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New day
DMZ · April 14, 2009 at 6:50 pm · Filed Under Mariners
The M’s, at 6-2, have now won 10% of last year’s total. If they go .500 the rest of the way, they’ll finish 83-79, an improvement of 27 games.
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43 Responses to “New day”
joser on
April 14th, 2009 7:02 pm
Wow, that puts things into perspective. Last year’s team was baaaaad.
And this year (and this week) we get treated to two Opening Days: the formal one today and the real one tomorrow when we welcome back Ichiro. And once this team has its full outfield complement we’ll be treated to the Itchy and Endy And Gutz Fielding Circus.
But even more than the won-loss record, have you noticed how much more fun this team is to watch than last year’s version? And not just the outfield: the speed on the basepaths, the high-wire bullpen. Continuing the circus theme, this year’s team is like a troupe of talented rookie acrobats. They’re supremely talented, so they do things that hardly seem possible, but they’re rookies, so you’re never sure if they’ll be able to pull off what they attempt. You watch through your fingers, with your heart in your throat, but you watch, and you can’t look away.
By contrast, last year’s team was like following the Elephant Parade into the Big Top. Slow, plodding, ponderous, predictable, and whenever you let yourself get too close you risked receiving an enormous dump of elephant shit on your head. And those little clown umbrellas they gave you were no help at all.
I just bought my Guti jersey. Last year I canceled my MLB.tv service after two weeks. I already love this team!
Earl of Tacoma on
April 14th, 2009 7:06 pm
Not to point fingers but didn’t the Angels have a pretty good season the year after they fired Bavasi?
CC03 on
April 14th, 2009 7:12 pm
And Ichiro returns tomorrow!
The offense could use a little boost. Does anyone even know how many RBI opportunities Griffey has had so far this year? Seems like no more than 3.
DLCheeZ on
April 14th, 2009 7:15 pm
Continuing the circus theme, this year’s team is like a troupe of talented rookie acrobats. They’re supremely talented, so they do things that hardly seem possible
They don’t know that they’re not supposed to be doing what they’re doing. These guys are having fun and feeling good. Who needs a LOOGY? Anything is possible when you don’t know any better.
And since nobody else has mentioned it so far this year, I’ll say it. These guys are fun to watch.
ppl on
April 14th, 2009 7:17 pm
This is really starting to look like a division that could be determined by pick-ups and/or call-ups during the year. Since the M’s and the A’s were projected to be sellers in July, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Paul B on
April 14th, 2009 7:24 pm
Does anyone even know how many RBI opportunities Griffey has had so far this year? Seems like no more than 3.
Before tonight, there were a total of 8 runners on base when he came to bat. Of those 8, 5 were on second or third.
wabbles on
April 14th, 2009 7:26 pm
I haven’t felt like this since that wacky roller coaster that was 1993, Sweet Lou’s first season. Filling in for injuries, trying new things, doing everything you’re supposed to do, winning in different ways with different people. Baseball in Seattle is back.
Not to point fingers but didn’t the Angels have a pretty good season the year after they fired Bavasi?
Some team should hire Bavasi and Showalter, then fire them at the end of the season. They’d win the Series the next year!
Sidi on
April 14th, 2009 7:30 pm
For me the big difference is that, this year, I don’t feel the Mariners are going to surrender the lead at any second. Or that they stand absolutely no chance to come back when they’re down by 1.
That has been a wonderful change. I can enjoy the games again. It hurts when they lose, and I know they will lose more often as the season goes on, but at least the season feels like it means something to me.
Coolalvin206 on
April 14th, 2009 7:30 pm
At the game.. Playoff like atmosphere. This team is playing with a lot of heart and grinds out wins.
Anyway, the Angels went from 70-92 in 1999 (Bavasi’s last season) to 82-80. But then they sucked the next year, and Bavasi had some winning seasons.
gag harbor on
April 14th, 2009 7:31 pm
WFB off to a blazing start at 1 for 10 w/ no walks & 3 strike outs. Bad talent deflates a team of better talent. The only talent I really question this year is Griffey’s defense but he gets a free pass as a future HOF and a legend to the fans.
kyoko on
April 14th, 2009 7:34 pm
Obviously we’re loving the wins and it’s true this team is fune to watch but this is a bad team. We’re not going to sustain that LOB% and lack of runs on luck for much longer.
TomTuttle on
April 14th, 2009 7:37 pm
The M’s are watchable again!! Baseball is fun again!!!
