Game Seven Recap
Dave · April 11, 2010 at 4:30 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Boo, 2-5.
Instead of watching the M’s-Rangers game, I drove over to Greensboro to catch Zach Wheeler’s pro debut for the Augusta GreenJackets, with Baseball America’s Conor Glassey and Ben Badler. I wasn’t all that sad to miss an Ian Snell start in Texas.
Wheeler, though, didn’t want me to get off that easy. So, he channeled his inner Snell, and ended up recording just one out. He walked three and threw nearly 40 pitches, most of them nowhere close to the strike zone, before departing. I may not have watched the M’s get trounced by Texas, but I had a similar experience.
Lousy road trip #1 is in the books. Let’s hope Safeco is a little more friendly this week.
Drayer summed it up by saying (paraphrasing here) that Snell went out, looked at the names on the backs of the jerseys, and then did everything they’d spent all spring getting him not to do.
No hitting and a pitching rotation with Felix and the 4 dwarfs.
Yep, this team is awesome right now.
Gotta love rebuilding, or building, or being a team in transition, or whatever two years after 100 losses.
It’s just awesome.
I’m guessing that the odds of the M’s using Ian Snell’s options for 6.75 million in 2001 and 9.25 million in 2012 aren’t all that good.
We have been a team in transition/rebuilding since 2004. We always will be if our General Manager keeps neglecting the offense every offseason.
Not to be Captain Obvious here,
But barring the Padres wanting Dustin Ackley or Michael Saunders, it’s time for the Mariners to push hard for Adrian Gonzalez.
To put this in perspective, as smart as Z is, he knew going into the year this lineup was going to be so short on firepower that he was desparate enough to hope Milton Bradley would turn it around in Seattle.
And somehow I feel like that isn’t going to end well for either party.
If we are to believe Ackley is going to just be a solid, #3 contact hitter and Saunders is likely going to end up being a middle to lower part of the order like power hitter who strikes out a lot (but gets on base), the M’s need a legitimate cleanup hitter to open up the rest of the lineup because I doubt it’s gonna be Guti.
Gonzalez is in the prime of his career, left handed, gets on base. What more can I say?
Make it happen, Z.
2011 ideal lineup:
1. Ichiro (L) RF
2. Figgins (S) 3B
3. Ackley (L) 2B
4. Gonzalez (L) DH
5. Guti (R) CF
6. Saunders (L) LF
7. Moore (R) C
8. Kotchman (L) 1B
9. Wilson (R) SS
Let’s see:
I guess you’re assuming that adding Adrian Gonzalez, Dustin Ackley, and Michael Saunders is going to magically get Figgins, Moore, and Kotchman to hit as well? Not to mention the assumption that Gonzalez, Ackley, and Saunders will all come up and hit like gangbusters soon enough to ease your pain.
Oh, I also see no Bradley there.
No, the overreacting isn’t reaching ridiculous levels or anything.
I’m not saying this lineup would be like the ’27 Yankees, but I have to believe this lineup NEXT YEAR (with progression and ceilings in mind) would help this team’s hitting fortunes go from abysmal to league average.
And if this team can do that, then the pitching and defense can help carry this team from there.
When do we start shopping Cliff Lee? 😛
2-5!?!?!?!?
sell sell sell !!!
there’s always next year…..
Fine, you guys can think I’m an idiot if you want.
Whatever.
But as soon as you think this team is fully capable of beating the Red Sox and Yankees in October, give me a call.
Because I could personally care less about winning the AL West if this team isn’t capable of going to the World Series.
And between having to rely on Milton Bradley as your cleanup hitter and having to make up for lost time this year with Lee gone and Bedard’s arm of glass, this team isn’t going to be having a parade this year.
I’m sure down the road it can happen with this administration, but not now.
Listen to yourselves! I know this team looked really bad this road trip. But they have not even played at home yet and our #2 and 3 pitchers are hurt! As soon as we get healthy and our hitting becomes average, we can compete again. relaxxxxxxxx
I really can’t believe how many folks are jumping off the wagon already…but, then again, I’d imagine that there were probably some Astros fans who did the same thing back in ’05 when their team was still 19-32 yet at the end of May.
Because I could personally care less about winning the AL West if this team isn’t capable of going to the World Series.
Funny thing: the NY Yankees, Chicago White Sox and LAAnaheim Angels have exactly the same number of world championships in this millennium: one.
