by | May 21, 2010 · 1:00 pm

A Spark or Just False Hope?

This last week has been one of the most frustrating weeks I can remember as a sports fan.  Since last Friday’s win at Tampa Bay, the Mariners’ had gone on a 5-game losing streak in which they lost 4 of those games by one run.  Two of those games were walk-off wins and this 5-game skid doesn’t even count the 8th inning collapse in Baltimore last week.  We could see that the M’s were playing better than they had during their 8-game losing streak but the results weren’t there to prove it.  Unfortunately for this team, results are all that matters.

On top of this, 5-star recruit Terrance Jones ended his recruiting roller coaster by signing with Kentucky Wednesday.  I’ve watched a Husky football team go 0-12, I watched the ’08 Mariners and I’ve watched so many other Seattle sports teams collapse but this was my mountain top of frustration.  These were my teams.  The 2010 Mariners were supposed to remind Seattle that it was truly a baseball city.  The 2010-11 Husky basketball team was going to be the one who finally made it to the elite eight, led by a mix of experience and great young talent.  But on Wednesday night, the lights were shut off on these hopes.

Then came Thursday.  I don’t watch the Mariners because I think they’ll make the playoffs.  Sure, I hope they’ll make the playoffs but I watch the M’s because they’re my team.  Same goes for the Huskies.  Because of this, I faithfully took my place on the couch and turned on yesterdays afternoon game.  I didn’t expect to win but I watched anyway, again because they’re my team. 

The game went like so many had before.  The Mariners’ kept it close but looked as if they’d come up just short.  But, this time they had a rally that didn’t end in disappointment.  With one swing of the bat by the most respected man on the team (yes, Griffey is the most respected player on that team) Mariner fans were allowed to do something they hadn’t done in a while.  Smile. 

The question is whether this was a spark or just a good moment in a disappointing season.  The frustration of this week is still lingering even with the relief that yesterday brought.  Terrance Jones is still a Wildcat and the Mariners are still 8.5 back in the West.  But instead of the room being pitch black Griffey stumbled around to plug a night-light in.  Yesterday, he was the hero and I couldn’t think of a better way for this team to win than to mob the teammate they look up to the most.  But now, it’s a brand new day.  This team needs a winning streak and needs it to happen soon or this season will be all but over by July.  Today is not a must-win but it’s pretty dang close.  It’s time to see if this was a spark or if the room is still black. 

Andrew

A few random notes after the jump Continue reading →

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by | May 19, 2010 · 5:04 pm

Series Preview- M’s vs. Blue Jays 5/19-5/20

The Mariners return home for a quick series, which is good because the Blue Jays are pretty solid.  Of course, everyone looks good compared to the Mariners right now.  This season is so strange.  It’s certainly not going well, but they are legitimately one of the least lucky teams I’ve seen in a lot of different areas.

Milton Bradley is back tonight, which is excellent news.  That Sean White is going to Tacoma to make room on the roster is a big bonus.  If this were a movie, the team would come together with a rousing speech from Ichiro, start to hit like crazy, and win their next 20 in a row.  It’s not a movie, but I think a quick change in fortunes wouldn’t be surprising and could happen at any time.  Am I counting on it?  Not anymore, but crazy things happen.

Who Would You Rather Have?

(Pick is in bold.  Line-ups are from tonight’s game.)

C:  M’s Josh Bard vs. Jays John Buck

1B:  M’s Casey Kotchman vs. Jays Lyle Overbay.  They’re having almost an identical season offensively, which is not a good thing for either of them, so I’ll take Kotch for the defense.

2B:  M’s Chone Figgins vs. Jays Aaron Hill.  Two more guys having extremely similar disappointing seasons.  Figgins is again a little better defensively.  If this were last year, I’d probably take Hill for the power.

3B:  M’s Lopez vs. Jays Edwin Encarnacion.  A normal year from Lopez would make them about even offensively.

SS:  M’s Josh Wilson vs. Jays Alex Gonzalez

LF:  M’s Bradley vs. Jays Fred Lewis.  If Bradley starts hitting now that he’s back this changes quickly.  I don’t remember ever hearing of Lewis, but he’s having a decent year.

CF:  M’s Guti vs. Jays Vernon Wells.  Really tough choice here.  Wells is having a renaissance year, but Guti’s been good and is significantly better defensively.  Still, Wells’ power is what this team needs right now.  I don’t know if it’ll last, but he’s my pick for now.

