Game 116, Mariners at Rangers
Vargas vs. Holland, 5:05pm
The M’s look to avoid a sweep in Arlington, look to figure out Derek Holland, and then look forward to leaving the infernal Texas heat. Holland threw a shutout against Seattle in July, and he’s get 13 Ks to 2 BBs in two starts against the M’s so far. The lefty has been very tough on the few lefties he’s faced so far (he’s faced 3 times as many righties as lefties, as you might imagine), so some of the right-handers are going to have to help Carp and Ackley. C’mon Casper Wells.
Ichiro DHs again tonight, presumably because they’d like to rest him after the 105 degree day yesterday. In the past, this would be a necessary evil type of a move – giving Ichiro some rest, but taking a defensive hit. Now? I haven’t seen much of Casper Wells, but I think he might be a better defender at this stage. UZR isn’t much help at this point, but at the same time, it’s just *hard* to measure defense by watching the games on TV. Still, I don’t think I’m the only one who was stunned when Ichiro didn’t get to Yorvit Torrealba’s game-tying double last night. Was it a tough play? Absolutely, but this is Ichiro. I have to think he makes that play fairly easily in the past, including last year. I can’t think of a reason Ichiro’s defense would just go off a cliff, and it’s possible that it hasn’t. But I’m starting to feel nervous when a ball is hit to right field, and this feeling sucks. We’ve talked a bit about the fact that this season’s provided some great moments despite the drudgery of a losing season/historically bad offense. This is the flip side of that.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro (DH)
2: Wilson
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Olivo
6: Gutierrez
7: Wells (RF)
8: L. Rodriguez (3B)
9: T. Robinson (LF)
In the minors, Taijuan Walker gets the start for Clinton, and Anthony Vasquez starts for Tacoma against Round Rock. AA Jackson and A+ High Desert have the day off. In the lower levels, Ambiorix Hidalgo starts for Pulaski and Cameron Hobson makes his first start for Everett.
Alex Liddi scored his 108th run of the year last night to break the Rainiers decades-old record for runs scored in a season. Hosken Powell set the old record of 107 in 1977 with the Tacoma Twins. Powell wasn’t a powerful hitter, but had 82 walks to just 49 Ks in 1977 for a .427 OBP. He debuted with the Twins in 1978 and had an undistinguished MLB career – hampered in part because he had no power despite playing a bat-first defensive position (RF/LF). It says something about the Rainiers offense this season (or about the PCL’s offensive overload) that Liddi could break the record despite posting only a .335 OBP.
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41 Responses to “Game 116, Mariners at Rangers”
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They should DH Ichiro once a week.
Saint Ackley struck out with 2 men on and no one out. Crap.
What happened to Wilson?
They have the personnel to give Gutierrez the day off. why not do it?
May have wandered off. Happens to the elderly sometimes.
Ichiro’s looking at this lineup and wondering when he got traded.
Last seen on a desert island with Tom Hanks?
And now we have two hitters batting 280 – combined!
You know, it’s kind of good Chone isn’t here to face this situation. Because although you never assume the double play, him being up with the bases loaded and one out is an exception to the rule.
Wow! That was lucky.
A break! A run! A lead!
Somehow he’d be able to record four outs without seeing a pitch.
David Bell came close once. He missed a bunt for a squeeze play and the runner was tagged out, then hit into a room service double play with the bases loaded and none out when he came to bat.
CARP!
Off of a lefty no less.
I am so excited about Carp for some reason. I know its probably irrational but man has he looked good
Carp diem brother
Too bad Saint Ackley couldn’t hit that lefty tonight, oh, wait . . . .
Tubba, with Team Mendoza, we have to be hopeful about any sign of good hitting. It’s not over the line to hope that he can sustain a .800+ OPS.
I know this sounds trollish, but Ichiro (in terms of OBP, which is really the best measure of a lead-off hitter) is one of the worst lead-off hitters in MLB and one of the worst defensive RF’s. The number of errors he has been charged with this year go way beyond charitable by scorers.
Why have the contact play on with LRod up? It ends up depriving Ackley of an AB with RISP.
Why have LRod batting second at all? Ever?
That was a quality effort by the DH on the base paths during the 3-2 pitch to Ackley.
I love watching Vargas throw nothing but junk it’s awesome.
That was an incredibly well placed curvball by Wright. Nice job.
Come on League! Show the Rangers who is boss…for the day at least.
We can have nice things???
