Game 37, A’s at Mariners
Maurer vs Parker, 6:10 pm.
And now we get to the part of the rotation that is why the Mariners are not a good team. The gulf between Hernandez/Iwakuma and Maurer/Saunders/Harang is just so vast. Maurer is in for a bit of a test tonight, as the A’s can load their line-up with LHBs, who have owned him so far this year. With six left-handed hitters, and the right-handed bats including Yoenis Cespedes, this is a pretty good test to see if Maurer’s change-up is making any progress. If it’s all sliders all the time tonight, expect Oakland to put up crooked numbers early.
And the disaster OF defense makes another return, since Raul hit a home run last night and Major League managers absolutely are bound by yesterday’s performance when setting the line-up. Good thing Maurer’s not a contact pitcher who relies on his defe… oh.
1. Saunders, CF
2. Seager, 3B
3. Morales, DH
4. Morse, RF
5. Smoak, 1B
6. Ibanez, LF
7. Ackley, 2B
8. Shoppach, C
9. Ryan, SS
Opportunities missed. That’s the story of the game. Oh well.
Saunders continues to impress. Everything about his game is solid.
Way to give the game to A’s. Guess the ump wanted to get to his barstool, like now.
Stranded 7 runners those last 3 innings. Shoppach should have been on 2nd when Saunders got the hit. Or maybe if we didn’t have a horribly constructed roster a pinch runner would have been used for Shoppach and he, being a good runner, would have done the job. Sure, maybe Saunders at bat goes differently with a guy on 2nd but it gets really old seeing a handicapped roster in late close ball games.
It isn’t Ackley’s fault he gets squeezed in almost every at bat. There were four or five times in the second half of last season where the ump called strike three when the ball was at least 3-4 inches off of the plate to end the game. I’d agree that he needs to realize what is happening to him and start being more aggressive but it isn’t like he’s not swinging at pitches out over the plate.
How about a Bunt? Isn’t there some sort of statistic that more guys score from second on a line drive base hit than from first?
Losing Jaso still isn’t the problem.
Jaso- .255/.339/.663 4dbl’s 1 hr
Shoppach .264/.371/.843 5dbl’s 2 hr.
The Morse/Kendrys additions aren’t the problem. The problem is once again the lack of anything at all out of Ackley/Smoak/Montero in 2013. The young guys don’t step up, we lose. All year. All next year. Forever. Maybe we eventually become the 1st team to add 7 position players via free-agency and hit it big.
You have to pinch hit for Andino there. God dam it. Yes it means that you have a shit defense on the field if you tie (never mind that you fucking start Raul so obviously you don’t care about defense). It is better to go the extras with a shit defense than to lose in 9. If you don’t understand that, you have no business managing an MLB team, or announcing or talking on the radio after games. It’s that fucking simple.
The problem is once again the lack of anything at all out of Ackley/Smoak/Montero in 2013.
Quit looking for scapegoats, Ackley had a hit and drove in a run tonight, and Smoak had a hit and walked twice and scored two runs. Montero didn’t play.
If you wanted to point fingers you could point at Morse, but that wouldn’t fit the narrative.
The Mariners are getting better this year but the progress is coming slowly. If someone told me at the beginning of the season we’d be 1 1/2 games out of 2nd place in the middle of May, and hadn’t lost a series in three weeks I would take that. Especially with Saunders and Gutierrez having stints on the DL, and Morse breaking a finger.
Adding to Kazinski’s rebuttal, losing Jaso certainly didn’t help and it’s worth noting we needed another catcher regardless. If you’re going to compare Jaso’s line to anyone, it should be Morse.
But there’s more to it than that. Jaso still has a great OBP, even after tonight. He also has 10 RBI’s hitting in the top of the order and in a platoon role. Shoppach had 5 RBI’s coming into the game. Morse has 15, but with a .278 OBP.
It’s a collective problem the M’s have. Losing key players, not getting enough out of a few others, lack of production from some of the new faces….. it all adds up. Poor roster construction leads to poor results.
Having said that, I’m actually surprised we’re not further back than what we are.
