Author Archives: Matthew

by | April 19, 2010 · 3:57 pm

Series Preview- M’s vs. Baltimore Orioles 4/19-4/21

I said in my preview of the Tigers series that if the Mariners could win the next two series, they’d find themselves with a .500 record or better.  They overcame Miguel Cabrera and some tough pitching matchups to win that series, 2-1, and now will try to do the same against the 2-11 Orioles.  They’d love a sweep here, and that seems a good possibility, but things don’t always work out that way.

Who Would You Rather Have

Player pick in BOLD.  (This is another one where  I don’t know the team incredibly well, especially the pitchers.  And Felix is facing the one guy I know about, so that takes away the one easy choice.  Disagreements and discussion welcome.)

C:  M’s Rob Johnson    O’s Matt Wieters

1B:  M’s Casey Kotchman    O’s Luke Scott.  Could go either way here.  Scott’s a more proven but not exceptional power guy, Kotchman seems to be coming around and has the defense.  Also Garrett Atkins here and elsewhere, who’s a decent bat.

2B:  M’s Chone Figgins    O’s Julio Lugo.  I’d probably take Brian Roberts if he were healthy though.  Nice to not have to face him.

3B:  M’s Jose Lopez    O’s Ty Wiggington.  Wiggington’s playing alright this year, but he’s really more of a very good bench guy.  Tejada’s there too.  Not sure if he helps.

SS:  M’s Jack Wilson   O’s Cesar Izturis.  Wow, again.  Lots of good field, no hit shortstops in the AL this year.  There’s really no good option here, unless you’re turning a double-play, in which case they’re both decent choices.

LF:  M’s Milton Bradley    O’s Lou Montanez.  They also have Scott, Reimold and Pie who could conceivably be in the outfield for this series from what I can tell.  Pie sounds nice.

CF:  M’s Franklin   O’s Adam Jones.  Orioles fans would probably disagree, but I’m not an Oriole fan, and they don’t know how amazing Franklin is, especially right now.

RF:  M’s Ichiro   O’s Nick Markakis.  I’d love to have Markakis in our outfield.  He’d be a great fit, and I’d take him over Bradley.  Not over Ichiro though, since we’re going by position.

DH:  M’s Griffey    O’s Nolan Reimold.  These are becoming kind of predictable.

Poor Orioles.  They have some potentially great young players, and some who are pretty great already.  It just so happens that at most of those spots, the Mariners have a player who’s as good or better.  Mariners 7-2, although at least two spots are pretty much pick ’ems.

Pitching Match-ups

Monday:  M’s Doug Fister    O’s Brad Bergesen.  Neither of these guys are too special, but at least Fister is coming off a good start.  Bergesen has given up 15 hits and 10 ER in a little over 7 innings so far.

Tuesday:  M’s Jason Vargas    O’s David Fernandez.  Take Bergesen’s season line and either cut it in half or double it to make it better, and that’s about what Fernandez has.  Matthew at LL compares him to Aardsma, in that he mostly has a decent high fastball and little else.  I know nothing more than what I’ve written here.

Wednesday:  M’s Felix    O’s Kevin Millwood

Closer:  M’s David Aardsma    O’s Jim Johnson? Mike Gonzalez?  Each has a save, the only two for the whole team.  Johnson also has blown two.

That’s 4-0 Mariners on the pitching, although the first few starting match-ups are pretty much toss ups.  I feel better about Fister and Vargas pitching well right now than I would about Bergesen and Fernandez as an Oriole fan.  This series is extremely sweepable.

-Matthew

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by | April 17, 2010 · 12:13 pm

The Secret to Rob Johnson’s Success

Courtesy of Jeff Sullivan’s brilliant mind:

Rob Johnson continues to demonstrate a stunning inability to catch a baseball. Tonight he let a fastball hit him in the foot. Straight-up hit him in the foot. Didn’t touch glove or anything. Just foot. Everybody has to realize how often this happens, but I wonder if Mariner pitchers might not see it from the opposite viewpoint as us. Our understanding is that Johnson can’t catch. The pitchers’ understanding, however, may be that their pitches are moving so much that even a Major League backstop struggles to catch them. In that way, Johnson is less bastion of incompetence and more flattering mirror. It all depends on your perspective.

