Yay, we won
Nice to see the defense, Yuni included, make some nice plays tonight. Effort is ridiculously hard to discern through a television (or, in my case, a laptop screen), but it sure seemed like he was running a lot harder than usual, both on defense and on the base paths. I couldn’t believe he got to that ball up the middle – he hasn’t been within a few feet of similar ground balls earlier this year.
Oh, and I just want to throw this out there, since I know that the team’s struggles with RISP will lead to some inevitable comments about the team not coming through with clutch hits and failing to “do their job” when they had men on base.
Ichiro, Griffey, Branyan: 3 for 9, 3 walks, .333/.500/.444 for the night
The six RHBs: 2 for 20, 1 walk, .100/.142/100 for the night
The three left handed bats in the line-up had no problems getting on base against Santana/Arredondo. The six right handed bats were useless.
I know it’s beating a dead horse, but if the Mariners want to score more runs, they have to replace one or two of Beltre/Lopez/Betancourt/Johjima/Gutierrez/Balentien with left-handed hitters. These guys can’t hit right handed pitching. Having six automatic outs in the line-up is going to lead to a lot of wasted rallies. Change the roster or change the expectations – there’s no reason to complain about these guys failing to do something they’re incapable of doing.
Where are some possible landing spots for Beltre and Lopez? We’ve heard about a rumor of Betancourt for Wilson that may or may not be true…Gutierrez is not going anywhere and Balentien I am willing to give some more time to.
Beltre is likely not back next year…any thoughts on teams that could use a 3B? Would anyone trade for Lopez?
Need some hope/possibilities of where these guys could actually go.
how much was the pitching a plus compared to the defense. A 30 year old rookie with out a strike out pitche out pitches the “King”?
Too bad all of those LH mashers down in Tacoma are all the 1B/DH type and Clement’s knee is bothering him.
If I could magically rid of any of those righties it would be Johjima. In terms of value/contract/production he’s probably worse than Lopez and Yuni.
Yeah Joh isn’t doing much offensively these days….
Hello. Jeff Clement, 955 OPS vs. righties. Even with a bad knee, he can pinch hit.
We need at least one more decent LH bat, probably two.
The interesting thing is going to be the next month. If the Team keeps playing the way they are, you’re stuck with a no-win situation as a GM.
Too close to 1st for a fire sale and not close enough that one or two pieces make the differance.
Z has his work cut out for him this summer.
In person, the effort looked quite increased for both Yuni and Lopez tonight. If they could play with that much focus every night, we wouldn’t be as pissed off at them as normal. Yuni also looked like he was parlaying his newfound patience into good pitches to hit, with 2 solid line drives to left field.
The way he handled things over the winter, I think we should have full confidence that in the summer he’ll make some quality moves.
The Mets need a first baseman, and we have like 1400 of them between Seattle and Tacoma, along with Beltre.
Is there really not a single team with a SS, LF, CF, or 2B left handed hitter that wants one of our half-dozen players on the trading block?
From the computer screen it looked increased as well. Both guys looked like they took pride in playing middle infield defense for a change.
Is it out of the realm of possibility that this team could maybe, possibly improve those God awful batting lines with just improved patience?
I know it’s beating a dead horse, but if the Mariners want to score more runs, they have to replace one or two of Beltre/Lopez/Betancourt/Johjima/Gutierrez/Balentien with left-handed hitters. These guys can’t hit right handed pitching.
This is all true except for Balentien. Balentien has actually had no discernable split until this year but there is an extremely small sample size and his OPS is still .690 vs. RH so while not good it is not a black hole. However, I agree with the sentiment.
and by improve I mean just a little to where occasionally they’ll get a pitch they can hit. I’m not expecting Wlad to turn into Albert Pujols, but a little patience will give them better numbers provided the Safe doesn’t kill any power shots and gappers.
