Game 160, Rangers at Mariners
Padilla v Feireabend. The Mariners are playing for a shot at .488, the Rangers would love to continue beating up the M’s to finish above the break-even mark themselves.
What crazy lineup will the newly-emboldened Hargrove come up with? What wacky hijinks will he get up to?
Unfortunately, it looks like he wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous.
CF-L Ichiro
3B-R Beltre
C-R Johjima
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
DH-L Broussard
2B-R Lopez
RF-L Snelling
SS-R Betancourt
Game 159, Athletics at Mariners
And down the stretch we come.
RHP Jason Windsor (who?) vs. RHP Gil Meche, 7:05pm.
SeattleMariners.com headline: “Meche to start perhaps last game with Mariners.” I’m willing to overlook the mediocre quality of said headline if it can be true. Please, let it be true.
CF Ichiro!
3B Beltre
C Johjima
LF Ibanez
1B Sexson
DH Broussard
SS Lopez
RF Snelling
SS Betancourt
Meanwhile, Oakland runs out the “Day after clinching” lineup:
CF Bocachica!
2B Scutaro
RF Kielty
LF Swisher
1B Johnson
C Melhuse
SS Jimenez
DH Brown
3B Perez
You’ve got two former M’s (Bocachica and Perez), plus the great D’Angelo Jimenez, who, having started the season in Texas, is making a run at playing for all four teams in the division by the end of next year.
Trivia Question (for which I don’t have an answer): Since the move to the current divisional alignment in 1995, has any player played for all four teams in AL West? I can think of one player who has spent time with three of four, but that’s it off the top of my head. Have at it.
Game 158, Athletics at Mariners
Rich Harden v Jake Woods.
Soooo wait, I thought the A’s were happy they’d be able to celebrate in front of their home fans. And then they dropped two to the Angels and one to the M’s. Two more and they’ll be forced to try and do it against the Angels again. Go team! Stick it to ’em!
Hargrove puts out an astonishingly bad lineup.
CF-R Willie “The Ignitor” Bloomquist
2B-R Lopez
3B-R Beltre
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
DH-L Broussard
SS-R Betancourt
RF-L Snelling
C-R Rivera
Anyone who bats Bloomquist leadoff, no matter what the circumstances, should immediately have their pulse checked, because there’s no blood getting to their brain.
Time to play “Would You Swap ’em?”
C – No
1B – Yes, if only because Swisher is sooooo much cheaper for a long time yet
2B – No
SS – No
3B – Here’s an interesting question. I say yes.
LF – No
CF – No
RF – No
DH – Wellll…. no.
And yet the A’s are trying to win the division and the M’s are playing spoiler.
Game 156, Mariners at White Sox
Feierabend versus Garcia.
Betancourt’s back! Oh thank goodness.
Game 155, Mariners at White Sox
RHP King Felix Hernandez vs. LHP Mark Buehrle, 10:25am on woooooosh! FOX. Ding.
King Felix makes his last start of the season, so let’s make it a good one, shall we? Meanwhile, the White Sox have fallen apart down the stretch and are all but eliminated from the playoff chase. Sadly, today’s lefty starter means no Doyle. Coupled with Bloomquist at SS… well, good luck today, Felix. Hey, Hargrove, isn’t Oswaldo Navarro on the club?
Dave’s quick note:
For the last time this year, Happy Felix Day.
King Felix has been at times frustrating and inconsistent, and while he may not have performed at a level we expected following his amazing debut last fall, today, he’s going to cap off one of the best seasons a 20-year-old pitcher has ever had. He stayed healthy, he improved as the year went on, and based on the things that a pitcher has significant control over, he’s been one of the best pitchers in the American League.
There’s not a pitcher alive I’d trade Felix for in a one-for-one swap. His future now is brighter than it was 12 months ago. For the last time in 2006, all hail the King, long live the King.
CF Ichiro!
3B Beltre
2B Lopez
LF Ibanez
1B Sexson
DH Perez
RF Morse
C Rivera
SS Bloomquist
#1 sign Ozzie Guillen and the White Sox have given up? Juan “.259 OBP” Uribe is hitting second.
Game 154, Mariners at White Sox
Gil Meche v Jose Contreras. 5:35.
Come on Meche, you can do it. That coveted high Elias rating is within reach! The team needs you to ensure we get a chance to recover a high draft pick from your impending loss.
Mariners field
CF-L Ichiro
3B-R Beltre
C-R Johjima
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
DH-L Broussard
2B-R Lopez
RF-L Snelling
SS-R Willie “The Ignitor” Bloomquist
Betancourt gets the night off after that plunking. I realize I missed a month worth of lineups, but Lopez at #7? I don’t quite understand what’s been going on with the shuffling.
Looking through the rosters today, I was struck by what a strange career Jermaine Dye has had. He’s hitting .318/.385/.630 (!) this year, after a really nice 2005 campaign for Chicago, which in turn followed his disappointing time in Oakland, where he was one of the players Billy Beane really wanted to get and then was injured and, when not injured, not playing well, until his final year in 2004.