I never thought of it this way.  It all makes sense now.

-Matthew

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by | April 16, 2010 · 9:09 pm

2010-11 Husky Basketball

I was standing in the shower yesterday, thinking about where the Huskies were going to find another scholarship or two for next year’s team.  All 13 scholarships were full and two of the better unsigned prospects out there, Terrances Jones and Ross, have the Huskies on their final lists.  It’s possible neither signs with the Dawgs, but it’s looking increasingly likely that one or both will (knock on wood).  And that would mean one or two current players would have to leave the team or vacate a scholarship in some other way.

In my mind, the top candidates were probably Clarence Trent, Scott Suggs, maybe Tyreese Breshers or somebody.  A younger guy with some talent who hasn’t broken through yet, who might be nudged out gently or decide to try to find more playing time elsewhere.  Elston Turner fits the description, but I figured that after his mini-breakout to end the year, he’d be expecting big things and stick around.  Less than an hour later, I got in my car and the first thing I heard was a KJR update saying Turner had decided to transfer.

So, there’s one scholarship open.  There might be another departure to come, depending both on those recruiting decisions and the feelings of current players as they get deeper into the offseason.  For now, let’s take the opportunity to look at the roster as it currently stands. Continue reading →

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by | April 16, 2010 · 4:42 pm

Series Preview- M’s vs. Detriot Tigers 4/16-4/18

Detroit is 6-3 on the year, while the Mariners are 4-6 and on a two game winning streak.  It’d be great to win these next two series at home and be back to at least .500.  I don’t know much about the Tigers, so let’s learn together!

Who’d You Rather Have (tonight’s line-ups from seattlemariners.com):

C: M’s Rob Johnson    Tigers Gerald Laird  Pick: Laird  It’s going to take someone pretty bad for me to pick Johnson, although I’m beginning to be hopeful that he could conceivably improve someday.

1B: M’s Casey Kotchman    Tigers Miguel Cabrera  Pick: Cabrera

2B: M’s Figgins    Tigers Scott Sizemore  Pick: Figgins

3B: M’s Lopez    Tigers Brandon Inge  Pick: Lopez, I guess.

SS: M’s Wilson    Tigers Adam Everett  Pick: Wow, rough time for shortstops.  I guess Everett. He’s hitting better right now, I guess, and they’re pretty even in glove reputation.

LF: M’s Bradley    Tigers Johnny Damon  Pick: Bradley

CF: M’s Guti    Tigers Austin Jackson  Pick: Guti

RF: M’s Ichiro    Tigers Magglio Ordonez  Pick: Ichiro

DH: M’s Griffey    Tigers Carlos Guillen  Pick: Guillen

That’s Mariners 5, Tigers 4, and they look that even too.  Tigers have a few more big boppers.  Well, they have Miguel Cabrera.  On to pitching!

Starters:

Friday: M’s Felix    Tigers Bonderman  Pick: Felix

Saturday: M’s Ryan Rowland-Smith    Tigers Justin Verlander  Pick: Verlander That’s two of the very best starters in the league back to back, if you didn’t notice. 

Sunday: M’s Ian Snell    Tigers Max Scherzer  Pick: Scherzer, but that’s mostly for the future.  I have no idea how either of these guys will throw on Sunday.

Closer: M’s Aardsma    Tigers Jose Valverde  Pick: Aardsma

That’s two and two on the pitching, and I’d say it’s a wash for this series.  Felix and Verlander will have to be really off to get beat, and anything could happen on Sunday.  I like the way the bullpen’s throwing for the M’s right now.  Andrew will be at tonight’s game and then have the recap afterward.  Have a great weekend everyone!

