Game 36, Devil Rays at Mariners
Dave · May 10, 2006 at 1:31 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Bust out the brooms. Or not. Scott Kazmir vs Jamie Moyer.
Bloomquist in center, Rivera catching. But hey, Lopez is still hitting 2nd, where we can put his near .500 SLG to more use by bunting some more.
Comments
234 Responses to “Game 36, Devil Rays at Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hey everyone, we must be a good team. We’re only 4 games out of first place! We’re “competitive”! Mission accomplished!
A fine by the league president prevents the four ball mouth idea.
Good work on finding that in the rulebook. I wasn’t aware that such a deterrent existed. Of course, I wonder if the fine exists under the impression that someone repeatedly going to their mouth on the mound is trying to overtly cheat by altering the ball, rather than just trying to bend the rules to get an intentional walk.
But even with the fine, say it’s Game 7 of the World Series, ninth inning, tie game, 2 outs, with a runner on 3rd base. If the runner from third scores, you lose the game. Albert Pujols is at the plate and you have a lefty on the mound, and he’s your best relief pitcher. You have to walk Pujols, even if Edmonds is behind him, because Pujols is freakin’ Pujols, and you don’t want to mess with that when it’s all on the line, even if Edmonds is pretty good against lefties. Wouldn’t it be worth whatever fine they would impose in order to know you weren’t going to throw a wild pitch on an intentional walk to end the game, Ray King style? As long as the umpires didn’t threaten to eject me, I’d take that fine a hundred times over risking my chance at a World Series title.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a 1-0 game where the only score was on a balk. I’m sure this will send someone scurrying to the record books.
Really, the M’s simply cannot continue to have such a hole in the middle of the lineup. What is going on with Richie Sexson? Shoulder problems again?
I hope Carl Everett lies in bed thinking about Richie Sexon and how he’s letting down the team.
Didn’t they do away with league presidents years ago, or am I thinking of something else?
And I agree that it is supremely lame that the only run in today’s game scored on a balk. It never feels quite right to leave the ballpark under circumstances like that.
From what I understand, if Sexson’s shoulder went out again, he wouldn’t be able to even attempt to swing the bat. I think he’s just in a monster of a slump.
The way he is performing would be the equivalent of me showing up at my job 4 hours late, unbathed, drunk, stoned, and then puking on my boss’s desk – every single day.
I’m curious, Sexson has been admittedly terrible thus far, hitting .192/.271/.328 through the end of yesterday’s game, as a first baseman.
What, then, is the real-job equivalent of what Rondell White (.169/.180/.195) has done so far this year as a DH? (I’m just looking to see how low this scale stretches.)
#208:
Ugh. The Rondell White equivalent would have to be the same as Big Sexy’s, only after I did all that I would leave work 2 hours early and go nail the same boss’s wife before he got home.
Well, Sexson is making over five times what White makes this year, so you have to factor that in. Maybe if the custodian came in drunk and punched his boss in the face.
I was at the game — arrived late and then got a free ticket from some guy trying, unbelievably, to scalp tickets in front of the ticket booth. Little did I realize that there are no free tickets in Marinerland. At least at home I can use the games instead of Ambien. The was no energy, action or any kind of excitement outside of the line at Dixie’s barbeque. I feel the front office should randomly release a player every week until it sinks in that we’re not even watching a decent minor league performance. And the ground crew antics make it even more pathetic.
I like Bavasi, but please tell me he is smarter than this comment made on the post game show by him.
“I don’t think we lose much defensively by running Willie out in CF instead of Jeremy.”
Come on. That is a very stupid comment, and one I’d expect out of an average fan who doesn’t look into the game much, not someone who is running a big league club in 2006 with numbers and research available to him.
If we are going to have to pay (insert most any M’s batter here), the least he could do is rake the infield and do a little dance.
What did Bavasi say about Beltre? I missed that part of the interview.
On Beltre, he basically said he’s starting to come around and figure this park, league, new pitchers, and so on out. He mentioned how the Mariners are Beltre’s second franchise, and how he was with his first since he was 15 years old. He said Beltre had a track record, and that isn’t the MVP type year he had in LA, it was in between that MVP year and the previous years in LA, and eventually that’s what he expects they will get from him here in Seattle.
Basically the same thing he has said about Beltre for a year plus now.
212 – I heard Bavasi’s comment about Willie vs. Reed in CF and frankly I find it insulting as a fan that management thinks I can’t notice the difference between the two.
Maybe Bavasi is comparing the defensive downgrade to, say, rolling out a statue of Ken Griffey Jr. to play CF.
(insert your own joke about telling difference between Griffey and statue here)
He probably has to toe the company line on WFB a little.
This has been in my mind for the past 90 minutes. Why, again, are we still letting Sexson hit 4th in the order?
Kenji to hit 2nd, Lopez 4th then the long ugly tail of the order slithers behind.
I think Sexson knows full well he is struggling.
from Nick Daschel:
“The recent dry spell has hit Sexson like a fastball in the rib cage.
The 31-year-old Sexson had an unusually good spring, and followed up by hitting safely in 14 of the Mariners’ first 17 games.