My oh my!! Let’s keep it going!!!
marinersintheblood on
April 14th, 2009 7:42 pm
If they go .500 the rest of the way, they’ll finish 83-79, an improvement of 27 games.
sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but if they go .500 the rest of the way, I’ll eat my hat.
njpozner on
April 14th, 2009 7:49 pm
Taking a moment to reflect the awfulness of last year’s team, I’m almost surprised they managed to win 61. What a dreadful year.
I like watching (listening, actually, w/ MLB Gameday audio) this team do their thing. I don’t know if they’ll finish with a winning record, but at least they’re not a black hole from which no joy can escape.
Breadbaker on
April 14th, 2009 7:56 pm
I doubt they’ve had this good a stretch of eight games (good starting pitching in seven of them, good bullpen in seven of them, a lead in all of them, never falling behind by much) in a long, long time. Yes, they have been overefficient and lucky (particularly with all the bullpen walks), but that doesn’t have to even out in a single season and their best offensive player hasn’t played a single inning. I’ve not enjoyed a team this much since 2003.
kyoko on
April 14th, 2009 8:02 pm
And just to make the day even better Adam Jones take Eddie Guadardo yard to put Texas behind in extra innings.
What I like is the sense of possibility–almost totally devoid of that last year. Even if (when?) they fall off the high wire, they’ll still have enough great days and amazing moments to keep all of us going.
PS I’m not sure Jones taking Guadardo deep makes me feel better–he’s off to a monster start and I’d love to have him for the next five years. But for now it’s good to focus on the Mariners
The Mariners have already doubled their chances of winning the division or making the playoffs (from 10 to 20 percent), according to coolstandings.
Plus, Yuni can apparently bunt now.
beckya57 on
April 14th, 2009 8:26 pm
At the risk of pouring cold water: No question this team is better than last year’s, which was boring as well as bad, as others have already mentioned. However, the playoff talk is VERY premature. Silva and Washburn are looking better, but the back end of the rotation is still very suspect. The offense definitely lacks power. The bullpen has a lot of hard-throwing young guys who often don’t seem to be able to find the strike zone. (BTW, we haven’t seen much of Morrow lately…hmmm.) Having said all that, I will be going to games this year, ending my personal boycott that started in 2004. The new regime is definitely on the right track.
Obviously we’re loving the wins and it’s true this team is fune to watch but this is a bad team. We’re not going to sustain that LOB% and lack of runs on luck for much longer.
sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but if they go .500 the rest of the way, I’ll eat my hat.
If Dave is right and this is a true talent 77/78 win team, then (a) this is a mediocre team, not a bad team and (b) going .500 the rest of the way is surely not very unlikely. Given that Dave’s projections for the team tend towards awesome – I found USSM after the newspaper reported about this newfangled blog that predicted the 2004 collapse – I’m assuming that he’s correct.
No, they won’t sustain the level of luckiness they are currently benefiting from. But this team does have some real strengths.
The Mariners have already doubled their chances of winning the division or making the playoffs (from 10 to 20 percent), according to coolstandings.
I’ve forgotten – how good is coolstandings at evaluating talent? That would be interesting if it were actually relying upon something like PECOTA or CHONE and came up with that. But I’m guessing that it is remarkably less sophisticated and therefore probably overestimating things based on current performances. Either that or it hates the Angels.
Plus, Yuni can apparently bunt now.
I’ll admit that I dreaded some kind of catastrophe when I heard it announced that he was up bunting.
wabbles on
April 14th, 2009 8:59 pm
BTW The reason I said this reminds me of 1993 and not 2000 or some similar year is we finished 1993 at 82-80. And you know what? It was great. I was estatic. IT WAS OUR SECOND WINNING SEASON EVER. If we win 82 games this year, it’s our second winning season since Bavasi took over, third since Lou left. That’s a little perspective.
Coolalvin206 on
April 14th, 2009 9:07 pm
Espn sportsnation voted the M’s the most surprising team so far . It’s weird to see all these other teams leading their divisions. Pads,Marlins,Orioles,Royals.
Go Mariners
Sinking Away on
April 14th, 2009 9:15 pm
This was a fun game, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The defense is a joy to watch. The pitching tonight was good, this was not the Silva of last year. But the offense against a pitcher named Loux (did I get that right?) Who is he and why couldn’t we do more against him? Oliver was tough and I wouldn’t be surpised to see him in their line-up in the next series against them. The Angels were clearly not hitting tonight. They left 11 on base, that’s not typically how they play this game. It’s a marathon, not a race.
