by | April 12, 2010 · 10:11 am

Home Opener links

How sweet it is to be home!  Or will it be sweet for our Mariners?  I think yes but I have been unusually optimistic over the last week.  I just think luck will finally come to this team.  This team has been awful at hitting with runners in scoring position and while that has to do with the lineup (or lack there of), it also has to do with luck.  They have gotten more hits in the past couple games and now it’s just a matter of bunching some together.  Safeco will be a nice change for the back-end of the rotation.  Hyphen is better at home too because he gets a lot of fly balls. 

Anyway, I’m about to head down to Safeco but here’s a few links for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to get to see the home opener:

  • Here’s Matthew’s preview of when we played Oakland last week.  Not really much use in previewing this series again since we just played these guys.
  • Here’s some good news from USSMariner.  Too bad Pineda’s first start of the season won’t be televised anywhere.  I would love to watch that.
  • Geoff Baker actually had a positive outlook today.  It reminded us that this season is still very early.

That’s all I’ve got for today.  Thanks for reading and go Mariners!

Andrew

Leave a comment

Filed under Mariners

by | April 11, 2010 · 5:24 pm

Game Recap — 4/11/2010

I’ll just do a quick write-up since I doubt none of the other good guys want to talk about this one.  The M’s lost 9-2 today and finished their road trip 2-5.  Here’s a few quick bullet points for this ugly game.

  • Hero:  Chone Figgins.  He looked much better today and might start hitting the ball now.  There wasn’t much of a hero to this game but Figgins had 2 hits and an RBI.
  • Goat:  Ian Snell.  He sucked today, enough said.
  • Don’t judge Ian Snell by either of his starts this year.  He shut the A’s down pretty well but just about every ball was hit hard today.  I think he’s somewhere in between these two performances but we won’t know until he has a few more starts.  He was awful today.  I don’t know what that 88 mph pitch he was throwing was.  I hope that it’s not his fastball because if it is he’s going to have a long year.
  • Guti continues to be hot.  He had two hits and a few more great catches today.  Maybe the off-season made me forget how great he is in center field but he has been amazing to watch this week  and will be for the rest of the season.
  • Jose Lopez does not look good at the plate right now.  I can’t put my finger on what it is but he doesn’t look comfortable at all.  It’s probably just a slump but out of all the M’s players who are in a slump, he’s the one I’m most worried about.
  • Griffey’s bat looked slow the first few games but it’s looked a little better the past 3 games.  He was 1 for 3 today and just missed a home run in one of his outs.
  • If you want good news there actually is some.  Erik Bedard and Cliff Lee each threw 45 pitch bullpen sessions today.  They were both throwing hard and felt good.  Lee is expected back at the beginning of May and Bedard in mid-May if all goes according to plan. 

That’s about it for today.  The road trip is over and I think coming home will help this team.  I’m not very worried about them but I will be after a couple more weeks like this.  Opening day will be fun tomorrow and hopefully we go out and get a win.

Andrew

2 Comments

Filed under M's Game Recaps, Mariners

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | April 10, 2010 · 8:49 pm

Game Recap – 4/10/2010

In my quest to tricking my fellow good guys into letting me cover each Felix start, I get to recap the Mariners second win of the season. 

For much of the game it looked as if it’d Seattle’s 5th straight loss.  The Mariners scored a run in the top of the first and then the offense went cold.  It didn’t go cold like it did in prior games though.  The Mariners outhit Texas all day long but they just couldn’t get runners across the plate.  Seattle had 12 hits on the day and a good share of those came before the 3-run ninth.  Baseball is a weird sport and the Mariners have been bad this week but luck hasn’t been on their side.  Their BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was way below average for the week and their were a few bad bounces in the field that hurt them.  I’m not making excuses for them but there’s statistical reason to believe things will get much better.

Anyway, the Mariners might not have had much of a chance in this game if it weren’t for King Felix.  He was fantastic today and if it weren’t for a Figgins throwing error, Felix might have only given up one run.  My favorite thing about watching Felix is that I never know which pitch will be his best on a given day.  Today I think it was his change-up.  His change came in at 86-88 mph and fell off the table when it reached the batter.  It was beautiful.  Another thing that stood out to me about this start was the way Felix handled Guerrero.  He used his two-seam fastball to tail in on the hands of Vladimir and then threw that change into the dirt.  He produced two strikeouts and a groundball to third from this.  Long live the King!

Despite this outing, the Mariners were still down by 2 heading into the 9th inning.  They scored 3 on a flurry of singles and pesky baseball.  Here’s exactly what happened:  single, walk, sacrifice bunt, single (run scored), single (run scored), single (run scored), double play.  It’s innings like this that explain why the Mariners, Angels, and A’s are described as “annoying teams”; there were no extra base hits in that inning, they just produced runs by playing simple baseball.  The singles were hit hard but watching single after single gets annoying when you’re opposing fans and it prolongs the inevitable agony more so than a quick 3 run homer. 