I hate to beat the dead horse, but call up Jeff Clement and send down Rob Johnson. Problem partially solved. This blog calls for more LH hitters every day for 2B/SS/C/3B and we have a power hitting LH hitting catcher at AAA. Its not he has to be that much better than Johjima hitting or defensively…
Could any of the LH Tacoma guys play LF to platoon with Balentien? Or if they couldn’t, could you play Branyan out there and play one of them at 1B?
So, if you need a LH platoon with Balentien and/or Gutierrez, why isn’t Chavez starting against RHP? The difference between Chavez’s LH bat plus his defense versus a LH Tacoma guys isn’t worth the extra roster spot.
So… against LH starters both Gutz and Balentien should start.
Against RH starters, rest Balentien or Gutierrez depending on who needs the rest.
I think some serious Lopez trade talks are in order.
Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over over again expecting different results?
It’s what I think of every time I see such a RH-favored lineup. Wak and Z have to realize the futility in sending out these lineups every night – why do they continue to do it?
There are two left handed bats down in Tacoma that need to be in the M’s line up.
Call up Clement and send down Johnson. While we wait for Clements knee to come around he can play back up to and get a couple of pinch hit AB’s. When his knee recovers give him another opportunity to prove himself as a big league C.
Talk to the A’s about any interest in Beltre. With Chavez unlikely able to contribute further they may be willing to give up some talent for one gold glove. While the Mariners would miss the great D this could create an opening to move Russel the Muscle over to 3B for the rest of the season and open up a spot at 1B for Mike Carp to show us what he can do at the major league level. If he is anything close to his Rainiers performance then make him a fixture at 1B and let him play.
L RF Ichiro
R 2B Lopez
L DH Griffey Jr
L 3B Branyan
R LF Balentien
L 1B Carp
R CF Gutierrez
L C Clement
R SS Betancourt
Dave, in person it was entirely as you saw it on TV. Was it positioning, reaction time or effort, or a combination of all three, I can’t say. I will say that this is just the sort of thing that managing, in the active sense, can accomplish. How long, how well, depends on who’s doing the managing and who’s being managed. Yuni seems like he’s on a roller coaster ride the past week. Today was the up side.
As I said in the game thread, having Kenji, Lopez and Yuni together in the lineup is like telling your starting pitcher he’s going to be pitching two consecutive innings without a break. I can’t understand why Wak doesn’t see this and either move Gutz up in between them or break the thing up entirely I don’t know. But the one time that Jak got in trouble was when he had had the world’s quickest seven pitch inning ahead of him. These guys don’t even step out of the box.
If only this was a law regarding baseball discussion on the internet….
2008 USSM Mantra: “defense is important…defense is important…defense is important…”
The new M’s brain trust feels the same way and we’re seeing the value in our vastly improved outfield defense. Yay!
And here, 1/4th of the way through the 2009 season, in this thread, I’m reading commenters suggest that we should:
a) Bring bum-kneed Clement up.
b) Ship off Beltre (to a division rival no less)
c) Move Branyan to 3rd.
Seth & Amy say “REALLY?!?!”
Since Wak seems to hate pinch hitting for anyone ever, bringing Clement up now seems like a waste of a roster space.
Beltre’s quirky errors and absence at the plate nothwithstanding, he’s still the best defensive infielder we’ve got.
Moving Branyan to 3rd seems like a “let’s try Ibanez or Edgar in Center” kind of move.
If you could somehow get us a hot glove at 3rd in exchange for Beltre (as I agree its unlikely that he’d sign with us for a reasonably diminished price)…ok.
Start platooning Chavez (who Wak seems to have lost interest in) & Balantien (who Wak seems to think is capable of breaking out as an every day power hitter)…ok.
Seeing Wak put together a line-up/batting order that better manages our offensive shortcomings more often…DEFINITELY ok.
But the answer to our problems isn’t bringing up Clement, erasing Beltre or moving Branyan.
