Seattle: 11-12
Oakland:14-9
Game 1: Miguel Batista vs Dana Eveland*
Game 2: Erik Bedard* vs Justin Duchscherer
Game 3: Felix Hernandez vs. Joe Blanton
The Mariners hurlers for the series as presented in metaphor form.
Miguel Batista = LOTR: Fellowship. There's lots of walking going on, nothing much happens, eventually your brain powers down and when it's finally over you cannot believe only three hours of your life is gone because you feel about 12 years older.
Erik Bedard = LOTR: Two Towers. There's some awesome parts with action, but inbetween there's long stretches where people stand around and talk about the upcoming action.
Felix Hernandez = LOTR: Return of the King.
What? Felix is the King. Metaphor over.
A litmus test series in a way for us here starting off with Miguel Batista. Did he seriously pick up on something in his last start? I know it's usually torture slogging through a Batista start, but this one will be worth it to see if looks like his old self or the possibly-new-but-only-based-on-one-start self. Dana Eveland has been bouncing around various leagues for the past four years and is tough to get a read on. It looks like he misses about an average number of bats and walks more than average. He's got barely-90s stuff and a couple of offspeed pitches.
Yes, Erik Bedard is back, unless he feels a damp chill before his start and contracts hypothermia. It will be important to watch his curveball's movement because if he's having hip problems, it's going to mess with his trunk rotation. Bedard faces off against a guy in Duchscherer who is returning from his own injury (biceps) and has never looked right for the rotation.
The series finale pits the always worth watching Felix Hernandez who strikes fear in batters everywhere against the man who strikes fear in cupcake batters everywhere, Joe Blanton. It would be nice to see a return of the groundballs from Felix as well, but really all I want to see is him flashing the beautiful change again. Every start he makes without losing it makes it one more start in the sample that Felix could possess five pitches (4-Seam, 2-Seam, Change, Curve, Slider) that all rate as at least plus.
Likely Starters:
C Kurt Suzuki
1 Daric Barton*/Mike Sweeney
2 Mark Ellis
3 Jack Hannahan*/Donnie Murphy
S Bobby Crosby
L Jack Cust*/Chris Denorfia
C Rajai Davis /Ryan Sweeney*
R Emil Brown
D Frank Thomas
Great, they pick up Rajai Davis and now there's another spot where we have no idea who is going to be starting. Jack Cust continues to regress and barely has a starting job at this point. Last time we met up with Oakland, their lineup was running a paltry .115 isoP. A week later and it's now at .114. Though the addition of Frank Thomas is likely to help boost that number, they are still a pathetically weak lineup.
Frank Fucking Thomas. You know he's killing us this weekend. He's going to emotionally scar all of us and then the Angels are going to realize that Garret Anderson and Gary Matthews Jr. suck and so they'll sign Barry Bonds and get John Lackey back and holy Apollo I abhor our management so much it makes we want to create a new word to better capture my loathing and level of disdain. I both scorn and detest you front office.
April 4th: Bottom 4th, 1 out, Mariners lead 2-1, WE: 60%
April 5th: Top 4th, 0 out, Mariners lead 2-0, WE: 75%
April 6th: Top 9th, 0 out, Mariners lead 2-0, WE: 92%
April 7th: Top 3rd, 0 out, Mariners lead 2-0, WE: 71%
April 22nd: Top 9th, 3 out, Mariners win 4-2, WE: 100%
April 23rd: Bot 4th, 1 out, Mariners lead 2-0, WE: 83%
April 24th: Bot 3rd, 2 out, Mariners lead 5-0, WE: 93%
Record: 1-6.
Lost amongst the offenses struggles and the bullpen's unreliability has been the starting pitching doing a fantastic job this year. If you had told us on March 31st that excluding Bedard, our starters' FIPs would be: 3.5, 4.2, 4.6 and 3.6 we would have probably flipped out and predicted a 14-9 record at worst. Here's hoping it lasts and that Bedard can come back healthy and at his 2007 level because I have faith in the bullpen returning to good. I have much less faith in Carlos Silva, Jarrod Washburn and Miguel Batista
Detonator Doppelbock
Fish Brewing Company. Olympia, WA
Oak-aged, it pours a deep reddish-brown and possesses a thinnish light tan head. Roasted malt and caramel are the predominant characteristics of the aroma. The flavor indicates both those and some additional notes of raisins and/or nuts and some other subtle tastes. Lots of complexity and a satisfying body to boot which ends in a dry finish.
0 recs | 63 comments
There's no way in hell the Angels sign Bonds
even though I would love them to. They’re kind of locked in to the “DH as a way to rest our 5000 different aging outfielders” philosophy.