RF:  M’s Ichiro vs. Jays Jose Bautista.  Bautista has 11 homers.  They Jays have 3 guys with 10 or 11 homers, and two are Bautista and Gonzalez.  Weird.

DH:  M’s Sweeney vs. Jays Adam Lind

That’s 6-3 Blue Jays.  Toronto seems to have mostly guys who are under- or overperfoming.  The Mariners have a couple of guys where you’d expect them and a bunch way below.

Pitching Match-ups

Wednesday:  M’s Doug Fister vs. Jays Brett Cecil.  Cecil’s young and has shown lots of K’s and overall good results in the minors, but hasn’t been anything great so far this year.

Thursday:  M’s Vargas vs. Jays Ricky Romero

Closer:  M’s Aardsma vs. Jays Kevin Gregg

2-1 Blue Jays.  Toronto’s a pretty faceless team.  I don’t really know what to expect this series.  Hopefully the Mariners will build on yesterday’s offense and get a better result.

Go Mariners!  Believe big!

-Matthew

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by | May 18, 2010 · 10:31 pm

Game Recap – 5/18

  • Terrance Jones will sign a LOI tomorrow, hopefully with UW.
  • There may be some good Husky football recruiting news tomorrow.  It seemed like Sark was hinting at that on his twitter.
  • The Lost series finale is on Sunday.  This is good news if you like Lost because it will be awesome.  This is good news if you don’t like Lost because you won’t have to hear about it everytime you turn on the TV after Sunday.  It’s a win-win if you will.
  • Sasquatch! Music Festival is almost here!  That will be a good time for those involved.
  • The World Cup commercials are awesome.  Probably more awesome than the actual World Cup will be.  That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the World Cup.  I just really enjoy the commercials.

So, now get off the ledge and hang in there.  At least get off the ledge until the Mariners lose another game like this…. That will probably be tomorrow.  

Hero:  Casey Kotchman.  The lineup wasn’t too bad tonight.  There were lots to choose from and if Rob Johnson hadn’t had a dumb base-running mistake, learned how to move his feet and blocked a ball, and didn’t suck I might have choose him. 

Goat:  Kanekoa Texeira.  I don’t know, this seems right.  He faced two guys and let them both on base before getting pulled.  None of the pitchers were very good tonight.

Dear Football, please come fast.

Andrew

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by | May 17, 2010 · 10:46 pm

Game Recap 5/15-5/17

Well, this sucks.  There’s some reason for hope but this really sucks.  I don’t want to recap these because it sucks enough watching them.

5/15

Hero: Mike Sweeney

Goat:  Jesus Colome

5/16

Hero:  Cliff Lee

Goat:  Griffey

5/17

Hero: Jose Lopez

Goat:  Ryan Rowland-Smith.  We might not see him in the rotation again.

A better post tomorrow and maybe even a win!  Happy Felix day!

Andrew

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by | May 15, 2010 · 2:29 pm

The Worst Case Scenario? Pretty Close…

Following the ridiculous 6-5 loss to Baltimore on Thursday, I was listening to Brock and Salk on 710 ESPN, and Dave Cameron from USSM was on the show. Cameron said the pre-season likelihood that the M’s would have finished the first 34 games at 13-21, would have been about 7-10%. This number is not a scientific fact, but anyone who knows a thing about baseball can look at the roster Seattle assembled, paired with the weak division they play in, and conclude that a 13-21 start would have been tough to imagine. Is this the worst case scenario? Well, of course it’s not the absolute worst case. That would be a winless team with multiple injured starters, a manager soon to be fired, and a clubhouse that is fist fighting. But this is pretty close to the worst possible scenario I could have thought up back in March. Here are 5 reasons why the M’s are where they are. (And sorry, this gets a little lengthy)

1) Bad luck (aka sucking in crunch time)
Last year, the M’s made hay in 1-run games. Despite giving up more runs than they scored, the M’s won 85 games, which by most standards, was an anomaly. The odd that Seattle could have racked up 85 W’s last year was slim when the year began. It was a pleasure seeing my team hang on in close games and show grit time and time again. This year, the Gods have not been so kind in similar games. In fact, in 9 of Seattle’s 21 losses, the M’s either led or were tied going into the eighth inning. That is a staggering result. If the Mariners could have won even just 4 of those 9 games, we would be talking about a 17-17 team heading into the Tampa series. The worst part is that in most cases, one minor miscue has been the difference between a win and a loss. The Byrnes whiffed bunt. The Johnson passed balls. The poor execution of bases loaded in extra innings. Those are the type of missed opportunities that has defined this team through 35 games. If you care to look at just how those 9 gut wrenching games played out, take a look at the quick summaries Shannon Drayer put together-http://www.mynorthwest.com/category/mariners_blog_articles/20100513/Too-Many-Tough-Losses

