Game Two, Mariners vs Oakland @ Tokyo
Vargas vs Colon, ungodly a.m.
Hey, remember how Mike Carp was going to be the everyday left fielder? Not saying that Eric Wedge has already changed his mind, but Carp isn’t playing in game two, even with a right-handed pitcher on the mound. Instead, Kyle Seager is getting his line-up spot, and Chone Figgins has moved to left field for the game.
Now, this is absolutely the right move, as Vargas is an extreme flyball left-hander, so there’s going to be a lot of balls hit out to left, and Carp isn’t particularly good at that whole defense thing. You could argue for Wells in left instead of Figgins, but Seager gets another left-handed bat in the line-up against a righty, and as much as I know everyone hates Figgins, we just have to realize that he’s going to be in the line-up most days to start the season. So, it was Seager or Wells, and against an RHP, going with Seager is probably the better option.
So, kudos to Eric Wedge for this move and running out a line-up that gives the team a better chance to win, even if it forced him to bench his “everyday left fielder” in game two of the season.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Montero, DH
Seager, 3B
Olivo, C
Saunders, CF
Ryan, SS
Also, despite my statement earlier in the week, no live blog for this one. The game starts in four hours and I haven’t even gone to bed since getting up this morning to watch the first one. If I do make it out of bed in time to watch Game Two, I won’t have any ability to form coherent sentences. FanGraphs is doing a live blog again, though, so you could join in on that one, or just hang out in the comments here. Or sleep. That’s an idea too.
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133 Responses to “Game Two, Mariners vs Oakland @ Tokyo”
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Seeing how we’re losing, I’ll take extras over a loss.
So…
The Cuban kid can hit mistakes… That’s good to know.
(I was just about to say “Kelley knows if he keeps leaving pitches up they leave the yard, right?”)
did Root Sports just try and rip off the sound track to Inception with that montage?
For some reason it seems odd to be hearing “Blitzkrieg Bop” in the Tokyo Dome.
Fail.
Oh, man…
double damn
Well this fell apart in a hurry.
Regression to the mean.
The back end of our bullpen is exactly as good as advertised.
Root jinxed this inning when they put up “End of 7th” on the on-screen graphic right before the two-run homer.
Should have left Vargas in there. Yanked after 86 pitches? Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.
Well, on the bright side– Vargas really WAS pitching pretty good, it’s not just the A’s lineup.
Good.
Yay.
I like the whole ‘mixing up your pitches’ thing Delabar does… He should sit by Kelley and Sherrill.
I miss Guti already. Damnit Saunders!
The Seattle Mariners – resurrecting opposing pitchers’ careers since 2005.
Rally coffee anyone?
Okay, I’m leaving the DVR running but given the way the game is going I’m going to try getting at least a couple hours sleep. Good night everyone.
Good morning?
Heh, the way the game is going it’s going to be over in 10 minutes anyway with a 1-2-3 top of the 9th….
JMB: I wonder if there are people who don’t know that the M’s are broadcasting from Bellevue who brought rally fries signs.
Just had rally coffee and a rally scone. Mmm, scone.
more fail.
Oh, COME ON.
Need some simple kind of baserunners….
stick a fork in us, we’re done.
and back to bed…..
From the perspective of having a full nights sleep and not having watched the game, the “switch” appears to have definitely been flipped in an “offensive” way.
And from the perspective of only having read enough of the thread comments to get a flavor of events without an excessive amount of detail: should someone start making a case to move the fences in at the Tokyo dome? Apologies if someone has already mentioned it previously.
Non Ichiro’s in the two game series: 8 for 51 … If early morning math skills are functioning correctly.
Thank goodness there’s another week of spring training for the boys to work out that whole “drawing a walk” thing.
Or, even accounting for the b.s. strike zone, that whole “being able to foul off pitches and work counts against mediocre second-string pitchers”.
I’m not going to overreact when there’s 159 games left, but my sentiment here is the same as it was before the trip to Japan: I don’t know if I can take another season of the team misunderstanding what Wedge means when he says “be aggressive”.
Well, if Wedge is combining that with his other message of “Olivo is a guy who has a good approach at the plate”, I can fully understand how they could “misunderstand” his mantra on agressiveness.
“I’m not going to overreact when there’s 159 games left,”
Good, but save that comment until after their 3rd game. With 160 games left – there is more time to pre-plan for possible over/under reactions .. and for that, I am thankful.
“Non Ichiro’s in the two game series: 8 for 51 … If early morning math skills are functioning correctly.”
Well, my early morning math skills turned out to be pure crap. The non-Ichiro’s batting line after the first two games is actually 8 for 60 (.133)
The “Non-Ichiro’s” will probably be able to go through the rest of the season without having a 2-game batting line worse than this.
Probably.