Also, a little bit of bad induction/logic fun:
2006 Mariners vs. 2006 Athletics (with Frank Fucking Thomas): 2 wins, 17 losses
2007 Mariners vs. 2007 Athletics (without FFT): 14 wins, 5 losses.
So, following that rigorous investigation, it would appear that since the Athletics have FFT back on the team, the M’s are boned when facing the A’s this year. This terribly incorrect fun fact was sponsored by Halos Heaven [Slogan: Reason Only Impedes Panther McScrappylove].
Eyebrows - April 25, 2008
There really is no way in hell the Angels sign Bonds
and this fact makes me happy, because even though Barry’s an all-time great hitter, I’ve never liked him and never will. I could make a decent argument that he’d create more problems than he’d solve for the Halos and that many of the inherent advantages Barry would bring to a lot of teams don’t apply to the Angels, but at the end of the day, he’d probably still be a statistical improvement. However, the simple truth is that if my sole criteria for liking a team or player was their stat line, I’d have become a Yankees fan a long time ago. So even though Bonds would be a significant upgrade at DH, even though it absolutely makes statistical sense to want him on my team, I don’t. I’d enjoy rooting for the team playing against him much more.
Though to be fair, I think the reasoning for the M’s to pick him up is much better than the case for the Halos to do so.
TheOptimist - April 25, 2008
Iono
per this article they are considering it
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
HH-roll
Matthew - April 25, 2008
Sorry
I just wanted to show how proud I was over that.
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
No more linking to HH for me.
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
Disguise your Halo-rolls better.
JI - April 25, 2008
better yet, don't do them
There’s no reason, including comedy to link to HH. You just feed their traffic.
Matthew - April 25, 2008
I think comedy is a good reason
but I also don’t think it’ll be funny again for several months.
JI - April 25, 2008
I said I would stop =(
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
Not angry or anything
I’m just trying to be overly emphatic. That place is what’s wrong with America.
Matthew - April 25, 2008
[insert Jon Stewart's I want a president that is embarrasingly superior to me rant]
///ZOMG NO POLITICS
JI - April 25, 2008
You are bat shit crazy if you think I'm gong to click on that.
JI - April 25, 2008
It doesn't go to the frontpage... I swear
just click it
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
no way man
JI - April 25, 2008
Wait, so you're the LL photoshop wizard
and your life’s crowning moment is writing POWER SWING POWER SWING POWER SWING over and over in all caps?
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
You have any idea how hard it is to get that to line up symetircally?
JI - April 25, 2008
That was goddamn hilarious
yet nobody should ever visit HH for any reason period, except for that.
marinator - April 25, 2008
There's only one return
and it ain’t of the king, it’s of the jedi.
pdb - April 25, 2008
Ewoks?
Really?
ningwers - April 25, 2008
It is just so damn frustrating
to be a casual fan sitting here watching the team suck and the M’s doing nothing about it. Even a blind man should be able to see that benching Vidro, putting Reed in LF, and moving Raul to DH would help this team win. Seriously, it just shouldn’t be so damned hard!
thewyrm - April 25, 2008
Benching Vidro
putting Reed in a LF and Raul at DH is only a baby step… its not suddenly going to make this offense good, it’ll only be a defensive improvement as Reed is not much with the bat…. he’s probably about equal to Vidro over the course of a full season…..
This team has more then one glaring problem…. Virdo…. Anyone who has played RF… and catcher….
To improve this team there needs to be a series of moves, not just a lateral one for a defensive upgrade.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
I don't understand how a defensive upgrade amounts to a lateral move
Graham MacAree - April 25, 2008
i used lateral
move because in all likelihood Reed’s offense could quite honestly be worse then Vidro’s over the course of the season.
And while I think he’s a defensive improvement, I also believe his defensive ability has been overhyped a bit
I don’t have the stats to back it up, but when I use the term lateral its just my opinion that from what I’ve seen of Reed offensively and defensively it could very well be an even swap of amount of runs saved defensively as is lost offensively.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
maybe I should have used
minimal upgrade to the overall team instead of lateral move.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
I don't see how Reed could be ~20 runs worse than Vidro offensively
And that’s a really conservative estimate on the upgrade in LF defence.
Graham MacAree - April 25, 2008
I'm just happy I'm on the third base side tonight, so I get to see the good part of the defense up close.
Thingray - April 25, 2008
I don't think there's really
that much of a run difference…. I don’t think Reed is as good as some people think, and I don’t think Raul is as nearly as bad as the defensive metrics rate him to be….. I’m not saying he’s good but I don’t think he’s nearly as bad as his reputation has come to bear. I think the defensive metrics skew him to be horrendous because of the amount of ground coverage that Ichiro has in CF.
I know the numbers say differently, but to my eye, and I’ve watched alot of baseball in my time he’s not the worst defender I’ve seen playing LF.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
So
I have Reed as an OK CF, which translates to a good LF, ~+5. I have Raul as hilariously bad, which means -25.
