Game 109, Red Sox at Mariners
Batista vs Beckett, 1:05 pm.
Line-up today:
1. Ichiro, DH
2. Vidro, 2B
3. Guillen, RF
4. Broussard, 1B
5. Beltre, 3B
6. Ibanez, LF
7. Jones, CF
8. Burke, C
9. Betancourt, SS
There are a lot of things I could point out that don’t make any sense about that line-up, but I’m going to focus on the one that could kill the M’s today – Jose Vidro playing second base.
Jose Lopez has been a terrible hitter since April. He’s stopped hitting for power, still has a lousy approach at the plate, and hasn’t improved a lick since he came up from Tacoma 72 years ago. He’s frustrating to watch and a problem at the plate.
But here’s the deal – Jose Vidro was traded from the NL to the AL for a reason. He can’t play the field anymore. Never a great defender, he’s now the middle infield version of Adam Dunn. His knees are shot, his range is totally gone, and he’s a significant minus defensively. Even if you’re the worlds biggest Vidro fanboy, you have to be able to watch him fail to move on easy groundballs and realize “hey, that guy shouldn’t be paid to use a glove.”
Miguel Batista is on the mound. He’s a contact pitcher with groundball tendencies. He’s facing an offense that can put up runs in bunches. He’s opposed by a guy who will finish in the top ten in Cy Young voting. And to support him, we’ve given him the worst defensive left field alive (non-Manny division) and the worst defensive second baseman alive to hang out next to the below average right fielder and first baseman. This should go well.
The Mariners do not understand the value of defense or how to appropriately measure it. Sticking Jose Vidro at second base is yet another shining example of this organization’s inability to realize that catching the ball is a big part of run prevention.
On a day when you expect a lot of balls to be put in play, you make a bad defense even worse. This is the team we root for.
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348 Responses to “Game 109, Red Sox at Mariners”
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The org’s traditionally (see: Soriano, other cases) been extremely reluctant to move players out of roles they see the player as successful in.
They may well attempt to convert Morrow to starting, but given his current state, there’ll be some quality time in the minors first.
OK, I’ve been listening to the radio for a bit but… why in God’s name was Vidro moved to first?
Lopez pinch-hit for Broussard. Lopez stayed in at second, Vidro moved to first.
302 – Because Lopez came in to pinch hit for Broussard for some reason.
Speaking of which, Dave N referred to Manny as “Manny Ortiz.”
299 – I agree that we shouldn’t sign big names just because they are known (thus why i hated the rumors we were after Dontrelle) but still no one has told me a better option the mariners had to put in the rotation over weaver and batista. Yes there have been some interesting ideas thrown around about who we could have signed, but we don’t know if it was feasable. Maybe they didnt want to play in Seattle, maybe they wanted X amount of years and we only offered Y (Miguel Tejada). Just because a signing would make sense to us does not mean it makes sense in real life. If the Mariners had better options out there please inform me. And yes Morrow is SUPPOSED to be a starter in the future, and his relief this year doesn’t prove against that. The M’s need his arm in the pen this year as opposed to him pitching in AAA.
“302 – Because Lopez came in to pinch hit for Broussard for some reason.”
OK, I’m assuming there was some real good reason for that.
“Blowout in progress.” – Dave Sims
304. That reason being Broussard’s career .230/.292/.405 against lefties. PHing was the right decision, but it shoulda been Joh instead of Lopez.
What are the odds the Willie PH’s for Jones? I’d say, 40%, at least.
The M’s didn’t need his arm in MLB though, and that’s the point. They weren’t playoff contenders and they’re truly showing their colors IMO. The team’s future would have been better served by having Morrow in AAA and not signing Batista. I’m fine with the Weaver signing… he’s a 4th/5th pitcher and he’s only signed for a year. Therefore, he wont hurt our future.
306 – Paseman, you’re saying anyone we say was a better alternative is invalid because we can only prove we could sign the ones we actually signed… so the only possibilities we can compare to Weaver and Batista are… Weaver and Batista?