2) Slow start offense
In addition to the close losses, the Mariners are not hitting. Figgins, Kotchman, Griffey, Lopez, Bradley, Moore, Johnson and Jack Wilson are all off to slow starts. Typically you assume a few regulars will start slow, but it’s hard to win when all but 2 starters are hitting around .200 or lower. The offense is without a doubt the biggest reason the M’s are sitting where they are.

3) The Bullpen
The Mariners have a solid bullpen. I’d bet as many as 4 of our relievers could be closers on some major league teams. But despite good overall stats, some untimely blow ups have resulted in numerous losses. Lowe, League and Aardsma have combined to give up 6 home runs. That’s not the astounding number though, as 6 home runs between 3 relievers in mid-May is not unreasonable. What is astounding is that all 6 of those home runs were either game tiers or game winners, and all came in the 8th or 9th innings. Ouch. Often times home runs are not all the pitchers fault, because even perfectly executed pitches can be hit 400 feet by major league hitters. A lot of the bullpen’s failures are just plain bad luck. That’s just baseball. The bullpen is not a major concern for this team.

4) Off the field issues
The Bradley fiasco and the Griffey nap have been the two biggest off the field incidents thus far. The Milton thing was almost to be expected, considering his past, while the Griffey thing has snowballed from a minor issue to headlines on ESPN. That whole thing is just weird. You could include injuries in this category I suppose, to Cliff Lee, Mark Lowe, and Jack Wilson.

5) Inconsistency
The problem with this team is similar to the problem with my golf game. If I’m driving and putting well, my irons and chipping are failing me. If my short game is on, my drives are erratic. For the Mariners, the offense, starting pitching, and defense was great on Thursday. The bullpen was not, and so despite playing well in 3 out of 4 facets of the game, that one poor area bit us hard. It seems like that’s how it has gone all year. We just can’t play well in all aspects, and even when we play well in 2 or 3 areas, the 1 that we suck at ends up costing us the game.

Reason for hope after the jump! Continue reading →

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by | May 14, 2010 · 9:52 pm

Mariner’s Roster Problems (Good Problems)

This post is not about all the problems the Mariners have.  Yes, they need more hitting.  No one’s denying that.  This post is about what is going to happen when all the players that are unavailable right now come back to the team.  The Mariners have 4 regulars out right now, they are:

  • Milton Bradley
  • Jack Wilson
  • Mark Lowe
  • Erik Bedard

All 4 of these players will be on the major league roster once they are healthy/not filled with anger.  All 4 of these guys will be back my late May or early June (we don’t really know with Bedard) so that will bring us some roster changes soon.  Who will leave to make room on the roster?  Well, the easiest way to answer that is to start with who will definitely stay:

C: (2) Rob Johnson/Adam Moore.  Sure, the Mariners might upgrade this position (I hope so) but they will carry 2 catchers no matter what. 

1B: (1) Casey Kotchman.  It’s Kotchman for now at least.  I firmly believe an upgrade will come soon if the Mariners are in contention.

2b: (1) Chone Figgins.

SS:  (2) I’m betting both J. Wilson’s will be on the team when they both get back.  This is a very safe bet.

3B: (1) Jose Lopez.

LF: (1) Milton Bradley.  Yes, there will be another guy here but it’s hard to know that will be at the moment.  Maybe there will be 3 guys here.

CF: (1)  Guti.

RF: (1)  Ichiro.

DH:  (1)  Right now we carry 2.  It needs to be one.  By DH I mean a player that can’t play anywhere else.

That’s 11 players right there.  The M’s will carry 13 or 14 position players.  That leaves Langerhans, Saunders, Tui, Sweeney/Griffey all fighting it out for 2 or 3 spots.  You could throw Hannahan in there but he is really struggling in Tacoma right now.  Now, for the pitchers who will definitely be here:

  • Felix
  • Cliff Lee
  • Doug Fister
  • Jason Vargas
  • Erik Bedard
  • David Aardsma
  • Mark Lowe
  • Brandon League 
  • Ryan Rowland-Smith/Ian Snell

I have a hard time seeing the club keep both Hyphen and Snell in the bullpen.  I really hope that Hyphen stays and Snell is either released or sent to the minors.  That is 9 pitchers.  The Mariners will carry either 11 or 12 pitchers.  That leaves Sean White, Shawn Kelley, Jesus Colome, and Kanekoa Texiera battling it out for 2 or 3 spots.

