Cactus League Game 13, M’s at Indians
This barely looks like a lineup. Perhaps it will still be on the radio unlike the last few times they have said it would be on the radio.
SS Josh Wilson
3B L. Rodriguez
1B Kennedy
DH Cust
LF Tui
CF Saunders
2B Ackley
C Gimenez
RF Chavez
P Pineda
The earthquake in Japan is all over the news at this point. I spent a good amount of time last night watching the footage already, like that oil refinery fire in Ichihara, Chiba. Everyone is waiting for Ichiro to say something, but he’s yet to hear anything with the phone infrastructure damaged in a lot of places. I hope that his family’s safe, along with everyone else’s. In the meantime, the M’s have released a statement, which doesn’t say quite as much as I thought it would given the team’s ties to the country.
Cactus League Game 11, M’s at Dodgers
RF Ichiro!
3B Figgins
CF Gutierrez
DH Cust
1B Kennedy
2B Jack Wilson
LF Saunders
C Bard
SS Josh Wilson
P Fister
A lineup without Gabe Gross and Sean Kazmar? This seems improbable to me but I’m sure that they can fix it later. Pauley, League, Olson, Cortes, Ring, Ray, Roe, and Paredes are possibilities for pitching later in the game.
The game notes inform me that the upcoming rotation is Bedard, Pineda, and Blake Beaven. If they are to be believed, we’ll have radio feeds on Friday and Saturday. If you have MLB Network, then this particular game will be broadcast at 8 pm.
Yesterday was just the second spring training shutout we’ve had since ’94, according to Greg Johns. And we have a winning record! Savor every moment.
Cactus League Game 9, M’s at A’s
RF Ichiro!
3B Figgins
CF Gutierrez
1B Carp
2B Jack Wilson
SS Ryan
LF Saunders
C Gimenez
DH Mangini
P Felix! and then Pineda!
If Twitter isn’t lying to us, then it seems as though the game won’t be on radio after all. I’m going to tune in anyway and be horribly disappointed.
Jack Wilson is back in the lineup. That’s something.
Cactus League Game 7, Indians at M’s
DH Ichiro!
3B Figgins
CF Gutierrez
1B Kennedy
C Olivo
LF Saunders
SS Ryan
2B Kazmar
RF M. Wilson
P Bedard
Bedard could be followed by Jamey Wright, Chris Seddon, Dan Cortes, and Manny Delcarmen on the mound today. I’d tune in early and then see what happens later with Cortes. Jack Wilson was a late scratch from the lineup because he was sick or something, which is better than the usual reasons he’s not in the lineup.
• Paxton signed yesterday, and I’ll probably talk about that more in the links dump on Monday, but two early and very important bits of info are that he’s been working out at Boras’ complex and that the Mariners view him as a starter.
• Yesterday, someone asked me when we might see Nick Franklin in the Mariners lineup during the Cactus League season and my immediate answer was “whenever we get to split squads.” Seems like an easy response, right? After all, we’ve already faced a D’Backs split squad, are facing an Indians one today, and from here out will be facing the Angels twice, the Cubs, and the Dodgers. We only have one split squad day in all of spring training. The Astros have six this April, as do the Diamondbacks. This all seems weird to me, but it’s more common than I thought as the Nats, Pirates, Rays, Twins, and Padres are all playing just one split squad day too. I’m sure the Padres were just copying us though.
• Mauricio Robles and Erik Bedard share a birthday. That day is today.
Cactus League Game 5, M’s at White Sox
Edit: Video feed. AWESOME.
Still no radio feed for this. Isn’t spring training supposed to be about the radio? And broadcasters asking “hey, who is this #89 kid?” and then not being able to pronounce it anyway?
SS Ja. Wilson
CF Guti
DH Bradley
LF Cust
C Olivo
3B Kennedy
2B Ryan
1B Carp
CF Halman
LHP French
* This marks the first time we’ll be seeing hearing reading about the double play duo of Ryan and Jack Wilson, which is something that has been talked up a bit as a possibility this spring.
* Felix threw a simulated game and is already well on his way to simulating a repeat of his Cy Young win.
* Omar Vizquel is batting ninth and playing short for the White Sox and at one point we were concerned about his medicals to the point where we would not trade for him. Those years seem funny now.
* Brandon League is working on a slider, which is probably more like a cutter for its effect. He can call it whatever he pleases so long as it helps him improve.
* Aaron Laffey is being looked at as a reliever, after bouncing back and forth between the bullpen and the rotation and struggling because of it. This sounds vaguely familiar.