In the bottom of the 9th Aardsma looked very good in striking out the 1st and 3rd batter.  But the second hitter, Elvis Andrus, hit a rocket to right center.  Luckily, we have the best center fielder in the game.  Guti covered a ton of ground and jumped up against the wall to take away a home run from Andrus.  I could try to describe this more poetically but it wouldn’t do it justice; just go watch it if you haven’t seen it already (heck, go watch it if you have seen it already).  If he doesn’t make that catch who knows what happens in this game.  I’m glad that Franklin is on the Mariners and will be for quite a while.

Does this game take away my worries?  No, it was an ugly week (although, not as ugly as many people say) and we were dangerously close to being 1-5.  But, the way it stands now is that if we somehow get a win tomorrow we finish the road trip with a mediocre 3-4 record.  Not good but okay.  It’s not the end of the world if we lose either.  But let’s not worry about tomorrow until tomorrow.  Today was the type of game the Mariners will be playing all season and it was good to see them win. 

My hero/goat and a few other notes after the jump.  Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under M's Game Recaps, Mariners

Tagged as , , , ,

by | April 10, 2010 · 10:55 am

The Case for Jermaine Dye

First, thank God Felix pitches today. We could really use our ace today in hopes of stopping this skid. It’s rare to ever have a must win game in April, and today is not that, but it’s close. 1-5 would be a horrible start, especially considering these are games against division foes. So, on to the post.

Ugly offense
Through the first 5 games, our offensive numbers are staggering. 15 runs on just 19 hits and a collective team average of .194! Now, obviously the team won’t average 3 runs and 3.8 hits per game all year long, but how much better can we be? Are we just looking at an awful offensive team like last year? That thought is definitely starting to creep in, despite having 97% of the season still to play. Which leads me to this…

Jermaine Dye
Please, go get Jermaine Dye. This is becoming a no brainer in my opinion. Between these two players, who fills a greater need for the M’s?

Player A hits for decent average but without power, and is a great chemistry guy.
Player B has a good bat and can hit for power and play outfield if needed.

Player B is the obvious choice. Now, the casualty for signing Dye, in my mind, has to be Mike Sweeney, who in this comparison is player A. Perhaps you keep Sweeney and drop Byrnes, but Byrnes provides speed, a good glove, and some bat, which is just what you want from your 4th outfielder.

I realize this team needs offense and Sweeney was swinging a good bat in spring training, but this team needs a power threat whose best attribute is something other than team mascot and chemistry expert. Really, the only scenario where keeping Sweeney makes sense is if the team is playing well, roles are defined, and the clubhouse atmosphere is exceptional. This was the case last year but at some point if you are serious about contending, you can’t afford 2 bench spots for a platoon DH, (Griffey and Sweeney) especially when neither can play defense. Again, you could get away with this last year, but that was when the team was just trying to play .500 ball and bounce back from a 101 loss season, and was not too serious about contending.

I’d keep Griffey over Sweeney because Junior has a little more pop, and he may be needed to keep Bradley happy. Plus, Sweeney’s contract is league minimum. Also, watching Tui play first base just fine the other day tells me Sweeney won’t ever see the field, and so clearly his only role is to platoon at DH with Griffey.

With only a 5 game sample, it’s obvious that offense will be the Achilles heel of this team. Our pitching and defense will be fine, and this being the case, I think you have to take whatever money you were offering Washburn, and offer it to Dye. Sweeten it by a million or whatever is required. I realize Jermaine Dye isn’t the missing piece to a World Series contender, but it is a start, and he gives us a better shot at staying in the race until June/July when we are finally healthy. This just makes too much sense to me. It’s not even worth waiting a week to see if Sweeney stays hot, or our offense suddenly starts averaging 6 runs a game. 2 designated hitters who can do nothing but platoon is too restricting for a team trying to make a run. Jack, go get Jermaine!

-Dan

3 Comments

Filed under Mariners

Tagged as , , ,

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

Leave a comment

Filed under M's Game Recaps, Mariners

Tagged as , , , ,

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

2 Comments

Filed under M's Series Previews, Mariners

Tagged as

by | April 8, 2010 · 10:25 pm

The Need For A Bat

I’m not one to get too worried after the first series of the year.  It takes at least a couple of weeks and sometimes a lot longer for a team to settle in.  Roles have to be defined and adjustments made.  Players get injured or don’t perform at the level expected or the level they did in spring training.  Billy Beane, GM of the now fearsome Oakland A’s, famously said that you spend the first two months of the season figuring out what you’ve got, the second two months getting the team you want, and the last two months playing with that team.  It’s a long season, and the Mariners will have spells where they hit the ball so well they’ll look like the best team in baseball.