Wins contributed by season through his career, summed up using BP’s WARP3 because I happen to have that open:
Braves
96, at 22: 1.6
Royals
97: 1.4
98: 1.6
99, his breakout year at 25: 8.5
00, 7.2
Traded in mid 2001 to the A’s
01, at 27, total: 5.8
02: 3.1
03: -.2
04: 4.2
White Sox:
05: 5.3
06: 9.6 (so far)
By any standard, that’s a really strange career path.
Game 153, Mariners at White Sox
I was on vacation there for… about a month. During that month, here’s what I understand happened:
-Ichiro, who once refused to play centerfield when the team needed him to, began to play centerfield because the team needed him to
-Doyle, who I’ve followed, cheered, and agonized over for years, became a fairly regular right fielder, and hit like I’ve always insisted he could
-Bloomquist, who sucks, somehow has stolen playing time from Doyle
-Rohn, who started the season as the backup manager, got fired
-So did the bench coach, who is nominally the strategy guy
-But Hargrove still did stupid things
-Moyer got traded
-Pineiro got demoted to the bullpen
-Baek is starting
-Woods is starting
-and so forth
What’s worse, it’s almost impossible to get any kind of internet access as a traveler in Europe, so I’d spend my purchased internet/hour on book work and then, right at the end, have a couple minutes to follow the team. So my first chance to really catch up on the team was yesterday night after I spent ~20h on planes or in security lines at airports. I felt at first that I’d fallen asleep and was having a brie-induced nightmare, but no, here I am, writing a game thread intro home, Woods v Vazquez.
5:05. FSNW. I have some fine American beer waiting, and I’m so excited to see this meaningless game.
Game 149, Mariners at Royals
RHP Gil Meche vs. RHP Runelvys Hernandez, 11:10am.
Today’s my birthday, and I’d like the M’s to win. That’s not too much to ask, right? I wish King Felix was pitching instead, but at least it’s not Pineiro.
I’ve never actually attended an M’s game on my birthday. The closest I ever came was on September 18th, 2001, when the M’s nearly clinched the division with a 4-0 win over Anaheim. They would have clinched that night had Oakland lost to Texas. After the game, they put the A’s-Rangers game on the big screen for all of us to watch. Leading 6-5, Jason Isringhausen retired Mike Lamb, Carlos Pena, and Michael Young in the bottom of the 9th.
I went to the game the next night as well, and the A’s-Rangers game started earlier in the day. When that game had reached the 7th inning with the Rangers leading, they stopped updating the score on the out-of-town scoreboard. Apparently they wanted to choreograph that clinching moment with a video screen announcement rather than letting smart fans figure it out, spontaneously, on their own. Oh well.
Go M’s.
Game 147, Mariners at Royals
RHP Francisco Cruceta vs. RHP Luke Hudson, 5:10pm.
I was all set to say that Cruceta would be making his first major league start, but it turns out he did that way back in September of 2004 with the Indians. In any event, Cruceta comes off a minor league season in which he fanned 185 hitters in 160 innings at Tacoma. He also walked better than four hitters per nine innings, so it’s not as if this is a finished product. Does he wind up in relief? Perhaps. But as Dave has said, why not make sure he can’t start?
The best news of the day is that Betancourt’s out of the #3 slot in the lineup. Any guesses as to who has replaced him? Johjima, certainly not a name I was expecting but a vast improvement over Betancourt.
CF Ichiro!
3B Beltre
C Johjima
LF Ibanez
1B Sexson
DH Broussard
SS Betancourt
RF Doyle
2B Lopez
Of course, Hargrove then goes nuts by hitting Betancourt ahead of both Doyle and Lopez. I was all for moving Lopez down in the order, because ultimately I think his lack of patience makes him a #6 hitter as opposed to a #2 or #3 hitter. But Doyle 8th? That’s crazy talk. I’d personally go Ichiro-Doyle-Beltre at the top, but that’s just me. Of course, it’s pointless to get upset about lineup order for two reasons: it doesn’t matter all that much, and we won’t have to deal with Hargrove next season anyway.
The Royals counter with DeJesus, German, Grudz, Brown, Shealy, Costa, Buck, Gathright, Blanco. This offense was bad even with Mark Teahen’s breakout year — without him, it’s even worse. But hey, at least Buddy Bell has the sense to hit his all-field, no-hit SS 9th.
Game 123, Mariners at Angels
7 o’clock. Ooh, here’s the thing to break a losing streak: an angry former player facing the team that wouldn’t cough up a sufficently large contract! The Angels are hitting .265/.324/.423 against left-handers this year – not far off their season average.
Hargrove has, it seems, stepped back from the abyss of previous insane lineups, which may help:
RF-L Ichiro
2b-R Lopez
3b-R Beltre
LF-L Ibanez
1b-R Sexson
C-R Johjima
DH-L Broussard
SS-R Betancourt
CF-R Jones
A relatively rare #6 spot for Johjima. Snelling is benched as a reward for his success in the last two games.
For real lineup flux, though, check out the Angels
CF Figgins
3B Izturis
SS Cabrera
RF Guerrero
LF Rivera
DH Anderson
1B Quinlan
2B Kendrick
C Napoli
Today’s CF Figgins started at second. Kendrick, at second, started at first yesterday. Their left fielder moves to DH, the DH moves to RF, RF moves to LF.