Game 19, Tigers At Mariners
Dave · April 20, 2011 at 12:34 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Bedard vs Porcello, 12:40 pm.
The M’s close out the series with Detroit with a day game, where Erik Bedard tries to get his results to match-up more closely with his underlying statistics. His 3.94 xFIP is actually pretty encouraging, but obviously, he needs to do a better job of keeping the ball in the park.
With Smoak away from the team and Bradley getting the day off, Adam Kennedy is back in the #3 spot in the line-up and Carlos Peguero gets the start in left field. This looks like a spring training line-up, honestly.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Kennedy, 1B
Cust, DH
Saunders, CF
Rodriguez, SS
Peguero, LF
Wilson, 2B
Gimenez, C
Comments
106 Responses to “Game 19, Tigers At Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Good question! I didn’t understand why they pitched to Cabrera with 2 outs and a bag open earlier in the game, either.
With Rodriguez’ game winner last week, you would think that he would have a chance to hit again in a clutch situation and against a right handed pitcher. If he had gotten a single, Saunders could have scored from 2B. I am not surprised that Wedge left Peguero in the game to hit though … good learning experience if nothing else. I was not surprised at all to see Bradley take a called third strike. He seems to be fine … until it matters. However, he is still 10 times better than Cust, so I am with Westside Guy … let’s see Bradley at DH with the young guys in the outfield for a game or two.
I agree that Wedge showed some awfully bad strategy today, Re: Peguero.
And in my opinion there’s too much laughing off of losses and mess-ups (not by us fans, I mean commentators, bloggers like lookoutlanding) as if they didn’t matter.
How the heck do the Mariners expect people to show up in the park if they’re just conceding any hopes to even marginally contend in April?
i.e. just giving away games through bad moves.
I’m all for giving an obviously unprepared rookie a chance to lose the game in September, October, etc. This is not what I want to have to endure watching in April for gosh sakes.
Uh, what? Why does it matter if LL jokes about losses?
Jeff is a fan just like us. He gets frustrated like we do. He jumps up and down in his living room when something cool happens like we do (I know, I’ve seen it).
You must have better things to worry about besides Jeff joking about how god-awful terrible this team is.
I’m not a blogger, but I’ve been guilty of this in the comments here. Speaking for myself, to some degree it’s been exaggeration to draw a distinction. I think you’ve made a valid point – but I also think it’s equally important that the team not sacrifice long term gain (specifically, development of its core of future players in a year no one believes the Mariners are competitive) just for the possibility of 1-2 extra wins over the course of 162 games.
And frankly, let’s say Cust manages to turn it around somewhat – he’s not likely to be worth more than that, at best. Hence my comments about letting Saunders play most days, with Bradley moving to DH (which, in my opinion, will actually help the club offensively over the course of the year).
Basically, I feel what’s most important to the long-term health of the club is to develop a long-term competitive strategy. If the team wins, the fans will come back. If the team sucks year after year after year, there are too many other fun things to do around the Pacific Northwest.
Instead of making lighthearted jokes, I think we should all dress in black robes and march around the outside of Safeco field, chanting mournfully, and hitting ourselves in the forehead with large wooden blocks.
Sorry guys, I phrased my post above a little bad. And Westside, you made some great points.
I actually love Jeff’s writing in general, I should have wrote that I hope the people in charge of the Mariners (not bloggers) are not thinking that losses don’t matter as long as a young guy did something moderately OK.
I don’t feel that the Mariners with a 90 million dollar payroll can sell to most of the fans that they’re in complete “rebuilding mode” already from the middle of April.
As a fan I don’t want to see the Mariners completely fall out of any pretensions of contention in April, and become the laughing stock (or rather, the main shining representative of ineptness) of MLB again just like they were for a full wretched year in 2010.