Tomorrow’s “3 things to know for Wednesday”, courtesy of the ticker on ESPN during Baseball Tonight:
– 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s MLB debut
– Nationals look to avoid 0-8 start
AND
– Mariners go for sixth straight win
They keep putting it up there, so it must be true. (Also, John Kruk thinks Kenji is HIGH-larious.)
joser on
April 14th, 2009 10:37 pm
sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but if they go .500 the rest of the way, I’ll eat my hat.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re not telling anybody here anything we don’t already know. You don’t have to go back any farther than Silva’s last start to see the bees of negativity sober analysis of all the limitations and weaknesses of this team. In fact, I got called out by someone else in the Washburn thread for being too realistic (ie “negative”) about his supposed improvement.
Not to mention the running argument we’ve been having with certain posters about “results” (in this case wins) vs “process” (in this case, mostly unsustainable pitching from second-tier starters, a very sketchy bullpen, and relying on luck to overcome stupidly high walk rates).
So believe me, you haven’t found the secret fount of sobriety from which the rest of us forgot to drink. We’re just one walk-the-bases-loaded-then-give-up-the-salami collapse from the bullpen, or one patented Silva implosion, away from having to talk people down off the “almost as bad as last year” ledge again.
But for now, in this thread, we’re enjoying the win(s). And the regression to the mean discussion? That’s the next thread up.
Breadbaker on
April 14th, 2009 10:50 pm
If we turned out to have all the luck of the 2006 Cardinals, is there anyone here who would turn down a World Championship because statistically the M’s were the ninth or tenth team in baseball? I don’t think so. Make in 1994 without the strike and a team under .500 wins the Western Division so long as it’s the Mariners and anything could happen. We’ve seen Oakland and Anaheim and they’re not exactly frightening and Texas just learned today that their owner is basically insolvent, so who the hell knows?
Am I saying this will happen? No. Am I saying that after a week it’s more likely this will happen than before the week? Yes.
trentdf on
April 14th, 2009 11:45 pm
That is a new day! .500 ball sounds possible, albeit unlikely.
I’d feel thrilled about this season if I didn’t feel like every other team in the AL West had the Mariner’s number every time they face us. For the last six?? years, every time we get some momentum, we’d have three or four series against the west and lose 75% of the games. If we can avoid that skid this year, it IS a new day.
joser on
April 14th, 2009 11:57 pm
Well, the Rangers’ situation is kind of complicated. The WSJ story — readable by non-Murdochserfssubscribers via the second link here precipitated the discussion (followed by cnbc and somewhat anticipated by local Dallas media), but Hicks’ worst-case scenario might involve actually selling the team — not the minority interest he’s talking about now, but a majority interest or the entire thing. To somebody like, say, Mark Cuban. That would be a worst-case scenario for the rest of the AL West too, I’d think. But when and if that happens it won’t be before the current season is over. And I doubt it will affect how the team plays (though it may make them sit on the sidelines at the trade deadline, or even go into firesale mode).
And meanwhile, yes, the M’s don’t have to be one of the best teams in baseball — they just have to be the best of the four in the AL West. And while they have to play some games against the rest of the league, at least the interleague games are against the relatively toothless NL West.
But I wouldn’t say Anaheim isn’t frightening based on one game pitched by arguably their worst starter. They’re not the juggernaut they have been in past years, but we haven’t seen the best of them yet. And that crappy rotation will stiffen up as they start getting their pitchers back from the DL — it’s like free mid-season upgrades without trading anything away.
But right now, yeah, the AL West looks more wide open than it did just a few weeks ago. I honestly don’t expect the M’s to win it, but I don’t expect anyone to run away with it either. Which means the M’s should stay in the mix for most of the season, playing meaningful, exciting baseball through the summer… and how long has been since we could say that?
joser on
April 15th, 2009 12:40 am
Drayer has a nice piece on enjoying the moment also.
RustyJohn on
April 15th, 2009 12:44 am
Regardless of how many games they win I am just enjoying watching Chavez or Cedeno in left field and keeping track of the “no way Ibanez would have gotten to that ball” or “with Ibanex out there that’d be extra bases” plays. That should be made into a drinking game- anytime Chavez gets to a ball that Ibanez would have missed, take a shot.
rsrobinson on
April 15th, 2009 5:12 am
This is a better team than last year but I’m a long way from letting my expectations get too high. I do like the fact that they recovered from Morrow’s blown save in Minnesota without going into a prolonged funk like they’ve tended to do the past couple of years after a tough loss. But it’s going to be a long hard grind to October and I can’t get too excited over a division lead in April.
