Game 37, Royals at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Jeremy Guthrie, 1:10pm
Happy Mother’s Day
The M’s have a terrible wOBA and wRC+, and if you’ve watched the team at all, that can’t come as a surprise. Their pitching’s been very solid, albeit not exactly at Tigers-starting-rotation level. There are a couple of ways to look at this: 1) they’ve been lucky in sequencing on both sides of the ball, but they don’t have the talent of Texas/Oakland/Anaheim. 2) This team battles, their starters keep them in just about every game, and the M’s are eminently watchable in mid-May.
There’s a lot of reasons to question the M’s run or see the holes in the squad, but today’s a day to just enjoy the fact that Chris Young was excellent last night and beat Yordano Ventura. That Roenis Elias is on the hill and I’m confident about that. Baseball is really strange.
1: Jones, CF
2: Miller, SS
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Romero, RF
9: Zunino, C
SP: Elias
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44 Responses to “Game 37, Royals at Mariners”
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I keep waiting for the bats to come alive, esp. Miller and Ackley and Seager, maybe todays the day.
Hopefully that home run Ackley hit yesterday will be the spark that he needs to start hitting like he did in the second half of last season.
I realize batting order doesn’t matter much, but Miller is still batting 2nd. I mean really?
You’re preaching to the choir, Jordan.
McLendon seems to put together his batting order based on what type of player he perceives guys to be rather than actual performance. Almonte was a speedy switch-hitter whose energy could make things happen on the bases, so he kept leading off. Shortstops are feisty good contact slap-hitters whose bat control can be used to move that speedster along – so Miller (or Bloomquist, depending on the day) hits second. Etc. etc.
I keep looking at the terrible wOBA and wRC+ and wondering if this team is destined to end up 10 games under .500. The only hope I have is that Miller starts hitting (or whoever plays SS) and Cano starts hitting for power. Corey Hart also has his lowest wOBA and wRC+ since 2005 when he played 21 games. Maybe these guys start hitting better? The current level of performance isn’t going to lead to winning.
Safeco is killing them
So far wRC+
Away 89 (16th)
Home 65 (30th)
Miller is -7 wRC+ at home
Romero is 10
Smoak is 69.
So far only Hart, Seager, Cano, Ackley aren’t doing terribly at Safeco. It a real small SS, however.
If Kyle is still sick, he shouldn’t be playing.
*sigh*
Think I’ll watch the basketball game.
Grand Slam…I’m out.
So, have to wonder if Seager is still sick.
To win this game, the Mariners will at a minimum have to score what they did in the first 3 games combined.
Uh, where is this Ackley power coming from? I like it!
Don’t ask these sort of questions, cali. In the past, there’s been uncomfortable answers.
Jones… what the hell?
They’re sacrificing in the 3rd inning only down by three?
That is on the manager. His guys need to know better than that. Sigh.
e- boy did Miller need that. So did his team.
Huge hit by Miller! He listened to Lloyd!
Brad Miller!
Jones wasn’t sacrificing he was trying to get a bunt hit. He needed to execute better, but it wasn’t a terrible play.
I won’t be sorry to see Escobar come out.
*groan* And out to do yard work.
The defense is killing Elias today.
I have definitely seen better glove work. That first “hit” to Seager – could have easily been scored an error, too.
Seager!
I can’t believe this is a tie game, definitely thought it was over.
Atta boy Kyle. Now let’s see a crisp game defensively – from the team – the rest of the way!
Ackley!!!
Maybe Seager’s feeling better.
Oh my goodness, Dustin Ackley??????????
Its nice to see the bats heating up with the weather.
California, I’m not sure this team is really statistically any better than last year’s squad offensively, but they don’t seem quite as helpless as the Mariners I am used to. They’re not great, just closer to normal.
Or so my untrained eye perceives.
I feel like I’m dreaming. Ackley homered in 3 consecutive plate appearances.
Dennis, I get the same feel.
I’m a little late with this comment, but did anyone else hear Sims and Blowers talk about the “remarkably improved” Justin Smoak? He’s projected to have worse numbers in almost every category this year….
Good gravy – Farquar put it on a tee.
The Lord (Farquhar) givith, The Lord taketh.
Smoak, Seager, Ackley coming up in the 8th and I actually feel like something could happen? Weird
2 more errors – 5 today
Worst ball-strike umping I’ve seen in years.
Three consecutive one-pitch AB’s for Miller. One hit – in what seems like a week – and then right back to hacking.
Horribly played game today. Had to have been their worst defensive game of the year. Tomorrow will need to be better
I got tired and took a nap, then came back to check on the end result. I’m glad I took that nap…
Farquhar… not quite the anointed one of the bull pen as some seemed to imply. I hope today’s performance was just a hiccup, but if he is the best relief pitcher the Mariners have in their current arsenal, that’s not saying much.
Danny got screwed over today.
We shouldn’t make excuses for mediocrity.
Call it whatever you want, but had the umpire been competent, he would have been out of the inning without giving up a run. That being said, he served up a meat pitch to Giavotella. He even said he can’t let the umpires get to him. He’s been pretty solid this year, so no reason to jump him over one bad outing that wasn’t entirely his fault.
Over at Lookout Landing, the game summary included a diagram of the zone called against Farquhar. While certainly there were a few calls on the edges that should’ve went his way, I’d hardly say the ump was incompetent – there was nothing there we haven’t seen every other umpire miss at times. We see stuff right on the border get called a ball a few times in pretty much every game.
That particular pitch was an out, an out that changes the whole dynamic of that inning. And the ball was clearly in the zone. None of the it was touching the corner or just off or just below, it was clearly in the strike zone.
Then go look at the strike one call on Zunino in the bottom of the ninth and tell me he’s a competent umpire.
Danny needed that pitch and he probably (although there are no guarantees) gets out of the inning with that call and we head to the 8th up 7-5 at least. Still might have lost the game after that, no one knows, but sometimes one call can change the outcome of the game.