Suggested additional Mariner mantras
The irony of having Jarrod Washburn talk about how bad the stress of playing while behind goes unmentioned, but look at how Jim Street milks a whole article out of those quotes and manages to end up somehow talking about team chemistry and Street-endorsed Griffey/Sweeney presence.
Scoring early could go a long way toward removing some of the stress that comes from playing from behind so darn often — something that happened way too frequently a year ago.
The Mariners were outscored, 296-224, in the first three innings last season.
Sure, that’s a team winning one in five games. But the team went 61-101 last year. If you want to find splits that the M’s should be looking at, you might also consider shooting halibut in a barrel you’ve drained of water. And here at USSM Labs, well, if we’re not in on fish-shooting action, well, we create our own.
“M’s look to get season off to good start… last year, the Mariners were outscored 437-374 before the All-Star break”
Get some more quotes from Washburn about how hard it was to pitch in the second half when his team was out of contention… you’ve got another column. Or pick a bad month and “M’s seek to avoid early/mid-season/late-season swoon.”
Like: “M’s seek to avoid road trips… the Mariners were outscored 433-224 while on the road.”
And “M’s look to improve on performance on turf after being outscored 54-48”
Wait, even better: “Vampiric Mariners learn to tolerate sunlight”. “The Mariners were outscored 286-217 during day games. When asked if this could be because of the notoriously weak sun quality in the team’s home city, manager Wakamatsu said ‘Potentially there could be some Vitamin D deficiency issues, but we’d see that across performances. Unless other teams get better at generating it and day-of… but then why was Texas so bad in day games?” Asked it the team was considering additional sunglass training, Wakamatsu said it was something his staff would consider.”
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Thank you Derek, I needed a good laugh after today’s underwhelming news.
It’s an art.
Jim Street = intelligent, unbiased, objective journalism. He should report for Fox News!
I would very much like some of whatever it is he’s on…
Last year’s team was outwon 101-61 during the regular season.
Kid_A even fox news has some imagination…..sort of…
I am just turning in and figureI wil lcheck USS out one more time. DMZ you caustic wit is wonder.
“M’s look to improve winning: last year the M’s went 61-101 when outscored by the other opponent.”
I’ll be sending in my resume to MLB.com.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t win 61 games in which they were outscored.
Well, when you think about it, the M’s were ourscored 811-671 when wearing baseball jerseys last year. Perhaps they should wear spandex cycling outfits.
Side benefit, it might encourage Silva to waive part of his contract for a trade.
It takes special thinking to suggest that stress-removal is the responsibility of an offense that was down 2-0 before their first at-bat today.
Vampiric Mariners would be awesome at night games. They would be so rested and more awake as the game went on.
Oh, you know if the Yankees would have turned all of their players if it would have brought them a World Series.
The Mariners were outscored 811-671 on days of the week that end in “y.” Team is considering other scheduling options.
Attention Mariners:
Shut the f— up about your teammates.
Seriously.
You guys were all awful. It wasn’t your teammate’s fault that you sucked. On the whole team, 2 or 3 of you didn’t have bad years. And those 2 or 3 had some bad aspects to your game.
Starting Pitchers: Wanna know why you’re behind in games? Because YOU gave up freaking runs! Yeah! I know! No, no one came in and gave up runs before you got there… That was you. No, it wasn’t your morbidly obese evil twin, Carlos, that was you. And Jarrod, that wasn’t Jorrad, from the parallel universe that pitched the first two innings, and acted like a douchebag after games… Yeah, that was actually you. Oh, and if you don’t like the pitch selection by the catcher, you can do this weird left and right head motion. Or hell, just throw whatever you want, its not like its going where you want it, anyways.
3B on the way out: Remember, teams look at how you behave in the locker room and with the media when considering your free agent value. Consider that each stupid thing you say is costing you money. Unfortunately, this does not apply to Steve Kelley. And if you piss the Japanese ownership any more by complaining about Ichiro, we’re going to trade you to the Washington Nationals.