306. The M’s absolutely do not NEED his arm in the pen this year. Not when we have Putz, Sherrill, Green, O’Flaherty, and, recently, RRS and Lowe. Plus Kam Mickolio tearing it up in Tacoma.
Take a look at what Detroit did; they had a hot starting pitching prospect in Andrew Miller who was lights out in spring training. Detroit needed BP help way more than we did, and they knew enough to send Miller down to develop. Miller ended up doing well and has pitched exceptionally in the rotation since getting called up. And you’re arguing that we NEEDED Morrow in the bullpen?
312 – No no no, sorry that didnt come out right. Someone said look at the old postings for some good ideas for signings, to which I say we cannot know for sure if signing them would be feasable, no matter how much sense it would make. I just want to know who was available that would be an upgrade over those two. If you think Zito would have been a better signing, by all means say it. I just want to hear from those out there that think we shouldn’t have signed either what they propose we SHOULD have done. I’m not asking for rosterbation but it is not as if there were a ton of better options then Batista, who has done well enough, or Weaver (who is gone after the season anyways.)
313 – I will never argue what the FO is thinking. You cannot say coming out of Spring training that we had a set bullpen. For one, Green didnt even break with the team. Two, no one knew Sherrill or O’Flaherty would be this good. and Detroit had a pretty good bullpen coming out of S-T, they couldn’t know Zumaya and Rodney would get hurt. Mickolio is tearing up AAA, but then again so did Mateo, and we all know how affective he was in the majors. Morrow came out of school as a starting pitcher, and still projects there as far as I know.
They are flat a$$ embarassing themselves. This is a good team playing a mediocre team.
“Two, no one knew Sherrill or O’Flaherty would be this good.”
Yeah, Sherrill was crap last year.
Yeah why not.. tack on a few more.
315. But when Rodney and Zumaya went down, Detroit didn’t panic and bring up Andrew Miller. Likewise, when we realized that Morrow may not have the command to reliably pitch in high-leverage situations, we kept him up even though he had lost Hargrove’s confidence.
This line up and this performance has blown up in McLarens face. The mistakes today have been mind boggling.
I sure we will get the usual B.S. in the post game talks.
This game is going to end three days later, 235-1.
319 – Jones should have been up earlier, Richie should have been sat along time ago. Our front office has been inept at these kinds of things. and if the M’s had swung a deal for a “set-up” man, that may have pushed Morrow to the minors to work on starting. Look at wunderboy Yovani Gallardo of Milwaukee. He had some nice starts for them but then was pushed to the bullpen until they needed him again. The M’s are cautious with young arms and even had Morrow been starting they would have shut him down or moved him to the pen to reduce innings. Just because he has done well as a reliever does not mean that he can’t be a starter. and your point that we don’t need him in the pen further shows why he should (and could) be moved to the rotation
When the M’s when, you bitch… when the M’s lose you bitch… seriously, I’ve seen more varied conversation in a retirement community for crying out loud.
er, when the M’s win that is 🙂
254 – I think the non-cover at 2nd base on Ortiz is more symptomatic of Mariners inability to hold runners at first base. Teams run on the M’s like they just stole the clubhouse VCR.
Ummm..no, they don’t. They run on Burke like they just stole his .400 average. Johjima has thrown out 19 of 49 baserunners. Burke has thrown out 2 of 18.
“When the M’s when, you bitch… when the M’s lose you bitch… seriously, I’ve seen more varied conversation in a retirement community for crying out loud.”
Why, in my day, we didn’t have retirement communities!
Let’s just pretend this game just never happened. . .
K? Good.
Man, I’m glad I went to see Bourne instead of watching this.
Saw Bourne last night, pretty good!
Back to the M’s, I imagine Jones won’t be in the next M’s lineup. We shall see.
Mr. Egaas adam jones will be in the line up off and on just because he went 0-4 today doesnt mean he wont be playing again get a grip dude everyone has bad games
Got back from that pathetic excuse for a game.