And then I cut 10 runs from the difference just because I haven’t watched video of Reed more recently than 2006.
Also, why do people assume I use defensive metrics?
Graham MacAree - April 25, 2008
I didn't say
you use defensive metrics…. I was just stating my opinion that he’s not nearly as bad defensively as his reputation has come to bear, and most of that is because defensive metrics have skewed him to be awful.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
Skewed?
It’s my understanding that, if Ichiro catches a ball in Ibanez’s zone, that play is excluded from Ibanez’s record. So I don’t think there’s a built-in problem. If Ibanez isn’t that bad, it’s because he’s doing something else that doesn’t show up in the numbers (like Ichiro!).
Jeff Sullivan - April 25, 2008
Exclude yes
like it didn’t happen for him, when frequently without Ichiro being there to cover it, he would get credit for the out of zone catch. I don’t know the inner workings of the defensive metrics and how they’re gathered, it just seems that our LF and RF are going to lose some points on catches they could make, that Ichiro calls them off on.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
I don't see what reputation has to do with any of this
Essentially, you’re saying that your evaluation of him as a ? (what would you say he is?) run LF is different to mine as a -25 LF, right?
Which is fine, I’m not a great scout. I just don’t get why my opinion of him gets replied to with a complaint about defensive metrics skewing his reputation.
Graham MacAree - April 25, 2008
I'm not attacking your points
I’m stating my opinion, and my feelings on the overall consensus feel of him…. not you specifically, I’m just having the discussion with you about it.
It’s not an attack on you at all for using/not using defensive metrics, its a statement about why I don’t feel he’s as horrible as many others (not you specifically) think he is.
I can’t say what he is in run differential because I’ve never really understood the concept of run differential, and how its actually generated on a given play/hit.
If you feel he’s a -25 in LF based upon your evaluation, I’m not one to say you are wrong,
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
You can if you like
Graham MacAree - April 25, 2008
I understand what you're saying
but every improvement process has a first step. Anything that makes us even slightly better is okay by me.
Jeff Sullivan - April 25, 2008
oh I'm by no means
not advocating the Move talked about…. I just think its a small step that needs to lead to much bigger ones to really make this team better.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
it's likely a 2-win improvement
over a full season. That’s huge.
Matthew - April 25, 2008
I'd be happy with Reed being a stopgap
until a real LF is brought in around the deadline.
Jeff Sullivan - April 25, 2008
I have a bad feeling this weekend is going to hurt more than Clerks 2 did.
JI - April 25, 2008
there is no pain that great, well
InSpokane - April 25, 2008
aside from the times/pi reports. Has any heard how Bedard's rehab work has gone?
InSpokane - April 25, 2008
You know, at this point
I don’t even know if I care anymore.
thewyrm - April 25, 2008
Good enough
that he’s starting on Saturday.
MfaninAlaska - April 25, 2008
I'm just hoping Beluga Tits new found trick is for real.
I have tickets to the game tonight, and I don’t want to sit through a suck-fest like the last game I went to where Reefer Jaw started.
Thingray - April 25, 2008
Those are some damn good WE percentges and yet nothing to show for it.
Sign Bonds. End of problem.
Wilder. - April 25, 2008
If they sign Bonds I'll eat my hat.
If ANYONE signs Bonds I’ll be surprised.
Thingray - April 25, 2008
I'll eat mine too
I need a new one anyway.
Fin - April 25, 2008
The starving children in Africa are proud of you not wasting your old hats
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
I eat my hats just to spite them
Robert - April 25, 2008
I'm actually savin' it for the starvin' children.
Fin - April 25, 2008
I think it would be more spiteful to throw them away
and maybe tuck little bits of jerky inside the crease
Jeff Sullivan - April 25, 2008
I try to do what I can.
Thingray - April 25, 2008
I WONTZ BAYDARRRRRR
OlSalty - April 25, 2008
Personally...
Coming from a fan of LOTR since I can remember being able to read… Fellowship is the best of the 3. I can sit and watch it any time and be happy. Two Towers is good, and Return of the King is a movie I have to like schedule a day to watch it because it just knocks the wind out of me. All fabulous, but I prefer the flow and characters in Fellowship.
That being said, fuck Tits.
dkulich - April 25, 2008
Wouldn't you like to
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
True.
Not talking about those tits though.
dkulich - April 25, 2008
Well you did capitalize it
inferring that it’s a proper noun…
seattlebruin - April 25, 2008
Ok, the word in question is "fuck", then.
dkulich - April 25, 2008
You must be referring to the movies
because if it’s the books your metaphors make no sense. (Well, the first two don’t, anyway.)
iglew - April 25, 2008
...
Matthew - April 25, 2008
NERD-OFF
Jeff Sullivan - April 25, 2008
I'LL JOIN!
dkulich - April 25, 2008
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