I will enjoy the moment, though. I know I can’t wait to watch the M’s outfield run down balls after Ichiro returns.
Butwheredoesthemeatgo on
April 15th, 2009 8:45 am
8 games into the season and the Mariners have 7 pitchers, all with at least an inning pitched, with ERA’s of zero. I know they have had some very good luck, and excellent defense, and ERA is not a good judge of a pitchers performance, but it is still fun to look at their stats and see the first 7 pitchers out of 12 have ERA’s of zero this late into the season. I imagine this has very rarely happened and many of these guys were getting lit up in spring training, which makes me really devalue pitchers results in spring training even more than I had previously.
joser on
April 15th, 2009 11:13 am
Yeah, there are some fun stats on this page that won’t last very long — check out that LOB% column.
But -wow- look at Bedard’s godly line.
payday0023 on
April 15th, 2009 11:15 am
10% of last year’s total
What a funny, crazy stat…that I’m happy we’ve already met.
Go Ms!!
Brian Rust on
April 15th, 2009 4:04 pm
In this year’s AL West, playoff talk is NEVER premature.
sib on
April 15th, 2009 4:18 pm
Hey, last year’s M’s weren’t that bad. I think it would only be a 22-game improvement, right?
Wow, that puts things into perspective. Last year’s team was baaaaad.
And this year (and this week) we get treated to two Opening Days: the formal one today and the real one tomorrow when we welcome back Ichiro. And once this team has its full outfield complement we’ll be treated to the Itchy and Endy And Gutz Fielding Circus.
But even more than the won-loss record, have you noticed how much more fun this team is to watch than last year’s version? And not just the outfield: the speed on the basepaths, the high-wire bullpen. Continuing the circus theme, this year’s team is like a troupe of talented rookie acrobats. They’re supremely talented, so they do things that hardly seem possible, but they’re rookies, so you’re never sure if they’ll be able to pull off what they attempt. You watch through your fingers, with your heart in your throat, but you watch, and you can’t look away.
By contrast, last year’s team was like following the Elephant Parade into the Big Top. Slow, plodding, ponderous, predictable, and whenever you let yourself get too close you risked receiving an enormous dump of elephant shit on your head. And those little clown umbrellas they gave you were no help at all.
I just bought my Guti jersey. Last year I canceled my MLB.tv service after two weeks. I already love this team!
Not to point fingers but didn’t the Angels have a pretty good season the year after they fired Bavasi?
And Ichiro returns tomorrow!
The offense could use a little boost. Does anyone even know how many RBI opportunities Griffey has had so far this year? Seems like no more than 3.
They don’t know that they’re not supposed to be doing what they’re doing. These guys are having fun and feeling good. Who needs a LOOGY? Anything is possible when you don’t know any better.
And since nobody else has mentioned it so far this year, I’ll say it. These guys are fun to watch.
This is really starting to look like a division that could be determined by pick-ups and/or call-ups during the year. Since the M’s and the A’s were projected to be sellers in July, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Before tonight, there were a total of 8 runners on base when he came to bat. Of those 8, 5 were on second or third.
I haven’t felt like this since that wacky roller coaster that was 1993, Sweet Lou’s first season. Filling in for injuries, trying new things, doing everything you’re supposed to do, winning in different ways with different people. Baseball in Seattle is back.
Not to point fingers but didn’t the Angels have a pretty good season the year after they fired Bavasi?
Some team should hire Bavasi and Showalter, then fire them at the end of the season. They’d win the Series the next year!
For me the big difference is that, this year, I don’t feel the Mariners are going to surrender the lead at any second. Or that they stand absolutely no chance to come back when they’re down by 1.
That has been a wonderful change. I can enjoy the games again. It hurts when they lose, and I know they will lose more often as the season goes on, but at least the season feels like it means something to me.
At the game.. Playoff like atmosphere. This team is playing with a lot of heart and grinds out wins.
Anyway, the Angels went from 70-92 in 1999 (Bavasi’s last season) to 82-80. But then they sucked the next year, and Bavasi had some winning seasons.
WFB off to a blazing start at 1 for 10 w/ no walks & 3 strike outs. Bad talent deflates a team of better talent. The only talent I really question this year is Griffey’s defense but he gets a free pass as a future HOF and a legend to the fans.