What the Mariners won’t have with this current roster no matter how long the season goes is That One Bat.  Anderson today and Braden a couple of days ago threw excellent games.  When your pitcher throws like that, you expect to win the game.  That’s the principle that the Mariners are built on, with Felix and Lee and hopefully Bedard and a potentially shutdown bullpen.  But when some hitters go to the plate, they are on equal ground or at an advantage no matter who the pitcher is and how well he’s throwing.  These are the types of hitters who go down in history, the Ruths and Mays and Williams, at the extreme end, but also the Texeiras and Hollidays and Guerreros.  Some guys reach that level for a season or so, while some play their careers there and go down in history.

The Mariners don’t have that guy.  Ichiro is the only thing close, and some people would put him in that category, but I think his lack of constant power moves him out.  There aren’t many players I’d rather have up in the ninth with the winning run on second, but there are plenty of guys I’d rather see when we’re down one in the fourth against Roy Halladay (thankfully that won’t happen this year).  Milton Bradley could possibly be that guy.  He was at that level in 2008 in Texas, but for him to get back there might be a stretch.  It’s not inconceivable that Guti or maybe even Tui or someone could get there, but it’s pretty doubtful. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under Mariners

by | April 8, 2010 · 7:11 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/8/2010

Practice was moved in doors today because of the weird hail storms taking place.  Practice indoors is a kind of nice change, at least for the fans.   It’s a lot warmer in there but there isn’t as much space.  The coaches still make it work pretty well with the limited space.

Practice was interesting today.  Along with being inside, there were a ton of important people there.  We had our first Joe Montana sighting of the spring.  I admit, I was a little star struck when I ended up standing within a few feet of him and his wife.  Every time he walked by, I could hear the people around me start to whisper about him.  He wasn’t treated any differently than a normal fan, standing behind the rope and watching.  Along with Joe Montana I saw Dick Baird, Mark Emmert and Scott Woodward.  There seemed to be quite a few alumni there as well.  It didn’t stop with the celebrities though, there were about 15 recruits there.  I couldn’t place them all but most of them were from this years class. 

Zach Banner (2012 mega recruit) was there again and I overheard him say that his top 3 are UW, Oregon, and USC.  He took an unnoficial visit to Eugene last week and was really impressed with their campus and facilities.  He also raved about UW’s coaches, specifically Sark and the strength coach.  I heard all of this while he was talking to a couple of friends.  Banner 6-7, 295 lbs. and he’s only a sophomore in high school.  He will be one of the highest rated offensive line recruits in the county in a couple of years.

With all of these things going on it was a little bit hard to concentrate in practice.  Like Tuesdays practice, a lot of today was focused on 11 on 11 drills. 

The backup quarterbacks continue to grow every practice.  Nick Montana was the better of the backups on Tuesday but I think Price was better today.  In a two-minute 7-on-7 drill Price was very effective and completed all but one or two of his passes.  After watching a little closer this week, it might not be Price’s arm that hurts him, it might be his footwork.  He kind of bounces from right to left at times instead of looking fluid in his steps.  It’s obvious that he’s eager to learn and works hard.  Him and Montana ask a lot of questions to Jake and Nuss which is great to see.

The running game got going a little bit today.  It looked way more impressive than it did on Tuesday.  Fogerson was impressive today, he ran over some guys.  Callier had a nice run that he bounced outside for about 30 yards.  Cooper had the run of the day though.  The line opened up a huge hole for him and once he got into the secondary he showed off his speed.  Cooper took it into the end zone for about a 60 yard touchdown. 

Senio Kelememte is going to be great at tackle.  I think he’ll be the offensive lineman the Huskies have.  He’s really quick as a tackle and has pretty good size.  Moving him to tackle was definitely the right move by the coaching staff. 

Cameron Elisara continues to get a lot of reps at defensive end.  He looks pretty good there.  I worry a little bit about him having enough speed for that position.  Everyone knows he’s extremely strong but whether he has enough speed off the end has yet to be seen.

After watching these practices it seems that the Huskies will use a nickel defense a lot more this year (defense with 3 cornerbacks and 2 linebackers).  They hardly ever went to it with last year but I see it a lot in practice and it makes sense.  I never thought I’d say this but the Huskies best position may be cornerback (besides wide receiver).  They have 5 guys back there who I would feel fairly comfortable with starting in the secondary. 

Clarence Trent has given up football.  He was never really a factor in his 4 practices with the team but it was nice to have an extra body out there.  I hope he has an excellent basketball career.

Demetrius Bronson looked pretty good while playing some at fullback today.  I’d read that he’s up to 230 lbs. and I saw him throw some impressive blocks today.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved him to fullback permanently.  This will be an interesting story to watch through the rest of spring.

The Huskies are having a scrimmage on Saturday at noon.  It sounds like they’ll treat it as a real game and it should be fun to see who the coaches have in starting and such.  I’m really looking forward to seeing these guys in a game situation.  A few of the Good Guys should be there so leave a comment or something if you plan on going and we can talk sports with you! Or you could find Joe Montana and talk with him instead but I’m sure we’re much more exciting….

Thanks for reading!

Andrew

1 Comment

Filed under Huskies Football

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,