Cactus League Game 4, M’s at D’Backs
You might want to tune into this one (12:10 pm, 710 AM) because the Mariners are sending out Michael Pineda for a few innings against a Diamondbacks split squad that is headlined by Mariners footnote Aaron Heilman and has Willie Bloomquist leading off. One thing I really like about Pineda: he tries to soak up as much knowledge as he can, recently taking time out to watch Felix’s bullpen sessions to see what he might be able to pick up. If Pineda ever busts (knocking on wood as we speak), it won’t be for lack of effort on his part, but something else entirely.
DH Ichiro!
3B Figgins
LF Gross
1B Smoak
CF Saunders
SS Ryan
RF Chavez
C Bard
2B L. Rodriguez
Cactus League Game 3, Rangers at M’s
This game is new and different in that instead of the Padres, we’re facing the defending American League champion Texas Rangers. I thought long and hard before typing that one out and it didn’t seem to make it any easier.
RF Ichiro!
3B Figgins
LF Bradley
DH Cust
C Olivo
1B Kennedy
CF Gutierrez
2B Ackley
SS Ja. Wilson
P Robertson
Can you spot the outlier?
Nate Robertson’s gameday photo vaguely resembles RR-S’, if Hyphen didn’t smile. He’ll be followed by Beaven, Lueke, Cortes, and Jose Flores, so this could be somewhat interesting. Guti is back in the lineup after the stomach thing.
Cactus League Game 2, M’s at Padres
This lineup looks a bit less like a Mariners starting lineup than it did yesterday. I can only assume that means that we cared an awful lot about charity, unlike those horrible Padres.
2B Jo. Wilson
SS Ryan
1B Smoak
DH Cust
RF Gross
LF Saunders
3B Tuiasosopo
C Moore
CF Halman
P Fister
Game time, again, is 12:05 pm, the radio dial tuned to 710 if you’re able to deal with that just yet.
Game 161, A’s at Mariners
Pauley vs Anderson 7:10 pm
Locking up the #2 pick proved to be rather easy last night. Of course, it also meant that we got blown out on Fan Appreciation Night. Indeed, shut out, tying the Indians for the AL lead. We could claim that lead all for ourselves tonight. It would be something.
In more positive news on the larger scale, you have the emergence of David Pauley as some kind of major league pitcher. I don’t know that I’d qualify that as great news for us in particular, but great news for him certainly. Awful teams have that benefit of giving opportunities to guys otherwise on the fringe, and if they establish themselves, they can go on to have decent little careers in the big leagues. Pauley probably isn’t part of the team’s long-term plans. Despite an ERA under four this season, he has a tRA of 5.32 as a starter. His Ks aren’t impressive and he’s walked a few too many. But still, he’s living the dream and getting the paycheck. That’s nice.
Since the topic interests me, at least, I’ll add that in the game notes for today, they mention that the full-season affiliates for the M’s led the minor leagues with 2956 runs, 527 home runs, a .439 slugging percentage, and a .782 OPS. Things are looking up.
Speaking of things that are up (up in the air, that is), Death to Flying Things has gone the entire season without making an error. Assuming that continues, he’ll be the first Mariners outfielder to end a season with a perfect fielding percentage, and he would set the MLB record for most total chances in a season without an error.
This was more than I thought was possible to write about a team that has a chance to lose its hundredth game today.
RF Ichiro!
2B Figgins
DH Gutierrez
1B Smoak
C Moore
3B Mangini
CF Halman
LF Saunders
SS Jo. Wilson
Game 160, A’s at Mariners
French vs Cahill, 7:10 pm.
We’ve entered the stage where a lot of what’s going on is just bookkeeping. The Mariners are almost certainly going to pick #2. Aardsma and Branyan are likely out for the rest of the season. Felix won’t be going in the final game and instead we’ll get Ryan Rowland-Smith, for which there will be a substantial enthusiasm gap. The ERA title goes to Felix since Buchholz won’t be pitching.
A few new bits of info include that Pineda is with the team, basically as a spectator, and that Shawn Kelley’s surgery wasn’t as bad as expected. How good it will be is still up in the air, but the fact alone that he didn’t end up needing Tommy John a second time should be positive news for our bullpen future. He’s had a rough first couple of years in the majors and hopefully will get on track soon enough.
RF Ichiro!
2B Figgins
DH Gutierrez
1B Smoak
LF Langerhans
C Bard
CF Saunders
3B Mangini
SS Jo. Wilson