As Matthew looks ahead to next year in his series, I’m going to look back at the first quarter of the season. We’re a few games past the quarter point but this seems to be an appropriate time to look back on who has done what. We’ll start with the starting rotation because that’s the least depressing thing. Grades after the jump!
Tag Archives: Ryan Rowland-Smith
Game Recap – 5/12
Well, that was frustrating. That game, and a sweep, would have been really nice to have but the crazy thing about baseball is that even the worst teams (and the Orioles are as bad it gets) still usually win about 60 games. As much as sabermetrics do work for baseball, the favorable matchup doesn’t always win. With that being said, I’m not sure the Mariners had the favorable match up today. Lets looks at a few matchups in this game:
- Ryan Rowland-Smith vs. Brad Bergesen. Let me start off by saying that Hyphen is a good guy. I like him and have yet to hear anyone write/say that they really disliked him. But, he just isn’t very good right now. I want him to succeed as much as anyone but he doesn’t look like a quality starter right now. Brad Bergesen on the other hand has turned his season around a little bit. He’s no Cliff or Felix, heck, he’s not even Doug or Vargas, but if given a choice between Hyphen and Bergesen I would chose Bergesen. This may not be the case in a couple months or years but it is right now.
The Mariners obviously rolled out a better defensive unit than the Orioles but lets look at thelineups hitting wise tonight. We’ll play our series preview game with tonights lineup (winners in bold):
- Catcher: O’s-Wieters. M’s- Moore. This really is a no contest. Moore looks awful right now, he might need to go back to Tacoma.
- 1st base: O’s- Atkins. M’s- Kotchman. Yes Kotchman is a better player but looking at this hitting wise, Atkins is a little better in my opinion. It’s close, but neither guy is really hitting right now.
- 2nd base: O’s- Wiggington. M’s- Figgins. Yes, I’d rather have Figgy on my team than Wiggington but Ty is hitting the ball. Chone really isn’t hitting the ball at all.
- SS: O’s- Izturis. M’s- Jo. Wilson. This is a sad contest but Wilson wins.
- 3rd base: O’s- Tejada. M’s- Tui. Tui is another guy who looks lost, right along with Adam Moore.
- LF: O’s- Patterson. M’s- Saunders. I don’t need to explain.
- CF: O’s- Jones. M’s- Langerhans. This one is closer than it should be. Langerhans is one of them most productive hitters on the team right now, which is sad, but I still think Jones strikes more fear in pitchers hearts.
- RF: O’s- Markakis. M’s- Ichiro. Ichiro seems to be on his usual May hot-streak. This is good.
- DH: O’s- Luke Scott. M’s- Lopez. Jose can’t hit right now. Scott’s average is lower but he’s shown a lot more power than Jose. Lopey was so close to a home run tonight but more on that later.
So, looking at the matchups hitting wise the O’s held a 6-3 advantage tonight. I know defense is an important part of the game and the Mariners run out a good defense usually but this just shows how inept this offense can be. The Mariners are better than the Orioles but tonight the matchup never really seemed to be in our favor. 4/9 of our starters were in Tacoma last week. Four of the other starters are hitting .214 or below. That leaves Ichiro and he can’t do everything himself. The lineup should be back to normal tomorrow, which still isn’t anything to be excited about but at least we’ll have a better matchup.
Goat/Hero and a few notes after the jump. Continue reading
Filed under M's Game Recaps, Mariners
Game Recap — 4/17/2010
It wasn’t as glamorous as Friday’s 11-3 win, but in many ways last night’s 4-2 win was equally impressive. After all, the M’s were facing Verlander, and our starter, RRS, was facing a tough task against an all right-handed hitting Tigers line-up. Seemed like a recipe for a loss. But Hyphen was up to the task, and except for a hanging curveball to Ordonez and a double to Rayburn in the 7th, that was all the damage.
As for the offense, well they banged 7 hits off Verlander. Seattle made him work especially hard in the 1st and I thought we might work him out of the game early, but Verlander hit his stride and got throught 7 strong innings. Guti went 2-4 again, with 2 RBI. Ichiro came up a homer away from the cycle, and if he was given a decent pitch to hit in his last AB, we might be celebrating his cycle today. We’ll settle for 3-3 and a walk I suppose.
Onto some notes and our hero/goat…
- Hero: Ichiro. It would be easy to give it to Guti for another solid night, but Ichiro flirted with the cycle and that is pretty special. RRS had a good outing as well, despite the no decision.
Goat: Ken Griffey Jr. I love you Jr, but 0-4 with 2 K’s won’t cut it. Griffey only saw 14 pitches in those AB’s also.
Today we go for the sweep! Snell is on the mound and if he wants to stay in this rotation, he had better pitch well, unlike his last start.
-Dan
Filed under M's Game Recaps, Mariners
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
Filed under M's Series Previews, Mariners
Monday Quick Notes
Who doesn’t like some quick notes on their Monday lunch break?
- Just when it looked like the Mariners season was going to fall apart before it started, it now looks like it probably won’t. Of course, both feelings were based on spring training, which is usually not a good way to go. Cliff Lee is still injured, but there have now been good performances in the last week from everyone else expected to be in the rotation. Ryan Rowland-Smith looked sharp yesterday, although his velocity was a little down from what you’d like to see. Has anyone heard if it’s just a slow gun in Peoria? Fister threw four innings today as he’s mostly recovered from that forearm bruise, and looks like he should be good to go to start the year.
- Speaking of Lee, his suspension appeal hearing that was supposed to be today was postponed indefinitely. He also was shut down for 5 days to rest his abdominal strain. I think that time is about up, so hopefully we’ll know more about when he’ll be back later this week. At this point, I think he’s a 95% bet to start on the DL. Even if he recovers quickly, he’ll still need to stretch out a little bit after a spring of little work. In the interest of keeping hopes down, I’m planning on him returning around May 1st. Anything before that is a great bonus.
- Bedard threw off a mound today, which is a huge step. He didn’t throw real hard, of course, but the added strain from throwing from a mound compared to flat ground is a big hurdle to overcome. It sounded like everything went well today, so hope for very little soreness tomorrow. The team sounds very enthused about his comeback, and he’s theoretically way ahead of schedule, but setbacks can happen in a hurry. May 1st or shortly thereafter isn’t out of the realm of possibility form him either, but I would plan on closer to June 1st.
- We are now seeing the downside of an NCAA tournament with a ton of upsets, in my opinion, that being a pretty uninteresting Final Four. As great of a story as Butler is, I just can’t get excited about seeing them in a semi-final, much less the final. I want the big names! I couldn’t even tell you who the best NBA prospect still playing is. Any thoughts? It’s been a great tournament to watch thus far though.
- Spring practice for the Huskies starts tomorrow. I’ll try to get to a few practices, and I’m sure Andrew will make a few more. See Andrew’s spring preview posts for an idea of some of the issues the Huskies are looking at. I’ll try to put up a quick post with some of the biggest questions the Huskies have this spring later today or tomorrow.
Mariners season opener is in a week, April 5th! Everybody getting excited? You know I am! A few things to watch this last week of spring training:
- Roster moves: the roster seems fairly set, but watch for injuries or a random surprise.
- Cliff Lee: once there’s some resolution on the appeal and he throws again, we should have a better idea of a return date.
- Can the pitching staff, especially the rotation stay sharp and stretch out to 80+ pitches in their last starts before the season?
- This should be the time where numbers start to mean a little more for the hitters. The veterans especially should be getting a little more locked in.
-Matthew
Filed under Huskies Basketball, Huskies Football, Mariners
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