Game 67, Angels At Mariners
Vargas vs Haren, 7:10 pm.
Dustin Ackley is still in Tacoma. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. We’re well under the service time threshold for Super Two status from the last few years, and while the expectation is that the number of days required to qualify will be lower if it’s still around when Ackley would be eligible, it’s hard to believe that the number would be this low. At this point, the only explanation I can come up with is that they’re simply not willing to turn third base into a Figgins/Kennedy platoon yet. While I still don’t think this team is a contender, they are 1 1/2 games out of first place, and Ackley is probably the third best hitter in the organization right now – they can worry about rescuing some of Figgins value down the stretch if the team does fade from the race. It’s not like he’s going to have any trade value by July 31st anyway.
Essentially, that was a long-winded way of saying Dustin Ackley has no more business in Tacoma and should be starting at second base for the Mariners tonight. That he’s not is… disappointing.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Kennedy, 2B
Olivo, C
Peguero, LF
Gutierrez, CF
Carp, DH
Figgins, 3B
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146 Responses to “Game 67, Angels At Mariners”
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Jr needs to go down and sweet talk Hultzen and get him to sign after the CWS is over. Pay him what he wants and get him in the org. They were obviously not afraid of his signing demands so get it done.
Tomato. Tamawto.
Until about a week ago, I’d never heard giving an everyday player a one game rest in June a “benching”. That a certain beat writer has a penchant for drama shouldn’t change our vocabulary.
On another note, while I think he appears to have improved a little at the plate since being called up, I’m going to go ahead and wait a bit before annointing Peguero the next Willie Stargell.
GAH!
Dang, just didn’t squeeze the glove. Great play otherwise.
Figgins does something right and Olivo screws it up…awesome…
Bummer-
Poor Figgins, everything he touches goes wrong. Total fluke drop by Olivo, really nice play all around otherwise.
This game stopped being fun in the span of three minutes.
AAAAAAAnd that’s your ballgame…
Olivo-
I love ya, man… BUT!
Damn you. Catch that ball at the plate and we’re golden!
Wait…doesn’t Wells suck?
Ibuprofen-
Unless you live in L.A. and then… “This game suddenly got fun in the span of 3 minutes.”
I hate L.A.
Wells does suck… except when you give him a @#$% pitch to hit. Didn’t Vargas learn the first time???
Griffey called Felix-Pineda “the best 1-2 combination in baseball”.
Excuse me, Mr. Griffey – Philadelphia’s on line 2…
Well’s came and saw Figgin’s stats and got a bit of confidence.
Couldn’t resist, and I need to feel good about this game anyway.
What a stupid thing to argue about, so ok, you win.
And, I don’t formulate opinions based off what that hack writes, FYI. I assume you mean Baker, and I rarely read his stuff. We can probably agree that he sucks.
Westy-
You’re like the “ballplayer comparison” police tonight! *laughs*
Hyperbole has a tendency to be, uh, flexible with its factuality.
Maybe this is why when you call up a guy who is crushing the ball in Tacoma……. you don’t sit him every other day and let Cust hit. We’ve completely cooled Carp off! Freaking insane! Why is Cust even hitting? We know what we have in him. And it isn’t a whole lot. Well, hopefully Carp can get comfortable, but the way I see them handling him, he’ll sit tomorrow and Cust gets to play.
We put the “hyper” in hyperbole! 😀
Ackley 2/3 so far tonight (T7). Nice to see him getting back on track after his day off.
Hehe Carson.
SeattleSonsofBaseball–
You must not have seen the same Carp at bat against Haren that I saw… “Crushing the ball in Tacoma” evidently doesn’t translate as well in the majors as we’d like it to. I’m all for Carp succeeding, but I do like the thought of letting him get up to speed in lower leverage situations.
(And Cust has been barely playing since Carp came up– yeah?)
Does anyone have any idea how you change your username link?
I don’t have that blog anymore. The new one sucks, too, but in case the other one becomes a horse pr0n site, I’d like to switch it out. I swear I’ve looked everywhere.
Carson-
Clever use of italics. Did you by chance study fencing while at Yale? (Pary, jab…)
Carson – http://www.ussmariner.com/wp-admin/
Carson-
I don’t know how to change it, but if by chance the other one becomes a horse porn site, will you let us know!!! (I kid, of course…)
Well, I’ll be darned. I’d never have thought to click into the admin link. Figured that was for, well, admins.
Is Smoak that slow??
I really, really don’t like this pinch-running for Smoak business.
Although, every time Wedge has done it, it’s resulted in some sort of extra base hit that Olerud could have scored on. So, if Kennedy goes yard, huzzah.
I’m so glad Jack Wilson was on the base paths to do that.
CLUTCHlivo time? <_<
We need a herolivo…
Ackley with a ground rule double. Three hits tonight.
Instead we got zerolivo
Yarr. I still do not get fuzzy feelies when Chris Ray is in a game.
The only team I hate losing to more than the New York Yankees of Bronx are the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
It really sounds stupid when you try it with other teams.
The Dallas Cowboys of Arlington. The Tampa Bay Rays of St Petersburg. The Seattle SuperSonics of Oklahoma City.
Wow, Abreu’s the type of player that just doesn’t do a whole lot wrong…but he was out by a good foot and a half there.
Disappointing game. I hate losing to the Angels.
Danny Hultzen did him some DHing tonight, but went 0-4. Virginia won, though, and is in the CWS.
Ackley is on-deck, a chance for a 4 hit night.
Errrm. What?
We need offense. Badly. Sorry Figgy….but I say we bench you, trade some prospects for Betemit, call up Ackley and have Kennedy be our new McLemore.
Also read an interesting blurb about how Detroit might want to move Magglio Ordonez to a team wanting a DH and suggested a bad contract-swap situation. Figgy for Ordonez?
So we should trade Figgins for a guy who basically can’t play a position, who costs slightly more, and who is currently hitting worse (.168/.229/.228) than Figgins? And you want this guy at DH?
I just want to be sure I’ve got that straight.
In short, yes.
He’s been out for over a month and was playing hurt before that, so I’m not at all going to judge his hitting ability based on a low batting average right now. He hit .303 last year and has a lifetime average of .309, and even if his power is slipping at 37, he’ll still hit with more authority than Figgy, and pitchers will absolutely respect him more. He’s mainly a DH now…but he could be thrown in the outfield occasionally. Hell, we have Peguero out there now.
Would I trade anything useful for him, no. Would I trade Figgins for him, knowing he is gone next season? Yes. It’s really not all that bad of an idea when you strip it down to pros and cons. This article seems to agree with me.
http://www.foxsportsdetroit.com/06/13/11/Could-the-Tigers-trade-Magglio-Ordonez/landing_tigers.html?blockID=532304&feedID=3701
Hmmm, if the Tigers assume the remainder of Figgins’ contract years, I think I’d be all over that deal since it would free up Mariner cash in the next 2 seasons.
But I would bet the Tigers would want significant cash sent their way, and then I would be less interested.
I guess it depends. The Tigers are lucky in the first place that they aren’t paying him 15 million this year instead of only 10…he didn’t get the required plate appearances last season for it to kick in. So they should count their own blessings. But yeah….the freedom from two more years of a bad contract would be worth every bit as much as the player himself. Or more.