Obviously we’re loving the wins and it’s true this team is fune to watch but this is a bad team. We’re not going to sustain that LOB% and lack of runs on luck for much longer.
The M’s are watchable again!! Baseball is fun again!!!
My oh my!! Let’s keep it going!!!
sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but if they go .500 the rest of the way, I’ll eat my hat.
Taking a moment to reflect the awfulness of last year’s team, I’m almost surprised they managed to win 61. What a dreadful year.
I like watching (listening, actually, w/ MLB Gameday audio) this team do their thing. I don’t know if they’ll finish with a winning record, but at least they’re not a black hole from which no joy can escape.
I doubt they’ve had this good a stretch of eight games (good starting pitching in seven of them, good bullpen in seven of them, a lead in all of them, never falling behind by much) in a long, long time. Yes, they have been overefficient and lucky (particularly with all the bullpen walks), but that doesn’t have to even out in a single season and their best offensive player hasn’t played a single inning. I’ve not enjoyed a team this much since 2003.
And just to make the day even better Adam Jones take Eddie Guadardo yard to put Texas behind in extra innings.
What I like is the sense of possibility–almost totally devoid of that last year. Even if (when?) they fall off the high wire, they’ll still have enough great days and amazing moments to keep all of us going.
PS I’m not sure Jones taking Guadardo deep makes me feel better–he’s off to a monster start and I’d love to have him for the next five years. But for now it’s good to focus on the Mariners
The Mariners have already doubled their chances of winning the division or making the playoffs (from 10 to 20 percent), according to coolstandings.
Plus, Yuni can apparently bunt now.
At the risk of pouring cold water: No question this team is better than last year’s, which was boring as well as bad, as others have already mentioned. However, the playoff talk is VERY premature. Silva and Washburn are looking better, but the back end of the rotation is still very suspect. The offense definitely lacks power. The bullpen has a lot of hard-throwing young guys who often don’t seem to be able to find the strike zone. (BTW, we haven’t seen much of Morrow lately…hmmm.) Having said all that, I will be going to games this year, ending my personal boycott that started in 2004. The new regime is definitely on the right track.
If Dave is right and this is a true talent 77/78 win team, then (a) this is a mediocre team, not a bad team and (b) going .500 the rest of the way is surely not very unlikely. Given that Dave’s projections for the team tend towards awesome – I found USSM after the newspaper reported about this newfangled blog that predicted the 2004 collapse – I’m assuming that he’s correct.
No, they won’t sustain the level of luckiness they are currently benefiting from. But this team does have some real strengths.
I’ve forgotten – how good is coolstandings at evaluating talent? That would be interesting if it were actually relying upon something like PECOTA or CHONE and came up with that. But I’m guessing that it is remarkably less sophisticated and therefore probably overestimating things based on current performances. Either that or it hates the Angels.
I’ll admit that I dreaded some kind of catastrophe when I heard it announced that he was up bunting.
BTW The reason I said this reminds me of 1993 and not 2000 or some similar year is we finished 1993 at 82-80. And you know what? It was great. I was estatic. IT WAS OUR SECOND WINNING SEASON EVER. If we win 82 games this year, it’s our second winning season since Bavasi took over, third since Lou left. That’s a little perspective.
Espn sportsnation voted the M’s the most surprising team so far . It’s weird to see all these other teams leading their divisions. Pads,Marlins,Orioles,Royals.
Go Mariners
This was a fun game, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The defense is a joy to watch. The pitching tonight was good, this was not the Silva of last year. But the offense against a pitcher named Loux (did I get that right?) Who is he and why couldn’t we do more against him? Oliver was tough and I wouldn’t be surpised to see him in their line-up in the next series against them. The Angels were clearly not hitting tonight. They left 11 on base, that’s not typically how they play this game. It’s a marathon, not a race.
*sprint, not race.
I couldn’t possibly care less about the expectations beyond losing less than 100 and doing something exciting every one in a while.
“If it’s fun it’s fun.” – Yogi Bera
Tomorrow’s “3 things to know for Wednesday”, courtesy of the ticker on ESPN during Baseball Tonight:
– 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s MLB debut
– Nationals look to avoid 0-8 start
AND
– Mariners go for sixth straight win
They keep putting it up there, so it must be true. (Also, John Kruk thinks Kenji is HIGH-larious.)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re not telling anybody here anything we don’t already know. You don’t have to go back any farther than Silva’s last start to see
the bees of negativitysober analysis of all the limitations and weaknesses of this team. In fact, I got called out by someone else in the Washburn thread for being too realistic (ie “negative”) about his supposed improvement.Not to mention the running argument we’ve been having with certain posters about “results” (in this case wins) vs “process” (in this case, mostly unsustainable pitching from second-tier starters, a very sketchy bullpen, and relying on luck to overcome stupidly high walk rates).
