Game 41, Angels at Mariners
DMZ · May 20, 2009 at 6:18 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Santana v. Chris Jakubauskas.
Check this order out:
RF-L Ichiro!
3B-R Beltre
DH-L Griffey
LF-R Balentien
1B-L Branyan
C-R Johjima
2B-R Lopez
SS-R Betancourt
CF-R Gutierrez
Beltre’s hitting 0/0/0 and they’re moving him… up? He’s been 4th or 5th in the order all season. I have to hope they’re thinking batting him behind Ichiro will encourage him to be more selective and take pitches. But wow, that’s a gutsy move.
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Branyan still fifth. Hopefully Chris mixes up his pitches tonight.
I think they have put Beltre in the 2 hole in the past to get him going after a slow start and it has worked. Hopefully this works because without his bat, the lineup just plain sucks.
Seems odd to put someone in the #2 hole that swings at very bad pitches OFTEN.. and who, in general, can’t hit an elephant with a tack hammer right now.
The only thing I can figure is that they’re hoping he’ll see more fastballs if Ichiro is on? I dunno. I’m kinda baffled.
And Branyan’s gotta start hitting cleanup, doesn’t he??
Cripes.
so Beltre and Balentien went up the order, while Guti and Russel stayed the same or moved down? I’m a bit lost by this. Maybe this is a list of who needs at bats the most
Answers:
The #2 slot sees a large amount more FB’s than the rest of the lineup; due to wanting to hold the runner on first. If Ichiro can cause any sort of ‘havoc’ on the base paths and Beltre can see a steady stream of FB’s this could be just what he needs to get his ‘rhythm’ back.
I approve of the move regardless of what the results say.
Everybody needs to read Drayer.
Recent struggles and head-scratchers aside, can I just say how awesome it is to have a manager that preaches OBP all the time?
Way to go, Griff.
Woot. Good going, Junior.
Nice Junior!
I love how Ichiro runs the bases tilted like a racing motorcycle.
Ichiro is so fast that when he runs, the world actually spins faster under him.
My favorite player to watch run is Lopez. He does the Fred Flintstone tiptoe bowling approach the entire time.
Lopez is fun to watch, but then you think, oh, right, he’s on my team. Ugh!
I think the Angels are used to Raul in left… Looked like Matthews rounded first then realized “Oh crap! It’s not Ibanez out there anymore!”
Matthews forgot Raul wasn’t out there.
Ha – Ichiro wanted 4 outs in the inning!
Does anyone pop out more than Yuni? Geez!
Wow, how many pitches did Santana have to throw?
So far Javakowskiwowskivinibuscus has looked great.
He, however, he has thrown a fastball first pitch every single at bat, except one. And to top it off, every single one has been on the left hand side of the plate.
His fastball and changeup have the exact same movement left and right, but are completely different speeds, separated by 12 miles per hour!
He’ll probably need to throw a few off-speeds for strikes to keep the Angel’s honest.
Updated, he has thrown some curves first pitch now… I’m a little behind.
Dave is having a seriously hard time telling the difference between a change and a curve… But we still love him.
Anyone know what happened to Abreu?
I was surprised to see the break on Jak’s curveball at 15 inches. I knew the break was high, but I didn’t realize it was that high.
Does anyone know what an “average” curveball break is?
Santana could go 14 innings at this pace.
Yeah, that move to the 2 hole made Adrian much more patient.
So Santana has thrown 26 pitches to the first 10 M’s batters – Jak has thrown 51. The Angels are getting 5 pitches per at bat, they will have Jak out by the 6th inning and then will tear into our bullpen, assuming they don’t get to Jak before that.
Jack has been throwing MUCH harder later in counts. He’s backing off with his first pitch fastballs, and then throwing harder ones later in the at bats…
Just love to see him throw a few more change-ups…
Yum, Shari’s Berries…and me stuck here in Alaska…
Dang.
Curveball so sweet Figgins doesn’t even try to bunt on it.
Nice little play by Beltre.
Plays like that from Beltre make me feel slightly better when he chases sliders 6 inches off the plate.
I’m wondering if Felix’s laboring pitching yesterday lead to poor defense. The guys are looking pretty sharp there tonight, but Jak’s also moving things right along.
Betancourt should probably just stand up there and wait for high fastballs… Cause he can’t hit much else, and he’ll take a lot more pitches that way.
There is sooooo much shame for the AL West teams trailing the Rangers in the standings.
Why? They’re at least as good as any other team in this division.