Any team with Felix, Lee and Bedard pitching up to their capability has a shot in a short postseason series (where the back end of your rotation becomes essentially irrelevant). The history of baseball tells us that much.
Yay, more Adrian Gonzalez trade rosterbation!
In Dave’s Thoughts From Week One last year, he pointed out how Endy Chavez’s hot streak to start the season wasn’t his true talent level. The same can be said of starting the season in a slump, like some of our players have.
(There’s also a post from later in the season on how Russell Branyan was due for some regression as his April and May numbers were not sustainable.)
I think you actually have it a little backwards, getting to the playoffs is going to be the hard part.
If the M’s do make the playoff (riding what *could* be the best staff of a generation) all anyone will be saying is “you don’t want to face the M’s in the playoffs”
What I wanna know is how we get Adrian Gonzalez without giving up Ackley or Saunders. I imagine any deal would start with at least one of those guys. The only way I could see a deal getting done wihout those guys is if it’s a RRS, Moore, Triunfel, Franklin/Pineda type deal
opiate, exactly right.
its not time to panic. We are perfectly fine.
This roster is still an 80+ win roster.
We just need to stick around .500 for April and if we can clear up Cliff’s injury and get him going and have the hitting click like it HASNT, then we should be fine.
Guti is gonna be fun to watch this year, Kotchman has had small glimpses of being decent enough, and Figgins is just cold right now. Nothing to panic about.
I’m taking a break from the “wait til next year” idiocy over on the Times blog, but I didn’t imagine it would crop up over here too. If any regular reader of this site doesn’t understand what a small sample size is, and doesn’t know that a week out of a 6-month period is a small sample size… bah.
Dear anyone whose panties are in a knot at the moment: Please Go Away Until The 1st Of May.
Zack Wheeler is one of the top pitching prospects in baseball, correct? Man, that game must have felt like if you went to see Griffey back with the Bellingham Mariners and it just happened to be the one day he went 0-4 with 2 K’s.
Well, I remember the first time I protested that some pitcher, Meche or Joel P. or somebody, wasn’t all that bad. One of the authors beat me down by saying something like his results might look good but the way he was getting them wasn’t sustainable. Methinks what is worrying our collective fanbase here is not that we are 2-5 or whatever. It’s that our leadoff hitters aren’t getting on and stealing bases, our starters aren’t going deep into games, our bullpen isn’t holding leads and our get-on-base/drive-in-runs hitters aren’t doing so to this point.
Now, obviously this all could change, but I’m worried because this team was built upon certain assumptions that might not be coming to fruitition.
Yeah, this road trip sucked, but this isn’t anywhere close to the true talent level of the team. Nearly all of our offense has underperformed as well as a good majority of our pitchers. It’s unfortunate we didn’t have any of our players go crazy in the first week like Nelson Cruz, Vlad Guerrero, Dallas Braden, Mark Ellis, Kurt Suzuki, etc, etc. Things will get better!
The issue isn’t so much the players who haven’t yet played up to their talent level. They will turn around. The issue is those players who would probably be better off in Tacoma (like Adam Moore), or aren’t being used to their best advantage (like Bradley, who should be DH’ing more). Between GM Z and Wak, I feel confident that some of the obvious moves will get made. Question is how much damage will be done by then.
Bah humbug! We don’t need two DH’s. (gripe, complain, more griping, etc….wish it was better) oh yeah please remember that neither Lee or Bedard can hit.
Want to hear my prediction? Honestly, I think by next thursday (april 22) we will be 8-8. That is right after the homestand and I can honestly see us gaining some ground. We may even be 9-7. Think about it. If you have watched every game so far, you have seen that our hitting is getting progressively better. Yeah, we still aren’t scoring many runs but people are starting to hit better. I believe being home for the first time, and winning a couple of games against oakland will really start to give this team some momentum. Then we play 2 not amazing teams in Detroit and Baltimore both at home. I think Bradley will come back and be focused and hit a couple of home runs on this homestand. Griffey will get one and Ichiro, Figgins, Lopez, and Kotchman will all start hitting like they normally do. If they all hit average, we will win some games this homestand. So like I said, look for a 6-3 or 7-2 homestand. Call me an optimest but hey, I have watched every game so far and I feel like I have a reasons backing my claims. Go MARINERS!