-Matthew

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by | April 13, 2010 · 12:16 pm

Husky Practice Report 4/10/2010

Just in time for today’s practice, here’s a quick recap of the practice/scrimmage from Saturday.  I don’t have a lot to say that’s different from Condotta or anyone else, but here are my quick thoughts. 

Quarterback: We spent most of the drills watching the quarterbacks.  Locker looks excellent.  I only saw him miss two, maybe three throws at most.  The back-ups are hard to figure.  Keith Price looked good throwing the short stuff, some of the time, but wasn’t accurate at all throwing more than five yards past the line of scrimmage.  Nick Montana, was much more accurate overall, but his arm looks a little weak right now and it took him a second longer to deliver the ball than the other two.  It wasn’t a release issue, just a processing issue, which isn’t too surprising.  A lot of the time, he’d struggle with the first pass on a route, and then the next time throwing it, he’d be right on.  He’s also as skinny as a rail.  I’m sure he’ll keep improving significantly, but I’m not sure either one of them could win many games right now.

Running Back: Those two freshman are good.  They had some mistakes, especially Callier with catching the ball, but they both looked significantly more talented than any of the other running backs (Polk is out).  Cooper looks a lot like Polk to me, and had a nice run through traffic that he broke out for a touchdown.  Callier is very shifty, and had one of the highlights on a run where he reversed field and then juked a guy to the ground before bouncing it outside for a few more yards.  Both will play a lot, I’d say.  Callier looks like an answer at kick returner especially, if he can catch.

Wide Receiver: Not much to say except that they’re going to be excellent.  Kearse and Aguilar might be the best wide receiver tandem in the conference.

Tight End: Didn’t notice a whole lot with them, but I wouldn’t take that as a criticism.  Izbicki actually looked a little better than Middleton, but that could be just circumstances.  He’s a big dude, though.

O-Line: Hard to say anything here, so I won’t.  There were some nice runs in the scrimmage though and I noticed linemen blocking downfield a few times, so those would seem to be good signs.

D-Line: They actually looked pretty good, given the circumstances.  I think Elisara will stick at end.  It just looks a lot more natural for him, and makes for a big line if Thompson can come back and play the other end.  Duncan had a nice play, I believe during drills, where he got through the line to the running back.  Overall, I was encouraged.

Linebackers: Mason Foster has that man among boys look about him.  It’s early, but I told Andrew he’s my sleeper pick for Pac-10 defensive player of the year.  He and Cort Dennison, along with Matt Houston, really stand out size-wise  compared to the other backers.  Logan looked extremely fast, so I’ll be curious to see how he can stand up against the run in a real game.

Secondary:  Nathan Fellner looked a lot better from last year, and made some big hits.  Boyles was with the second team, but clearly has all the tools.  He’s probably the biggest corner and looks confident.  But he clearly isn’t there yet, and with his history, you have to wonder if he ever will be.  I think he’s probably the type where he either won’t see the field a ton or he’ll be one of the best corners in the conference.  It will either click or it won’t.  Overall, the secondary looked pretty good, even with Nate Williams playing sparingly.  Williams looked good, by the way.  I can’t remember the play exactly, but he did something that made Andrew and I both comment on his improvement and how he wouldn’t have made that play before.  Him taking a step forward would be huge.

Kickers: Two of the walk-ons were kicking from the goal line at the sideline towards the goal-post on the same end, and they both managed to hit the upright one after the other.  One of them also seemed to have trouble kicking it across the field, so I wouldn’t take that as a good sign or anything, but they were really excited.

Making judgements from one practice and a quick scrimmage is tough, so don’t take any of this too seriously.  I came away moderatly impressed, though.  As long as Locker is healthy, this offense will be tough to stop, and that’s the clearest path to a bowl this team has. 

Practice Tuesday at 4:00.  Head on out and bring your rain gear!

-Matthew

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by | April 12, 2010 · 12:12 pm

M’s vs. A’s Series Preview- 4/12/2010

Just a quick preview here, since these teams just played last week.