I’m not speaking about tonights game in particular. People mention we’d be better with Bourn/Swisher on our team since they are playing well, instead of the Morse/Morales type set-up JackZ gave us. No matter who you bring in the “young guys” will determine our future level of success. We need them to improve and I watch every game rooting for it, not against it.
Comparing Jaso to Shoppach is reasonable, but to be fair I’d have to compare Morse to whoever they’d have in the OF you’re right.
It’s funny how people initially thought Morse was the Mariner Messiah, and now he’s a scapegoat. But really, the blame should be the team’s – he probably should’ve gone on the DL when he broke his finger, but thanks to the 2013 roster construction they didn’t (or couldn’t) do that.
His true talent level is actually much closer to the guy he’s been, overall, so far than to the guy who was homering every game – but a career .841 OPS is pretty decent (Seager’s 2013 OPS is .826). He is what he is – a strong guy with injury issues who doesn’t get on-base enough to be a great hitter. He’s still a good hitter; but all those people (like GB) who saw six home runs in six days and proclaimed what a lopsided trade that was and how bemoaning the loss of Jaso was laughable are now hopefully learning the definition of “perspective”.
P.S. Condor’s OPS so far in 2013 has been .874.
Well said, Westy.
@evolvingcaveman
I don’t think anyone here is routing against any of our players. And the point is that everyone, not just younger players (I’d argue that Smoak isn’t young anymore), need to step it up.
Morse and Morales are good hitters. The Mariners needed good hitters. But they also needed good outfielders. Jack didn’t do that, and none of these guys likely figure into the long term plan, which is important to take note of, because there’s very little outfield talent/depth in the system.
The young infielders, catchers, and pitchers will factor heavily into the team’s success in the future. But it’s likely going to be veterans we’ll depend on for outfield production. Maybe we’ll get lucky with Romero, but Morse shouldn’t be a starting outfielder, which leaves us with just Saunders as things sit for next season. Gutierrez isn’t likely coming back, unless it’s an incentive-laced deal, and even then, it’s not like he can be counted on to start regularly.
This team really needed guys like Swisher and Bourn. It would have (potentially) solved two problems for several years or longer. Instead, we got Bay, Ibanez, Morse, and Morales for one year. Maybe Morse will get re-signed, but he should be at DH or 1B, and we’ll still be right back where we started this offseason with less options available.
So what then? Trade? Overpay for someone like Ellsbury? I would have preferred they dealt with the issue last offseason. If they were willing to shell-out for Hamilton, they should have been willing to pay a little more for TWO players that could have made things a lot better and easier. The fact that those two both landed in Cleveland on reasonable contracts says a lot about their availability.
Maybe some people have eased-off with their anger/frustration directed at Eric and Jack, but I haven’t. Regardless of how close we are or get to .500, this offseason was ridiculous and those two haven’t done anything to convince me they’re competent for the jobs they hold.
This is not a team that screams “We’re close to competing!”. I’ll cheer them on and hope for the best, but I won’t be placing money on them.
Good comment and I do agree with you 95%. Swisher and Bourn were obvious needs that the front office didn’t make happen and set us up to be where we are at now(terrible OF). I didn’t mind Morse as much as others with Guti and Saunders beside him and thought Kendrys would help at 1b/dh. I didn’t have the problem with the 1year deals since to me it felt as if we were in the last stages of figuring out who our core group was going to be going forward and could add some help around those holes later. Basically, I was relying on some improvement as it appears JackZ was. I don’t think it’s possible to fill all our needs through free-agency and keep coming back to the realization that our young players/prospects have to step up and produce.
Keeping all the others in place I’m curious how many games better you would see us being with bourn/swisher/jaso rather than morse/kendrys/shoppach. Feels like a couple more maybe. Is there a straight sabermetric answer that gets us close? I’m trying to evolve I swear.
A better slash line from ackley/monetro/smoak(I’m thinking a plain .260+ avg)on the other hand adds up to a much bigger impovement, perhaps 5-6 more wins in my pea brain. Maybe that’s just the irrational leftover from the bases loaded failure we’ve seen. I’m still hopeful that JackZ is the right guy but I’m over Wedge.