396. That’s not great; in fact, it’s below average for a corner outfielder, but it’s more than marginally better than Willie’s .255/.307/.305 line against RHP’s. Plus, he’s a better outfielder than Willie (in my opinion), he can play all three outfield positions, he hits left-handed, and he’s a decent baserunner. He is not a long-term solution, but he would make the bench more usable and effective. Of course, that’s not setting the bar very high.
Also, Surrey definitely is “on the way to Vancouver from here†for certain values of here.
Surrey’s is on the way to Vancouver from Seattle, which is probably what Derek meant. And no, you don’t need to turn off at some point – you will pass through Surrey without leaving the highway.
I don’t recommend leaving the highway. Surrey isn’t the nicest place.
When will the cut Wilkerson loose and admit their mistake? Never? As soon as they pick up a new right fielder. What about Reed as a replacement level player? Balentien? Or is it heavy drinking all year?
Ha. I had a friend who told me a joke once about Surrey. ‘What’s the difference between garbage and boys from Surrey?’ she asks. ‘At least the trash gets picked up once a week’. *rim shot*