Pitching Match-ups:

Monday  Ryan Rowland Smith vs. Justin Duchscherer

Tuesday Doug Fister vs. Brett Anderson

Wednesday Jason Vargas vs. Gio Gonzalez

For those who missed the first series, Duchscherer is making his second start after missing all(?) of last year due to injury and depression, I believe (maybe it was anxiety).  He’s a bit of a junk-baller, fastball in the high 80s, mixes his pitches well.  He was a solid pitcher in 2008, but I’d say the jury’s still out on this year.  Looked okay in his first start.  Anderson was pretty dominant last week against the M’s and stands to become one of the better pitchers in the league in short order.  Still he’s in his second season, so we’ll hope to benefit from some early season inconsistency.  If he’s on, he’s tough to beat.

Gio Gonzalez is the new guy, a young lefty who gave up a couple of runs in six innings in his first start this year.  Spotty command, decent stuff, especially a curveball that gets him a lot of ground balls.  He had mediocre results in about 100 innings last year, but he’s been a top prospect for while.

It’s looking like a gray, rainy week in Safeco.  Hopefully a return home will be good for the Mariners.  I’d honestly be surprised if they don’t win this series.  The bats are in a terrible slump, and Oakland is pretty dependent on its pitching.  Things should start to even out soon.  It’s the bottom of the order throwing for the Mariners, but outside of Felix, I don’t think there’s much difference between the other four pitchers right now.  Snell has left the team for family reasons, by the way.  No other info currently available, but Wak said he doesn’t expect him to miss a start, so it shouldn’t have much effect.

Enjoy the games!  Hope to see you at Safeco.

-Matthew

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by | April 9, 2010 · 10:29 pm

Game Recap — 4/9/2010

An anatomy of two half innings: 

Top of the first, Mariners up, Colby Lewis on the mound.  Ichiro doubles to lead off, Figgins walks, they go to second and third on a wild pitch with Kotchman up.  Kotchman drives in Ichiro with a groundout, Figgins is at third with one out.  Bradley strikes out, Griffey flies out.  Mariners up 1-0.

Bottom of the sixth, Rangers at-bat, a tiring Jason Vargas on the mound.  Young grounds back to Vargas for a quick first out.  Josh Hamilton walks, then Vlad scorches a pitch on the outside corner for a double, scoring Hamilton.  Cruz singles to score Vlad, on another decent pitch.  Chris Davis gets an infield single when Kotchman dives and has the ball go off his arm and bounce into foul territory.  First and second, one out, Shawn Kelley in for Vargas.  Teagarden strikes out, but Arias sneaks a single past the diving Lopez and Wilson, scoring Davis.  Borbon flies out to end the inning.  4 runs in, Rangers up 5-1.

**********************************************

The first inning started exactly how the Mariners would love to start every game, with Ichiro and Figgy on 2nd and 3rd with no outs.  It’s the linchpin of the Mariners’ offense.  And really, they’d be pretty happy to start every game 1-0.  They should have gotten Figgins in, but it wasn’t a bad start.  In comparison, the Rangers got Hamilton on because he’s scary to pitch to, then they smoked a couple of tough pitches and had two runs in three batters.  Not real different from the Mariners’ first at that point.  They scored in drastically different ways, but there was only a run difference.  At that point in the sixth, luck kicked in for the Rangers, with a couple of weak hits to score the final two runs.

I don’t have a lot of point in this, except that those two half innings exemplify the current difference between the Rangers and Mariners.  They were similar innings, except that the Rangers had a couple of huge hits from the middle of the order with a runner on, and then the bottom of the order kept the inning alive for an extra couple runs.  The Mariners only hit of the first was Ichiro’s leadoff double, it took a lot of work and a wild pitch to score him, and then the middle of the order couldn’t come through to add on any runs.  Both pitchers threw similarly, well enough to win if they got a few runs or were facing a weak offense.  Unfortunately, both of those were the case for Lewis and neither was for Vargas.  Will it stay this way for the Mariners all season?  It shouldn’t.  They have good hitters who just aren’t hitting.  Still, without some major line-up changes, they’re not ever going to come close to what the Rangers can run out there.  Whether that will be the difference in the division remains to be seen.