So believe me, you haven’t found the secret fount of sobriety from which the rest of us forgot to drink. We’re just one walk-the-bases-loaded-then-give-up-the-salami collapse from the bullpen, or one patented Silva implosion, away from having to talk people down off the “almost as bad as last year” ledge again.
But for now, in this thread, we’re enjoying the win(s). And the regression to the mean discussion? That’s the next thread up.
If we turned out to have all the luck of the 2006 Cardinals, is there anyone here who would turn down a World Championship because statistically the M’s were the ninth or tenth team in baseball? I don’t think so. Make in 1994 without the strike and a team under .500 wins the Western Division so long as it’s the Mariners and anything could happen. We’ve seen Oakland and Anaheim and they’re not exactly frightening and Texas just learned today that their owner is basically insolvent, so who the hell knows?
Am I saying this will happen? No. Am I saying that after a week it’s more likely this will happen than before the week? Yes.
That is a new day! .500 ball sounds possible, albeit unlikely.
I’d feel thrilled about this season if I didn’t feel like every other team in the AL West had the Mariner’s number every time they face us. For the last six?? years, every time we get some momentum, we’d have three or four series against the west and lose 75% of the games. If we can avoid that skid this year, it IS a new day.
Well, the Rangers’ situation is kind of complicated. The WSJ story — readable by non-
Murdochserfssubscribers via the second link here precipitated the discussion (followed by cnbc and somewhat anticipated by local Dallas media), but Hicks’ worst-case scenario might involve actually selling the team — not the minority interest he’s talking about now, but a majority interest or the entire thing. To somebody like, say, Mark Cuban. That would be a worst-case scenario for the rest of the AL West too, I’d think. But when and if that happens it won’t be before the current season is over. And I doubt it will affect how the team plays (though it may make them sit on the sidelines at the trade deadline, or even go into firesale mode).And meanwhile, yes, the M’s don’t have to be one of the best teams in baseball — they just have to be the best of the four in the AL West. And while they have to play some games against the rest of the league, at least the interleague games are against the relatively toothless NL West.
But I wouldn’t say Anaheim isn’t frightening based on one game pitched by arguably their worst starter. They’re not the juggernaut they have been in past years, but we haven’t seen the best of them yet. And that crappy rotation will stiffen up as they start getting their pitchers back from the DL — it’s like free mid-season upgrades without trading anything away.
But right now, yeah, the AL West looks more wide open than it did just a few weeks ago. I honestly don’t expect the M’s to win it, but I don’t expect anyone to run away with it either. Which means the M’s should stay in the mix for most of the season, playing meaningful, exciting baseball through the summer… and how long has been since we could say that?
Drayer has a nice piece on enjoying the moment also.
Regardless of how many games they win I am just enjoying watching Chavez or Cedeno in left field and keeping track of the “no way Ibanez would have gotten to that ball” or “with Ibanex out there that’d be extra bases” plays. That should be made into a drinking game- anytime Chavez gets to a ball that Ibanez would have missed, take a shot.
This is a better team than last year but I’m a long way from letting my expectations get too high. I do like the fact that they recovered from Morrow’s blown save in Minnesota without going into a prolonged funk like they’ve tended to do the past couple of years after a tough loss. But it’s going to be a long hard grind to October and I can’t get too excited over a division lead in April.
I will enjoy the moment, though. I know I can’t wait to watch the M’s outfield run down balls after Ichiro returns.
8 games into the season and the Mariners have 7 pitchers, all with at least an inning pitched, with ERA’s of zero. I know they have had some very good luck, and excellent defense, and ERA is not a good judge of a pitchers performance, but it is still fun to look at their stats and see the first 7 pitchers out of 12 have ERA’s of zero this late into the season. I imagine this has very rarely happened and many of these guys were getting lit up in spring training, which makes me really devalue pitchers results in spring training even more than I had previously.
Yeah, there are some fun stats on this page that won’t last very long — check out that LOB% column.
But -wow- look at Bedard’s godly line.
In this year’s AL West, playoff talk is NEVER premature.
Hey, last year’s M’s weren’t that bad. I think it would only be a 22-game improvement, right?
😉