Well played game, for once.
@Edgar4Hall: I am not sure how often you may be checking into the Site (God knows the season has hit the lull of all lulls) … but I do want to remind folks that you made a comment very early in the season about Carp having earned a chance and wondering if he would ever get a legit shot with this organization. At the time, I mentioned that I hoped he would. I remember you then took some abuse for mentioning Carp – and had to defend yourself. Although I know you have not asked for any – you probably do deserve some vindication. I recall that you didn’t extoll the virtues of Carp but you believed he had earned a shot while others on the roster at the time had no reason to be on the roster. It was not the “popular” opinion, but you were right. Thanks for bringing it up – when you did. Along thos lines, I was wondering if you have heard from any of the Cust fans recently.
Good finish.
Good to see Wright get it done. Thank goodness League was not traded away. It’s self evident, without those two the M’s bullpen is just horrid. What a difference a month makes.
Today’s lineup worked well. Once Ryan and Smoak are well and back into the lineup, looking forward to see what this lineup can do for the rest of the season (giving Ichiro a rest more often).
Let Wilson and Kennedy pinch hit (and Chone ride the pine, if he comes back from the DL).
Hoping Olivo get back to over achieving.
I like your idea. I also wonder if a team like Texas would be interested in trading for Jack Wilson before the end of August. They need a backup SS (their current backup SS is terrible) and Wilson could assume a utility role for the Rangers. Assuming Ryan comes back and is healthy, I am sure Wilson will be very available – and the M’s could do him a big favor by trading him to a team that has a legit chance to compete in the playoffs. The M’s won’t get a lot for him, but something is something and one month of salary relief on his current deal is almost $1M in cost avoidance, so ……. just rampantly speculating.
@Edgar4Hall: I am not sure how often you may be checking into the Site (God knows the season has hit the lull of all lulls) … but I do want to remind folks that you made a comment very early in the season about Carp having earned a chance and wondering if he would ever get a legit shot with this organization. At the time, I mentioned that I hoped he would. I remember you then took some abuse for mentioning Carp – and had to defend yourself. Although I know you have not asked for any – you probably do deserve some vindication. I recall that you didn’t extoll the virtues of Carp but you believed he had earned a shot while others on the roster at the time had no reason to be on the roster. It was not the “popular” opinion, but you were right. Thanks for bringing it up – when you did. Along thos lines, I was wondering if you have heard from any of the Cust fans recently.
First Mike, I’ve been around, Ive just had crappy internet for the past month since moving from college life and its a pain to log in with my phone though I try to when I can. Plus it seems like a lot of regular posters like Westy, Mr.Z and Ibuprofen are not so much these past few weeks (everyone on vacation cause I saw more posts during the streak)
Second, you have NO IDEA how good that made me feel when you put that post up. Yeah I’m an unabashed Carp guy so I hope he keeps this going. I like the way he swings, looks a bit like a lefty Edgar (trust me I haven’t gone crazy I can just see a bit) like he has a hammer ready to drop. Lets hope he keeps it going into next year.
Also are we still going to be having a Mariners Game this year between us and the LL’ers? I’d really like to go to my first
Maybe he could go back to, oh I don’t know… taking a WALK occasionally?
I know I’m not the first to bring this up – but, both last year and this year, he started off the first couple months actually showing some plate discipline… then, come June/July (depending on year), he pretty much stopped walking. And at least this year one might be tempted to point out he “overachieved” during the time period when he was showing some selectivity at the dish.
I was also ripped by a couple of regulars here for saying I’d like to see Carp given a shot at the DH over Warning Track Jack Cust. Despite being only 24 and putting up monster numbers in Tacoma I was told he was nothing but a AAAA player that few knowledgable people took seriously as a legit MLB prospect and I didn’t value the walks that Cust was drawing, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Good times.
You’re welcome. Just out of college, huh? I would have to say that your abilities at player evaluation exceed your (likely) age. Stick to your guns. Be prepared to take abuse for doing it, but stick to your guns. Always evaluate the tools and always match them up with the level of production. Always. Production matters.
You weren’t alone. Yes, the AAAA mantra (mystical formula of invocation) was a pretty popular theme. It doesn’t really exist, which is probably why it is a fairly easy card to pull.
Haha thanks Mike. I agree with the AAAA mantra idea and just never really got it. True there are many players who will be busts or never become true Major League Contributors after dominating the minors but it seems that there are also quite a few that are late bloomers like Jayson Werth, Bautista, Victorino, and hell even Halladay was one.