I hate the Red Sox and their bandwagon fans. You can see the damn tags still hanging off of the fan jerseys.
“I live in Kent. I love the Red Sox!”
“get a grip”
Get some punctuation.
Derek knows better than we do, and he said the M’s don’t have to overpay free agents. Pitchers should be dying to come here; Safeco’s one of the best pitchers’ parks in the majors. I can understand that right-handed power hitters wouldn’t want to be here, but they’re also not a great fit for the team, for the same reason. The big issue remains the ineptitude of the FO. I honestly don’t understand why Bavasi still has his job.
“I hate the Red Sox and their bandwagon fans.”
And the Ms didn’t have any bandwagon fans.
Which is why attendance dropped from 3,542,938 in 2002 to 2,480,717 in 2006.
At least they’re regional bandwagon fans.
What does some schmuck in Kent have to do with the Red Sox?
“What does some schmuck in Kent have to do with the Red Sox?”
True, but all teams have bandwagon fans. Plenty of Boston fans showed up before they won the Series.
I always made fun of Yankees bandwagon fans too, but the lifelong fans earn my respect.
(And don’t accuse me of being a bandwagon fan, I lived through ’86. Fucking Schiraldi.)
#335: You have to admit though he has somewhat of a point. I’m betting a lot of the Red Sox “fans” that are at Safeco or every other ballpark the Red Sox play in for that matter have never lived in Boston or any parts of New England, have no family ties to Boston or any parts of New England, and have never even been to Fenway.
And what a strange coincidence it is that once the Red Sox really began to win again in 2002-2003, the fans began to come to Safeco primarily to cheer for the Red Sox rather than the Mariners and the number of Red Sox fans grew each year.
But of course, what does Nintendo care? Asses are being put in the seats. How pathetic.
Hmm…I just setup my favorite teams on si.com and noticed that when I clicked on the Mariners page, it shows ussmariner.com as a local news link. My oh my how far blogs have come over time…
oh, no. they were there in numbers before 2002. Not unlike the Jays fans.
I think I am glad I missed this one, too.
The M’s don’t lose out on free agents when they offer equal money.
Jason Schmidt. Paul Byrd. Carl Pavano.
Not that it was a bad thing they chose to sign elsewhere.
ok, I guess I did miss something:
Coco Crisp escaped major damage when the “Mariner Moose” mascot clipped Boston’s center fielder with an ATV
“Never really gotten hit by a moving vehicle before. That was the most athletic thing I did all day,” Crisp said, grinning after the moose’s ATV hit the back of his legs and knocked him to his knees on the infield warning track at the beginning of a stunt in front of Boston’s dugout in the middle of the fifth inning.
I should have phrased that better: in cases where there aren’t clear external preferences, the M’s lose on money. Pavano had the family/location thing, as did Schmidt.
and Byrd in Atlanta …
Is Pavano still alive?
Yet we win with Cirillo, Sexson, Aurilia and Spiezio. Go us!
I guess he’s alive…
Alive, but not working
The bullpen was fine at the end of last year. Putz, Sherrill and Soriano were as good a back-end as anyone had. Then they traded Soriano for a marginal NL starter (not understanding guys who struggle in the NL are likely to be replacement level at best in the AL). Now, needed a RH setup man, they panic and sign Reitsma, an injury waiting to happen. Then Reitsma struggles in ST so they panic and bring up Morrow, postponing (we hope) his debut in as a starter. It’s idiotic for a #5 overall pick to become a setup guy.
the M’s lose on money…
Yes, and the only thing worse than the M’s losing on money is when they win on money. Because they don’t do a great job of talent evalutaion, so they end up overbidding on guys who aren’t what the M’s think they are. Luckily they have a large enough payroll to still field a decent team. A team good enough to win something if a little luck comes their way, but not good enough to overcome any sort of bad luck (bad luck not of their own making).
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