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by | May 14, 2010 · 8:38 pm

Game Recap – 5/14

I didn’t see all of the game and have another post in the works so this recap will be fairly short. 

By all accounts, this was a nice win for the Mariners.  There was solid pitching all the way around and the power surge continued with another 3 home runs tonight. 

Cy Young, err, I mean Doug Fister started tonight and wasn’t as sharp as he’s been lately.  With that being said, Fister pitched 5 innings of 1-run ball and got the win.  The one run that did score, scored on a balk.  The Fistinator walked 3 guys which is way more than normal, but minimized the damage with quality pitches on the corner.  Fister has probably been my favorite part of this season which is really weird.

The M’s scored in the first inning on a 2-run Guti bomb.  He crushed that ball.  They then would play add on with solo shots by Adam Moore and Mike Sweeney.  If you aren’t keeping track, that is Mike Sweeney’s second homer in as many days.  Yesterday before the game started, I laughed at my mom when she said that Sweeney might hit a home run.  Always listen to your mom I guess.

The bullpen shut down the Rays for the most part.  K Tex came in and threw 2 shutout innings and made everyone think, “Maybe this guy should pitch a little more.”  Shawn Kelley gave up a 2-run homer to Longoria but it was a decent pitch and it was Longoria.  That guy is so good.  Aardsma pitched a perfect 9th for the save.

Now for the hero and goat:

Hero:  Mike Sweeney.  There were a lot of guys who could have been the hero tonight but I’m going with Mike.  I’m not picking Sween-dawg because he hit a home run but because he stole a base.  I couldn’t believe Sween-dawg stole a base.  That was his first stolen base in 4 years.  Oh yeah, he’s itting the ball pretty well too.

Goat:  Casey Kotchman.  I didn’t watch all of the game and Kotchman was the “biggest suckfest” on Lookout Landing so I’ll give it to him.

That was a fun game.  Hopefully the rest of this weekend brings a few more wins.  Go M’s!

Andrew

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by | May 14, 2010 · 3:12 pm

Series Preview- M’s @ Rays 5/14-5/16

These two teams just played, so I won’t do a big preview here.  Since Tampa swept the Mariners in Seattle, they’ve been perfect gamed (is that right?) but are still leading baseball with a 24-10 record.  Good news is they’re at home, where they have 6 of their losses and a worse winning percentage than they do on the road.  I doubt it will matter.

The Mariners are playing slightly better, but don’t have many wins to show for it.  In my mind, it’s become crystal clear that Chone Figgins is the key to the season, much like we thought at the start of the year.  If he starts hitting enough to drive in Ichiro and the bottom of the order on occasion, that brings in runs and puts his OBP up closer to .400.  If he and Ichiro are getting on base 40% of the time (really more if you account the errors they tend to force) it’s going to be hard for this team not to score more runs.  If/when Figgins starts hitting, this offense will take off, relatively speaking.  I just hope it’s when and not if, and the when is fairly soon.  If he stays this bad all year, it’s going to take the rest of the team hitting at a pretty high level, which means the season’s over.

Pitching Match-ups

Friday:  Doug Fister vs. Wade Davis

Saturday: Jason Vargas vs. James Shields

Sunday:  Cliff Lee vs. Matt Garza

Davis is the only guy we didn’t see in the last series.  He’s another young perennial top prospect, but I don’t honestly know a ton about him.  I think I picked him in our preview as AL Rookie of the Year, and he seems like a groundballer type, but don’t quote me on that.  He has a 3.18 ERA so far this year, but his xFIP is 4.81, so there’s some perceived luck in there.  We’ll see.  He’ll probably shut us down. 

Thinking positively, we have our three best starters going (by current numbers), and… Michael Saunders!!!  I always knew that guy was the answer.  Good chance he wins the Triple Crown, and if he hadn’t missed the Kentucky Derby already, he’d probably win two Triple Crowns.  On another note, there’s a cool dog outside my window.  Looks kind of like an Arctic Fox!

Go Mariners!  Believe big!

-Matthew

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