The Bright Side
Yea, that sucked, but it wasn’t all that hard to see coming. As we’ve noted repeatedly, the Mariners roster is structured incorrectly, which leaves them essentially incapable of hitting pitchers like Scott Feldman. Sending the M’s line-up against RH sinker-slider guys is just going to result in failure. This isn’t going to get better until they make changes. The team will hit fine against lefties and hold their own against righties who pitch up in the zone (McCarthy tomorrow, for instance, they should do okay against), but they can’t hit this pitcher type. So, pretty much any time you see the M’s going against a Bartolo Colon/Sidney Ponson/Nick Blackburn/Shane Loux/Scott Feldman type, you can forget scoring a bunch of runs. Until this team tosses one or two of Yuni/Lopez/Johjima overboard and adds a couple of left-handed bats, this is what you’ll see.
But, at least we had Jason Vargas’ effort tonight. Expectations were understandably low, and while 400 foot outs are not a recipe for success, the M’s couldn’t have asked for any more from him than they got tonight. I loved the gameplan he took to the mound.
Look at all those change-ups. He threw 22 of them, and mostly did a good job of locating them. He knew the Rangers are a great fastball hitting team, and he has a below average fastball, so he didn’t even bother trying the whole “establish the fastball” crap. He went with his off-speed stuff, disrupted timing, mixed speeds and locations, and used the fastball as a complementary pitch. Against offenses with less power and more left-handed bats, he can throw the fastball a little more, but that wasn’t going to work tonight and he knew it. Just a smart, well pitched game by a guy who really had no business succeeding in that environment.
At least we have one decent backend starter to replace Bedard and Washburn when they’re traded during the fire sale…
It seems to me GMZ is in a situation that many first year college coaches are in. Can you imagine the team in 3-4 years when the previous regimes
mistakesplayers are out the door and we can ‘recruit’ our own talent? When we spot start with savvy acquisitions like Vargas, and the roster is not just littered, but filled with real value from guys like Endy Chavez, Gutierrez and Branyan? This last week and a half has been a reality check, but when the anchors that are Yuni, Lopez, Johjima, Silva, and Batista are actually cut, who knows where we’ll be.If there was a game to begin the process of giving Silva his walking papers, this was it.
A lefty bat who has dreamy eyes I wonder…
We really have no clue how to hit mediocre RHP do we?
It’s a loooooooooooooooooooong season ahead of us lets see if we can make the right moves to help this team win.
Yuni/Lopez/Johjima are bad, and Beltre is also terrible. Talk about an easy out in close games.
Nice going Vargas with the offspeed stuff. Good calling from Joh also I think.
Looking forward to the Felix/Ichiro trade possibility article later this week. Right now I need to think about what magic GMZ will pull off instead of focusing on how bad and one dimensional this offense is.
Nice to see Vargas do well though.
Now *that* is optimism — nice silver lining, staff.
Thank you!
I think awestby51 hit the nail on the head. Zduriencik can only do so much with the legacy contracts he’s got. It will take time to clear the crap and there’s only so much you can do with so many roster spots devoted to deadweight. In 2012, I wonder if there will be anyone left from the 25 men who started this season.
I realize you can’t fix everything at once but there’s got to be a replacement shortstop better than Yuni. According to Baseball Reference as of a couple of days ago, 23% of his fly balls are infield popups. League average is 15%.
With Betancourt, it’s similar to observing a company riddled with nepotism, or an incompetent employee who’s having an affair with a supervisor.
That is, after a while you get the feeling there’s no way Betancourt can screw up enough to get yanked permanently from the line-up, so you might as well stop tearing your hair out about it.
Unfortunately, I don’t have that much will power, though the new buzz cut helps.
Well, Wakamatsu wasn’t terribly thrilled with this game; Except for Vargas of course.
Wak is dangerously close to making some serious changes here.
Yuni is gonna be a goner soon! Let the heads roll and bring up Carp and Clement!!!
‘A little less conversation, a little more action please..’
Now, will it only come from Wak in the form of a temporary benching? Or will it come from Dr. Z in the form of a trade, or..?
It’s nice to see that Wak and I saw the same game that the official scorer didn’t, which is that Yuni was seriously out of position on that “hit” and it really has to stop.
‘A little less conversation, a little more action please..’
Now, will it only come from Wak in the form of a temporary benching? Or will it come from Dr. Z in the form of a trade, or..?
The Mariners trade for a lefthanded bat with power and a shortstop who can replace Yuni….
Raul Ibanez and Willie Bloomquist!
You know something I just thought about?
Yuniesky Betancourt must have minor-league options remaining.
And Chris Woodward is hitting, what, .318 in Tacoma?
Maybe a demotion to the minors is a thing that’ll go ahead and be a big enough clue for Yuni. No trade, no benching. I really don’t think those would work.
Just take away his status as a big-leaguer. See if that rattles the rocks in his head.
