Game 22, Orioles at Mariners
7:10. Cabrera v Silva. They sure have been talking up Silva’s contribution, haven’t they?
This lineup…. ugh.
CF-L Ichiro
2B-R Lopez
LF-L Ibanez
3B-R Beltre
DH-B Turbo, Professional Hitter
1B-R Sexson
C-R Johjima
RF-R Bloomquist
SS-R Betancourt
Yikes.
(added:) Fun fact: in the AL, the #5 hitter hit .284/.355/.470 in 2006 (which I happen to have handy). Vidro managed that back in his peak years.
21 games into last season, the M’s were 11-10 too. It’s natural to look at mirroring last season as good, and certainly, over .500 is good. But there’s also a belief that the M’s last year were competitive until they swooned badly, as if there were two teams, and for a while, the bad one showed up, and if only they could keep those guys from taking the field they’d have kept winning at a good clip and won the division.
I understand why you’d want to think that, but it’s as silly as pretending that any arbitrarily selected group of wins was an aberration and they’ll stink because that stretch wasn’t representative.
Being as good as last year’s team isn’t good enough — it’s why they went out and got Bedard — they wanted to (as they saw it) shore up a weakness, and prevent a similar losing streak.
But here’s the thing, and I’ll use a coin flipping example I’m stealing from a professor. If I asked everyone to go do a hundred coin flips, and said I didn’t care if you faked it or not, I’d be able to tell with pretty reasonable certainty who faked them, because they wouldn’t have really long streaks in them. People who fake the results keep the streaks really short.
When the team’s losing, of course, we look for reasons why – do they look lost? Ill-prepared? And sometimes there are reasons like that. But often, like a pitcher looking for a flaw in their delivery they can correct, it’s often little more than rationalization (“Ah! My hat brim was too clean! Of course! … Yay, I threw a quality start! That must have been it!”)
Anyway, for their 22nd and 23rd games, last year’s team took two games from the White Sox. I’d love to see them repeat that.
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232 Responses to “Game 22, Orioles at Mariners”
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The 5 thru 8 hitters are absolutely freakin’ awful. It’s pretty sad when Richie F’n Sexson has the highest BA of the bunch at a whopping .208.
Kenji’s BABIP is barely above .200. Those hits will start finding holes. Everything else he’s doing is right on track for him. He’ll be fine.
Do “productive outs” strike anyone else as an oxymoron?
Is there a stat for productive outs? I would really like to know.
Cabrera averaged 5.5 innings a start coming into this game. Must be a nice brake facing these guys.
Bring up Reed and sit Vidro. Move Ibanez to DH, and voila! Stuff would start falling in order.
Sad offense. We’re getting ready to lose the game we picked up on Anaheim and Oakland yesterday. Texas continues to crash and burn in awesome fashion though — losing 19-6 to Detroit tonight.
At least in the 9th we will have our 3-4-Black Hole hitters up…
ESPN tried the productive outs thing. It’s pretty meaningless. Unless the person creating those productive outs has some kind of mystical influence on those hitting before him to become better hitters.
Do I want the M’s to win, or Sherrill to come in for the save and give me some fantasy points? Pffft, LET’S KNOCK A FEW DINGERS!!!
Oh, goodie. George is warming up and we have Ibanez leading off. I guess we’ll start the inning with a 0.297 RE then (1 out, no body on).
Johnny Mac: “Oh crap, it’s the eighth, hurry and get Morrow or I will have ruined it for everyone!”
Morrow’s changeup is greatly improved.
No doubt about it,
Adam Jones got abused.
That a boy AB!
I like watching “more than one pitch” Morrow.
Vidro & Thunder. Now that’s an Oxymoron.
Well… here’s one free out.
This would be a good spot for Norton, except we wouldn’t want to upset the veteran.
An opportunity for payback, after the O’s stole on in the 9th in Baltimore…
said the optimist.
NO WAY!!!!!
or not
Holy Guacamole, a hit!
C’mon Pepe!!!
No Cairo?
Was I the only one expecting Vidro to hit into a DP ?
Gamecase just froze for the love of god what happened
Hitters 5 thru 8 tonight:
AB H R RBI BB SO LOB
12 0 0 1 5 0 8
These guys had the table set for them and absolutely blew it. I will give Vidro credit though, he did get the lucky RBI – however, it was’t too far from being a double play.
Mike G,
The Mariners’ catching coordinator, Roger Hansen, thinks Clement is ready to catch in the big leagues:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/360219_mfarm23.html
From the same article:
I agree with the scout. Clement will be a great September call-up and I’d like to see him break camp with the club next year. I don’t pretend to know much about battery chemistry. I just think it might be better for the pitching staff to have the continuity with Kenji/Burke for the rest of the year.
That is a fair statement.
On the other hand, it would be nice to have Clement’s bat and plate discipline immediately.
On the other hand, it would be nice to have Clement’s bat and plate discipline immediately.
It won’t matter. This team isn’t likely to win anything this season, so why waste Clement’s service time?
I will take Hansen’s word over the unnamed scout.
If the team isn’t going anywhere in 2008(as you believe), Clement could use this season to develop his knowledge of the M’s pitching staff, as well as opposing hitters, base stealers, etc. Ditto for getting to know AL pitching as a hitter.