There were some positives.  Vargas looked solid until the sixth, when he ran out of gas a little and the Rangers figured him out a little.  Before that, he looked pretty similar to Braden for the A’s on Tuesday: solid command, good change.  Franklin continues to swing the bat well.  He needs to be hitting higher in the order against righties and lefties.  Kotchman hit his homer farther than he’s probably ever hit a ball before.  I’m not convinced on him by any means, but you can see the potential for him to blossom into a threat.  He’s shown more than I expected, so far.  Sean White looked solid, although it didn’t really matter by then.  Franklin had a couple of excellent catches.  And that was the game.  Better luck tomorrow.  It’s still plenty early, but they could really use a win with Felix throwing.

Hero:  No one stands out, but I’ll give it to Franklin, as the only guy who looks like he’s in midseason form.

Goat:  Milton got the biggest suckfest at LL, so we’ll give it to him.  A double, or even just a single, in the first could have made it a different ballgame.

-Matthew

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by | April 9, 2010 · 12:35 pm

M’s vs. Rangers Series Preview- 4/9/10

By way of a series preview, I think we’re going to play the who would you rather have game, like we did with the Athletics earlier in the week.  Due to the lack of roster changes, we’ll just do it for the first series of the year with each team and maybe the first series after the all-star break, or something like that.  It’s a quick fun way to look at rosters though, and doesn’t take much work for us Good Guys!

Note: no line ups today yet, so I’m going with opening day line up for the Rangers.  I believe Kinsler and Saltalamacchia are the only guys out right now, so I’ll adjust as needed.

C  M’s: Rob Johnson   Texas: Taylor Teagarden (Jarrod Saltalamacchia injured)

Pick: Probably the Rangers with either guy.  Adam Moore might be a closer comparison to Teagarden.

1B M’s: Casey Kotchman   Texas: Chris Davis

Pick: Davis

2B M’s: Chone Figgins   Rangers: Andres Blanco (Ian Kinsler injured)

Pick: Figgins.  Might take Kinsler when healthy though.

3B M’s: Jose Lopez  Rangers: Michael Young

Pick: Young.  I wouldn’t want the contract, but just as a player, I’ll take Young.

SS M’s: Jack Wilson   Rangers: Elvis Andrus

Pick: Andrus.  Does everything Wilson does offensively and defensively, plus more.

LF M’s: Milton Bradley   Rangers: Josh Hamilton

Pick: Hamilton.  Similar players with lots of talent but a decent amount of volatility.  Hamilton is just better, more talented, and younger.

CF M’s: Franklin Gutierrez   Rangers: Julio Borbon

Pick: Gutierrez

RF M’s: Ichiro!   Rangers: Nelson Cruz

Pick: Ichiro. I’d happily take Cruz in left, though.

DH  M’s: Griffey   Rangers: Vlad Guerrero

Pick: Vlad

 

Expected Pitching Matchups

Friday  M’s: Jason Vargas   Rangers: Colby Lewis

Pick: Lewis. Hard to know what to expect from him after a few very good years in Japan, but Vargas isn’t the stiffest competition.

Saturday  M’s: Felix   Rangers: Scott Harrison

Pick: Felix

Sunday  M’s: Ian Snell   Rangers: Scott Feldman

Pick: Feldman

Closer: M’s: David Aardsma   Rangers: Frank Francisco

Pick: Aardsma 

*****************************************************************************

That’s Mariners 3 and Rangers 7 for position players and DH.

2 to 1 Rangers on the rotation, Mariners take the closer spot. 

That’s a lot of talent on this Rangers team, with more on the way.  Teams like this (young, talented, little success so far except for a winning record last year) often take a “consolidation” year, where they struggle a bit and then become a contender.  We’ll see if that’s the case for Texas or if they can win right away.   They’re definitely the scariest team in the division, but that doesn’t always mean they’re the best.  Enjoy the weekend and go Mariners!

-Matthew

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