“It’s weird,” Sexson said. “I worked harder than I ever have worked during the off season. I built a (batting) cage at my house, I hit more, lifted more, put a weight room in my house. I did all this stuff, and nothing’s happening.”
It’s to the point where Sexson wants a long-term fix. Sexson recently went to Seattle hitting coach Jeff Pentland to talk about remodeling his swing.
Usually once a season Sexson has a tough month. In 2005, Sexson batted .211 during August. In 2003, he hit .204 during May.
“He came to me and said he wants to be more consistent. I said, “Well, we’ve got to do some work,'” Pentland said.
Sexson watches his current swing on film, and said “it doesn’t look horrible. The last couple weeks, I’ve felt OK. I just haven’t got results.”
Sexson believes his main problem is the swing path.
“I’m getting the pitch, and I’m fouling it off into the booth,” he said. “You can’t do that. The pitchers we face, when they give you a good pitch, you’ve got to drive it. When you’re going good, you do that. Right now, I’m fouling it back, then I’m getting in the hole and playing defensive from that time on.”
Because Sexson is so tall, Pentland said he has “built-in problems.” He likens Sexson to former Mariners’ pitcher Randy Johnson, who had issues earlier in his career because of his 6-10 frame.
“He has so many moving parts they had to come up with a simplied way of throwing the ball over the plate,” Pentland said of Johnson.
The approach is similar with Sexson. Pentland said they’re not planning an overhaul of Sexson’s swing. Together, they’re working to make Sexson’s swing a little shorter and compact, which Pentland believes won’t cut down on the Mariner slugger’s power, but should increase his batting average.”
Half of the M’s lineup could safely be DFA’d….
#203
Oregon State beat Stanford 1-0 on a balk in the 7th inning. April 14th, 2006.
I heard Bavasi’s comment about Willie vs. Reed in CF and frankly I find it insulting as a fan that management thinks I can’t notice the difference between the two.
Most fans CAN’T see the difference between the two.
What’s scary is that I’m not sure MANAGEMENT can see the difference between the two (fielding wise).
And the attendance keeps dropping… the Ms are 16th in baseball. Last year, we were 12th.
With Sexson struggling what’s the likelyhood we’ll see him switch spots with C-Rex in the lineup over the next few weeks?
Very low, I’d wager.
Pentland’s a smart dude. His comments on ‘Fixin’ Richie’ are well-balanced: a) don’t tear down his swing [too much could go wrong], b) shorten and tighten the swing [relevant ’cause Sexson’s lunging too much], and c) make contact the priority. On the whole, I like the things Pentland seems to be doing. The players seem comfortable with him too.
Actually, Reed’s defense in CF is significanly diminished from last year. He’s _not_ playing all that well. Now, Boomquist is sub-acceptable, with Lawton about the same, but the decline is [relatively] less than it would have been.
On Bloomers: a .400 OBP is a .400 OBP, particularly when the team is nearly last in the league in getting men on. It’s pathetic that Willie’s the best option, but yes, he’s the best option. [I want to slap my hand after typing that.]
On Bloomers: a .400 OBP is a .400 OBP, particularly when the team is nearly last in the league in getting men on. It’s pathetic that Willie’s the best option, but yes, he’s the best option.
Um, yes. I wanna slap my eyes after reading that, but stats don’t lie.
Unless WFB finds has been posessed by aliens, he’ll return to form. But a good manager plays the hot players and Bloomquist (like Hansel) is SO hot right now. How about this vs. lefties:
Ichiro
WFB
Ibanez
Lopez
Carlosaurus
Sexson
At least then the top average guys are at the top…
Um, Bloomquist’s OBP is .365, based on a grand total of two walks/1 HBP in 52 plate appearances. Oh, let’s not forget his manly one extra-base hit (a double).
Yeah, WFB gets hot- the prosecution would like to introduce into evidence Exhibit A, September 2002 (with Jarrod Washburn as a supporting witness), and Exhibit B, July 2005 (.319/.364/.403, in 72 AB’s). It doesn’t mean jack in the longterm evaluation of Willie Hustle.
The best case scenario is that we have the new Rich Amaral. Would you consider Rich Amaral the solution to the M’s offensive problems?
.400 against lefties. Better than that now. [Wanta pinch my _other_ hand for typing that.]
It’s all singles: he doesn’t walk, no.
Again…so he’s been hot for a month. Installing him as a regular is asking for 450 plate appearances with a .258/.303/.354 line. Which would be A) completely in line with Willie’s career, B) really awful production for your CF and C) a waste of opportunities you could give to Doyle, Reed, Choo and so on.
It’s one thing to be playing Rich Amaral 100+ games when you have 3 HOF’ers batting 3/4/5, with an All Star batting 6th. But Willie is the exemplar of Mariner offensive incompetence, because his offense, like the M’s offense, is highly contingent on singles and stolen bases, and deficient on walks or power. Unless you seriously think he’s going to hit .330 the rest of the way out, he’s not a solution, and deserves a bench spot with some occasional platoon starting duty to keep him fresh.