Apparently Santana doesn’t appreciate getting run against.
Exactly my point.
Nice at bats from the 9 and 1 hitters. Quality, quality stuff.
Now Yuni knows what its like to be the runner stranded at 3rd.
That was painful to watch.
Nice catch, Ichiro. That makes up for your crappy AB.
Ichiro!
Why? They’re at least as good as any other team in this division.
I mean this guy is in their bullpen right now.
Am I just in a foul mood from all the losing over the last 2 weeks or is Ichiro looking just a hair Raulish this year? Not slow but just not as fast? Not quite anticipating the ball as quickly? It has to happen some time but I was hoping it would be like, I dunno, another 5 years or so.
I hate you, Chone Figgins.
Jakubauskas is getting near his season high of 105 pitches, which was his last start.
BBWAAAHHH!! Oh, wait, I shouldn’t be laughing.
If I have to hear one more time how well/hard Beltre’s hitting the ball, yet it’s always caught/he’s thrown out, I’m going to scream.
He is 35 1/2 years old…
Keeping Junior honest.. Don’t want that guy running all over you.
If Jakubauskas can hold the Angels to no runs through 6 innings, why can’t Felix? Perhaps Carlos Silva gave Felix some tips during the WBC.
I know. Tongue was wedged in my cheek when I typed ‘5 years’.
If Russell had stayed still, that ball would have gone behind his knees.
Sarcasm never works on the `net.
Sure, Ichiro(!) might be getting a little slower, but at least he never goes on the DL from actually getting hurt… Something that I think occasionally gets overlooked with him.
Ah, crud… Bullpen…
Where is the 151?
Did Simms really just give a stat of Batista’s ERA when pitching from the bullpen for longer than 2 innings?
Bob Uecker would be so proud
Who is the pirate standing next to Rick Griffin?
Did anyone else see the FSN show about Dave Niehaus’s 10 favorite calls in Mariner history? I assumed Edgar’s double would be number 1. But it was only number two.
Did you know that, in general, starters have a lower ERA when they go seven innings than when they go three?
What was 1?
“Everybody scores”?
I love it when Beltre cuts in front of Yuni like that.
Good news folks! Batista has allowed no runs by AL West teams that start with “A” in games where he ate pancakes for breakfast.
Has Johjima gotten a ball out of the infield grass?
Again, Yuni hits a high fastball.
Number 1 was the first pitch in Mariner history.
First pitch, followed by 17 years of absolute futility…
I was at last night’s game, and they posted this about Batista. “Batista’s ERA in night games is 2.72.” Thing is, his total ERA was 2.70 (I might be wrong about the exact numbers here. In fact I probably am. But the difference was .02 anyways).
Oh yeah and don’t get me started on some of the stuff the people behind me were saying, which makes it ok for these ridiculous stats apparantly. I do consider myself a baseball snob, but when the 2 guys sat behind me and declared their surprise that John Wetteland would agree to be the coach for the Mariners after giving up the double to Edgar in ‘95 and having to watch the clip all the time… Let’s just say I knew I was in for a long night.
Good bloody lord.
Did Yuni just make a heads up play…?
*Shocksupriseamazement*
And worse, was that it wasn’t Wetteland that gave that up anyways.. It was BlackJack McDowell…
Now Yuni knows how it feels to be stranded on third again. Ichiro knows how thick headed Yuni is about kearning new things, and wanted to make sure he got the point.
Did anyone see Yuni actually make a play behind the bag?
Or did Cedeno come in?
Okay… Apparently the inside third of the plate has a hole that isn’t a strike.
I hope Wak leaves Lowe out there for the ninth.
Lowe!!
Anyone listen to The Sports Guy podcast today?
He was arguing with his buddy about how Jeter is, and Simmons was looking up the stats and reading them off.
Turns out that Jeter has a Range Factor of 4.31, which puts him 10th.
He then went over the three below him.
Orlando Cabrera
Yuni “Who’s just a train wreck”
Bartlett, who should be playing 2B
It’s not just us that have noticed…
Izturis looked shocked that Lowe threw him a fastball.
Don’t think this wasn’t lost on me.
Junior HR time….
In the AL or majors?
Griffey is an OBP machine.
Griffey knew that last ball was a strike, and just looked at Wendelstadt like “okay, if you say so..”
BALK!!!!
Wow that was ugly….
Can Wakamatsu come in and hit for Kenji?
Man, it doesn’t seem to matter who the M’s bat cleanup.