And also, I always wonder what might have happened to Edgar if we had had this same type of high level scrutiny that we have today back then. Would he have been considered a AAAA player after his first two trips to the bigs? I wasn’t there so I can only hypothesize but its a theory lol.
Well, actually, he was considered a AAAA player, in a sense. Got sent back to AAA after winning a batting title to work on his spelling or something, won another bating title, and still didn’t play regularly his 3rd time up.
I was ranting the the local SABR rag about how the M’s wouldn’t play a back-to-back PCL batting champion who took walks when 3B was manned by guys like Jim Presley (who never saw a slider 3 feet outside that he didn’t think he could hit to the moon) and Darnell Coles.
Anyways, it’s pretty clear Carp is the better prospect right now than Peguero, so I am glad they’ve picked the right guy. That JJ Putz deal looks pretty good right now.
Also, something else to consider. The M’s actually ARE better than last year in a number of places. Holes were addressed. Splits for 2011/2010:
1B: .251/.331/.432 .227/.293/.357
2B: .271/.332/.412 .259/.339/.304
C has improved slightly, but not by much at all:
.206/.247/.343 from .201/.263/.303
Trading 40 points of slugging for 20 points of OBP is not much of an improvement. We’re still WELL below league splits here of .238/.306/.382.
What’s just killed the team offensively is:
3B (.177 /.234/.226- that’s just mind-blowing, Ray Oyler could hit better than that, lifetime numbers .175 /.258/.251)
LF going backwards: (went from .218/.318/.375 to .207/.263/.357
and Guti and Ichiro imploding (we don’t need to go into that)
But all told, Jack’s got options for 1B/DH/OF that look a lot more promising than where we were last year (and I suspect Wells and Robinson will edge the LF numbers up some). I want to see what we can do to address 3B and C in the offseason… though to some extent I think we’re going to be betting on Ichiro and Gutierrez playing like they deserve almost 25 million between them in 2012 paychecks.
I’m glad to see Carp is doing well, and I hope he continues to do so. He richly earned this shot (and got shafted the previous call up).
That said – let’s wait and see how he’s done after a few hundred plate appearances before we decide how good a hitter he is. He obviously has a good approach at the plate, but there’s no way a .400 BABIP is even remotely sustainable.
Totally agree Westy but in a season gone to hell, Im gonna enjoy this 🙂
I agree- I don’t think you can expect him to be this good. But at this point, a .330/.450 1B/DH is like Babe Ruth on this team. I’m fine with “this position is not a huge gaping maw”, which between Carp, Smoak, Wells, Robinson, and dark horses like Saunders, is probably true for the 1B/DH/LF complex.
Yeah, I agree with you too. I think Carp is going to be a legit .270 – .290 range hitter for his entire career. He has a good approach, a good idea of the strike zone, can hit the ball oppo with some power and gets through the hitting zone quickly. His biggest problem is a common problem (recognizing the breaking ball and laying off the one in the dirt at his feet). He seems to be far less prone than others to go after that pitch, but he does still swing at it. Carp runs better than Smoak, is a better athlete than Smoak, and is currently a better hitter than Smoak. Smoak lumbers around at a very young age and is destined to become a DH … if he ever does prove he can hit consistently. Carp was not a “chosen one” and had to earn it. He was very close to getting screwed – but fought through it and it’s hard not to root for guys like that. Carp is a rhythm guy and when given the speech that he would finally be given a chance to play every day – he (unlike others) has made and will likely continue to make the most of it.
I hope Smoak figures it out and can become the every day, productive 1B and/or DH, but with the way he lumbers around – physically – at such a young age – I have my doubts about 1B. He hits against a stiff front leg and that is a hard mechanic to be proficient at from both sides of the plate. Compare Smoaks stride and swing to Ackleys (flexed knee). You can generate enough power hitting with a flexed front leg if your timing is good (Henry Aaron did it; Willie Mays did it, Wade Boggs did it – but differently). Smoak’s swing is often not “on time” and he drags the bat. His hands are not quick. They aren’t slow, but they aren’t quick and his swing path is long. It’s hard for him to be “on time” – thus a lot of popups. As a comparison point, key on Smoaks hands/wrists with someone like Casper Wells. Big difference. Wells has quick hands and wrists.
I have no idea how I ended with Casper Wells’ wrists in this post. Seems like a good place to stop.