(I think the answer is probably: “a year or two away”. Smart rebuilding from the rubble left behind can take time.)
The thing is Yuni does have the ability to hit right handers better than he has this year. He had two nice hits off Santana last night and his three year splits show 700 OPS vs. RHP. The stolen bases last night were nice to see. It is reasonable to expect improvements from him going forward.
Likewise Lopez, this year, is at .535 OPS vs. RHB. His three year splits show 700 OPS vs. RHB. Shouldn’t we expect improvements?
It’s the same thing with Kenji. His three year splits show nearly identical OPS vs. RHP and LHP. Kenji is actually hitting worse against LHP than RHP this year (small sample size).
Did all these guys lose the ability to hit RHP all of a sudden? Why would that be? In Kenji’s case, we can cite age and catcher wear but Lopez and Yuni should not be declining yet. Granted, they were never great hitters to start but they are capable of doing much better.
I guess it could be a group effect. You often hear that hitting is contagious. Since no one is getting on base, the players press and their performance suffers. Something like that does seem to be going on with Beltre. I guess we could look at other teams with similar compositions and see if the individual splits are made worse by the group composition. I would be surprised if such a relationship existed.
Replacing any of these guys on the roster with better fits is a great idea. LH and switch hitters, particularly at Safeco, are a great idea. We don’t need to hold a fire sale out of frustratin, however.
I just read on rotoworld.com that apparently multiple teams are interested in Yuni. Take it with a grain of salt because it’s just a rumor and I have no idea of the source. That gives me great hope that Yuni may have a new team soon.
I can’t understand why Wak doesn’t see this and either move Gutz up in between them or break the thing up entirely I don’t know.
Wak and Z have to realize the futility in sending out these lineups every night – why do they continue to do it?
To quote Brent Barry when talking about a terrible Bulls team he was on, “you can’t make chicken soup out of chicken s**t”. Or better yet Donald Rumsfeld, “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time”
I don’t really see much Wak can do that he isn’t already with the current Ms roster (the string of KJ, Lopez and Yuni might be a necessary requirement of lumping your best hitters together which is the best thing you can do in a batting order). As for Z there is nothing he can do immediately since the only major league ready LHs in the minors play 1B/DH/LF which happen to be the three positions already filled by LHs (since Chavez seems to be platooning with Balentien these days). We’ll just have to get used to this until the Ms make a move.
The statistics also don’t indicate that Branyan miseed a HR by a couple of feet, or that Griffey’s outs were hard hit. On the other hand, Beltre hit the ball hard last night and ended up with nothing to show for it.
So how come Jakubauskas can shut this team out with Kenji behind the plate while Felix gets hammered?
Finally, I noticed that the M’s, as a team, seemed to adjust their hitting approach. The first 3 innings, Santana threw 28 pitches and faced 11 batters, a whopping 2.6 pitches per batter. Over the next 3 innings, Santana threw somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pitches. The results didn’t end up any better, but it was encouraging to see.
This site needs a “Question Of The Day” section, because that IS the question of the day.
Some interesting team stats.
M’s vs RHP 680 OPS
M’s vs LHP 708 OPS
687 total OPS
LHB vs M’s 849 OPS
RHB vs M’s 667 OPS (MLB Best)
751 total OPS
It seems that neutralizing left handed batters is as big a prblem (if not a bigger problem) than hitting right hand pitchers. Felix, are you listening?
Except for the new problem you’ve created where you don’t have a second catcher because Clement’s knee prevents him from squatting behind the plate. I’d like to see Clement up from Tacoma too, but he’s strictly a DH at the moment. Or possibly a 1B. The team already has two many of those.
Because Jakubauskas has a plan? Because he doesn’t throw a sequence of sixteen straight fastballs, especially to opposite-handed pitchers? Because he doesn’t shake off Kenji when Kenji sensibly asks for something other than those fastballs? Because he isn’t stupid?
Beltre’s current BABIP: .234 Career average: .291