Right now, I refuse to believe there isn’t any better options out there. I don’t know jack-diddly about Woodward and what his skills are as a ballplayer, although I imagine he’s not a major-leaguer in terms of pure ability.
But, damn. Let’s give the guy, or any guy, a chance to perform better than this. Before I feel stronger urges to kick small animals.
Could Ryan Church help the team in anway? I read somewhere that he is unhappy with playing time since the arrival of Gary Sheffield and the Mets have an abundance of left-handed batters, but then again there’s too many outfielders.
Wak quote that makes me optimistic:
“we did a good job getting the pitch count up. Then we have some aggressive at-bats on pitches that really aren’t that good, and let the starting pitcher get right back in it.”
The Ms have a manager who gets it. This is good.
Wak quote that makes me pessimistic:
“We don’t have a lot of options.”
I didn’t expect Vargas to pitch 9 innings and 20k’s, I just wanted a better chance at winning then we had with Silva. And we go that and so much more. I really liked this game (like everyone else) till the 7th.
But we need some offence, ANY offence
I think Ryan Church would help them team. We obviously don’t need an outfielder in the way we need a middle infielder, but I think getting Endy out of the starting line up and replacing him with a guy who is a better hitter and a pretty good fielder (although not as good as Endy) would be helpful. Plus, it would put Endy on our bench which means we’d have a lefty who could potentially pinch hit for Betancourt or whoever if a righty is pitching in a high leverage situation. And it would mean that if we want to give Gutierrez a night off against a right handed pitcher, we could actually get another lefty in our line up, which would be nice. Of course, the problem with getting a guy like Church is, like we both said, he’s not really the player we’re dying for. Unless he really costs nothing, we’re probably better off saving our trade chips for something that fits better with what the Mariners want. Like Dan Murphy if he’s actually a good infielder.
…Bartolo Colon/Sidney Ponson/Nick Blackburn/Shane Loux/Scott Feldman
I hate that this list gets longer every time you discuss it. Mostly no-name mediocre talent that just SHUTS DOWN the Mariners!
…do we really need to go there?
Just looking through last winter’s free agents, it looks like Edmonds is still out there. He would be free in terms of talent, and probably cheap in dollars. His last two years he was decent defensively and above average offensively. If he was willing to take part-time work, he could replace Sweeney on the roster and spell Gutierrez against tough righties – that would provide an extra LH bat at a position other than 1B/DH.
All these suggestions for OF/1B types are pointless. The team has a quintet of RHBs that can’t hit same handed sinkers, and those guys play CF, 3B, SS, 2B, and C. You have to get a LH who plays one of those positions, or you’re just rearranging the deck chairs.
Also in the “could be worse” category: the M’s stand at 132 RS / 156 RA, which produces a Pythagorean W-L of 14-19. That they’re actually still around .500 (16-17) is remarkable (and unlikely to last, unless the bats wake up).
I get that Yuni blew it big time on the booted ground ball from Jones, but I feel like some blame needs to lie with Wak. The Rangers, as has been documented by a number of people here, hit the crap out of the fastball. So, Vargas was working them over pretty well with his offspeed stuff. He was only at 73 pitches when he was yanked. I know it’s his first start of the season with the M’s, but he is a starting pitcher. I find it hard to believe he didn’t have another inning + in him.
I also think, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, Batista is our best bullpen option against these guys because of the way he pitches. I think it was a mistake to pull him after one inning in favor of what amounts to a batting practice pitcher for the Rangers.
I’d like to hear Wak’s rationale for these moves.
All these suggestions for OF/1B types are pointless. The team has a quintet of RHBs that can’t hit same handed sinkers, and those guys play CF, 3B, SS, 2B, and C. You have to get a LH who plays one of those positions, or you’re just rearranging the deck chairs.
Or, to put it another way- the M’s team OPS is .764 from LHB, .638 from RHB. The answer to this problem is not “Bench one of Branyan, Griffey, Ichiro or Endy”.
All this being said, I’m a lot more optimistic about the 3B, CF and 2B being able to contribute to the offense for the rest of 2009 than the SS and C, who I think are pretty much lost causes.
Your remarkable loyalty to Jose Lopez is baffling. At some point, you should admit that he sucks.
He’s still younger than Yuni AND Rob Johnson, and has more recent performance that suggests he’s better than Yuni and Rob Johnson (and certainly better than the last wheezing gasps of Kenji Johjima’s career). His skill set sucks for a team that’s overloaded with people with his skill set (as well as players that are better at his skill set than he is, in Beltre and Gutierrez), but I still think he’s a 1.5-2 WAR player having a bad 6 weeks.
I have no particular loyalty to Lopez (hey, GMZ figures out a way to add a 2+ WAR LHB 2B, I’m down with it), but I think the Mariners are playing 0-0.5 WAR players at SS and C right now. 1.5 is greater than 0. That’s not particularly baffling to me.