So, in conclusion, shut your mouth and play baseball. Talk positively about your teammates, or don’t say anything at all. And call your moms more often.
I’m waiting for Street’s breathless article in which he learns that teams can be in one of three states in the early innings: ahead, behind or tied, and that there is a position called “starting pitcher”, which has more effect on which of these is the case than all the other positions combined. His next task will be to find one of these so-called “starting pitchers” and find out why they hate Jarrod Washburn so much they cause him stress.
The M’s hit 66 homeruns in games they lost, and only 58 in games they won. Solution: more small ball and fewer homers in 2009!
(that is wrong on at least two levels… )
Fox news jokes -groan-
Thank god for the blogs. Articles like the ones written by Street for MLB are laughable to anyone who happens to follow the Mariners on a daily basis. Broad generaliztions, huge gaffs in logic. He just glosses over the fact Silva was truly god awful, like all of a sudden he’ll bounce right back to being slightly below average and last year didnt count. Reading that article would lead one to believe Washburn would’ve won the pitching triple crown if the M’s could’ve just pushed a couple rallys together in the 1-3 innings..
It had nothing to do with when runs were scored, it had everything to do with the players trying to prevent them and the players trying to score them.
And if having Griffey and Sweeney on the roster together is an alchemists dream, I should able be to use more than a couple fingers to count the winning teams they have been on since 99.
Im guessing, I have no chart, but if the Mariners manange to small ball a run in third inning more often they will lose by 2 instead of 3 most of the time.
Last year’s record makes me think of the old saying, “You win 60 games and you lose
60 games. It’s what you do with the rest of them that counts.” We chose to win one of them.
One of them.
Mariners 2009:
We’ve added a new ingredient to your garlic fries. Moose tears!!!!
OT: [deleted, ot]
More OT: [deleted, more ot]
Why do people still do this? I don’t get it. You have to read the blog for all of a day to realize any OT comment will get purged, yet people take the time to type and post them. And it’s not like they don’t realize what they’re doing since most of the comments are prefaced with ‘OT but…’.
Of course, this is itself off topic… Well, I’ve typed it may as well hit submit. Sorry, mods.
I was torn between deleting that as off-topic and as meta, and so approved it.
So the trick to getting OT comments approved is to mix in other unapproved genres so as to confuse the mods?. Comments can only be deleted for a single reason, so if there’s more than one…. Huh, I had no idea this worked like one of the Star Trek episodes where Kirk confuses the Evil Computer.
No, see it’s the combination. Chlorine, deadly gas. Sodium, dangerous mineral that catches fire when wet. But combined… flavor- and hypertension- enhancing condiment!
Wonder Twin Powers…. activate! Griffey, shape of an arthritic gazelle! Sweeny, form of… melting ice cubes!
Yeah but at the same time: ammonia – common household cleaner, sodium hypochlorite – useful bleach. Ammonia + sodium hypochlorite = several possibilities, all highly toxic.
I’m seeing a Sweeney-Griffey “New Way, New Day” commercial coming out of Joser’s ideas. Hold out for some serious green on that!
Wonder Twin Powers…. activate! Griffey, shape of an arthritic gazelle! Sweeny, form of… melting ice cubes!
Back to the hall of justice with you!
The Mariners scored (approximately) .4675 runs per inning last year. In the first 3 innings, they scored .4671 runs per inning. Over the entire season, that is a difference of less than one run. So their offense the first three innings was essentially identical to what it was in every other inning on the season.
They gave up an average of .5650 runs per inning over the entire season. In the first 3 innings, they gave up an average of .6091 runs per inning.
The general problem was that they gave up a lot more runs than they scored. To the extent that the difference was greater in the first 3 innings, it was the fault of the pitchers (and defense).
Washburn just needs to shut up and stop making excuses for his poor performance.
This should be the Mariner’s new slogan.
I don’t think Washburn talking about pitching while behind could be considered ironic. It’s more along the lines of expected or the status quo.