I’m pretty sure the ball was already in the catcher’s mitt when Kenji swung at that…
Kenji got one out of the infield!!!
Let’s hope Aardsma can find the plate tonight.
I hate that Match 4 commercial.
I don’t know if I can watch this…
I am willing to upgrade Aardsma from “that guy” to “that guy we got from Boston” if he can get this save.
Aardsma really has mastered that 375-405 foot out.
I like having a big park in the bottom of the ninth.
Haha Sims just said good breaking ball on a 96mph pitch to hunter!
Did Simms just call that 98 MPH fastball a “breaking ball?”
What the hell?
Change up please.
96*
Sit down Torii. Nice to see him not kill the M’s for once. One more out…
That’s our boy.
Nice how Blowers corrects Sims without correcting him.
If they pull this off, it’ll be yet another one run game. This is maddening!
In the AL AND the majors. The NL doesn’t appear to have very good SS.
what is our one run game count? 41?
No not a walk, and now Willits.
Correction: 11th in the majors.
Here’s the link.
He never makes it easy does he?? C’mon Double A.
Oh great it can’t be a Mariners save without someone getting walked in the 9th inning.
Uh-oh.
Holy shit.
YES!!!
1-0 wow.
Whew!
MARINERS WIN!! YAY!!
That’s great seeing Jr. with his hat on backwards having a good time. Now he just needs to keep hitting.
Picked up a game on Texas too. If they can get back to .500, I think Texas falls back a bit too. They’re on pace for around 95 wins and I can’t see that happening.
Last year he was 16th out of 18 qualified SS’s.
And all that for only 22 million a year.
Wait, wasn’t Bartlett’s play at SS the key to Tampa’s defensive renaissance last season? Who says he should be playing 2b?
His OBP is now over .360, and his OPS is getting near to .800
Griffey’s OBP is second on the team 20 points behind Branyan, one point above Ichiro.
After tonight’s game, his BA went up 14 points…
Wow, a 1-0 win with Jak starting. I hope Felix is taking notes. He better stop being a moron and just throw what Johjima calls for.
What is that, three 1-0 wins this season? Amazing. What do you guys think of Batista pitching the 7th inning in a 1-0 game? Pitching him in high leverage situations and hoping he does well so we can trade him?
Make him watch “Bull Durham”, and then explain to him, that he is, in fact, Meat.
NIce win.
I am so excited because I met David Aardsma at the Moyer Foundation luncheon today. Cal Ripken spoke and received the foundation’s humanitarian award. He also gave props to A-Rod for his respect in the 2001 All Star game nod at Safeco, reported here.
As soon as I recognized Aardsma when he walked by me he and his wife stopped to say hi. I told him we were happy to have them in Seattle and he seemed really happy to hear it. He said he wanted to win against the Angels and I told him if there was a team we needed to beat the most it was the Angels (what I really wanted to say was let’s beat the Red Sox).
Aardsma was the only Mariner there aside from John Olerud and some of the broadcasters.Perhaps hi attendance at the top baseball-related charity fundraiser is frosting on top of his 5-5 save cake.
They are playing the Soggy Bottom Boys in the clubhouse again during the interview with Jakubauskas.
Did anyone catch that add for something free at Arby’s when the Mariner’s hit three or more home runs in a game?
10:15 and just back from the game.
Wind was blowing in like crazy all game. Of course, if that’s the case, trying to hit fly balls out of the park isn’t a good strategy, Adrian and Wlad.
Jak was fantastic. Figgins had a 13-pitch at-bat first up, and then he really bore down and did a great job of not getting into trouble. You look up, it’s the seventh inning and the Angels have two hits. Not a bad game at all.
Batista, it’s really hard to get angry about him nowadays, is it? Whatever Wak asks him to do, he does, and that’s it. If Wak wanted him to finish the game tonight, I’m guessing he would have (not saying he’d have shut down the Angels, mind you).
The play Figgins made on Beltre was simply superb. Ichiro made a great play on the foul ball as well. And Yuni seemed less out of position compared to his usual placement, which allowed him to get to a couple of balls.
No baserunners=no stolen base attempts. Funny how that worked.
It was nice to see some swings and misses.
Putting Joh, Lopez and Yuni one after another can guaranty a fast inning for the other team, but it felt like Wak and the coaching staff said something because after the third, they started making Santana work, and lo and behold, he went from about a 6-1 strike-ball ratio to about 1:1 for the rest of the game.
Tiny crowd, cold as hell, but a nice win.