Seattle: 2-5
Oakland: 5-2
| MARINERS | Δ Ms | ATHLETICS | EDGE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HITTING (wOBA) |
-10.5 (28th) | -3.3 | 5.9 (8th) | Oakland |
| FIELDING (+/-) |
6.0 (3rd) | 6.0 | 3.0 (10th) | Seattle |
| ROTATION (tRA) |
-7.0 (25th) | -4.0 | 5.1 (7th) | Oakland |
| BULLPEN (tRA) |
0.5 (14th) | 0.4 | 0.7 (12th) | Oakland |
| OVERALL(RAA) |
-11.0 | -0.9 | 14.7 | OAKLAND |
Well, that could have gone better again. While this is a troubling beginning to the season, there remains a long journey left to go. I don't want to say the real test begins now, but coming home hopefully gets the team out of its rut. This roster was assembled with Safeco Field in mind and as much as the lack of hitting has been a focus early on, the rotation has struggled almost as much. It's too early to make hay out of anything, especially pitching just seven turns in, but it gives us another reminder that the team we've seen so far is not the projected team from February. They're still sorting through the early roster fluctuations and almost everyone is in a slump. Patience.
UZRs are not out yet but thanks to Supreme Lord David Appleman implementing the Fielding Bible stats on FanGraphs, I am able to throw in the +/- runs above average (DRS) in the meantime. Unsurprisingly, the Mariners are already hovering near the top the league.
What's there to say? We just played these guys and saw two of these three starters. Gio Gonzalez is the new one and what he lacks in command (a lot), he tries to make up for with the ground balls that he gets from his curve ball. It was actually one of the best pitches in all of baseball last year at generating ground balls.
The Athletics do not have a potent offense. It's probably not as bad as ours, but it's still not likely to be above average at the end of the season. Safeco Field is home for us and the weather's supposed to be cool. It would be a great time to get some solid starts out of the back of our rotation.
| Ryan Rowland-Smith | Doug Fister | Jason Vargas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Justin Duchscherer | Brett Anderson | Gio Gonzalez | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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0 recs | 55 comments
RAAANNNNNDYYYYY
Jeff Sullivan - April 12, 2010
Any chance he warms up and says screw it, I'm starting tonight?
Still glad I got to his start last year.
CMC_Stags - April 12, 2010
If he takes over for Fister, I can't say I'd be too sad
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
I have to imagine he wouldn't be any worse
bluemax - April 12, 2010
They ain't ready.
sanford_and_son - April 12, 2010
The goosebumps are forming.
melenious - April 12, 2010
I totally forgot about that...yahhhhh!
kentroyals5 - April 12, 2010
Needs 8 of em.
abender20 - April 12, 2010
Even with that grim preview, I can't wait to get to leave my hotel and get to the ballpark!
wazzu93 - April 12, 2010
You call that grim?
Matthew - April 12, 2010
Oh man don't mention the part about Griffey! being hurt then!
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
Only in that the edge is to Oakland. Sorry, bad word choice. And whoo Opening Day!
wazzu93 - April 12, 2010
WOOO. BASEBALL. GO MS!
melenious - April 12, 2010
Yay safeco!
Let’s go Ms. Time to play at home!
joeh312 - April 12, 2010 via mobile
We can get back in this thing by sweeping Oakland
We just need a good week to counteract the previous bad week.
The season is not over, though anyone’s fantasies of a great start to the year certainly are.
ARock - April 12, 2010
Fangraphs has Duchscherer's slider as a cutter
I presume you selected it as a slider based of scouting reports, right? Hopefully, Ms are patient this series with Gonzalez and Duchscherer. Neither has displayed great control. I would rather take my chances with their injury ladled bullpen. Especially after Tyson Ross went 3 innings and 40+ pitches last night.
Also, can I buy low on Duchscherer’s arm. Over 50 % breaking pitches when coming back from a season plagued by injuries and little innings.
tdot mariner fan - April 12, 2010
I don't select anything, I just go by MLBAM's pitch classifications.
They aren’t as good as BIS, but like hell am I taking the time to do it manually. It’s good enough for unpaid blog work
Matthew - April 12, 2010
Thanks for the clarification
The cutter would make more sense considering the K rating given to it. MLBAM really needs to look at the inconsistencies of their pitch data. I had to go through pains recently to convince a friend Burnett does not throw a knuckle-curve, unlike what gameday was saying.
tdot mariner fan - April 12, 2010
I think it would have been really funny to convince him that Burnett actually did throw a knuckle curve
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
Pitch classification in real time is an incredibly difficult math problem
Matthew - April 12, 2010
It would be much much easier if pitch f/x was fed a scouting report for each player first
Graham MacAree - April 12, 2010
Isn't it? The algorithm that chooses pitch type is supposed to take a pitcher's reportoire into account.
I’ve always assumed that data comes from a scouting report/from the team.
marc w - April 12, 2010
This new At-Bat thing they have is pretty useful
I’m tracking the Harden start right now for example, and it’s telling me he’s throwing a heater, splitter, slider and change up. I know that he doesn’t really do all those things, but I can get average velo fot each pitch (about the same) and average movement over the course of the game (also same). Pretty helpful.
Bearskin Rugburn - April 12, 2010
It clearly doesn't, though
Graham MacAree - April 12, 2010
This was pretty obvious during Felix starts last year
it could never tell between his turbo change up and his two seamer
Bearskin Rugburn - April 12, 2010
Can you?
marc w - April 12, 2010
Well the change I guess is usually a bit slower
so anything 90 and below I’d think was a change up and the 90-92 stuff sinker. Jeff had some trick to it as well, maybe horizontal movement?
Bearskin Rugburn - April 12, 2010
I believe that it is sorta
I think that Mike Fast or someone provided the guy in charge of GameDay’s pitch classification with training data for each pitcher, or pitch type.
vivaelpujols - April 12, 2010
My ears! my ears!
I thought it would be Mariners Baseball, but I get Cowherd and Schilling instead
msb - April 12, 2010
Awww, I just realized the M's game is at 3:40 PST
that kinda sucks
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
Really odd start time
E-Lizz - April 12, 2010
Pretty typical start time for weekday day games
Matthew - April 12, 2010
I'm just a little surprised that opening day on a weekday wouldn't be at least a 5:05 start time
though I guess they know they’re selling out either way since it’s Opening Day
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
They have done the home opener during the day every time at Safeco except for 2001.
Robert - April 12, 2010
Ya and what happened in 2001?
It seems with how superstitious baseball players are that this would have produced something.
the other side - April 12, 2010
I haven't been to many 3:40 games here on the East Coast.
It’s at 6:40 for me though which is perfect.
E-Lizz - April 12, 2010
I think every team handles weekday matinees a little differently.
Mariner John - April 12, 2010
Used to be called the Businessman's Special
Opening Day (or home opener) is traditionally a day game. Monday at 12:40 would be an inconvenient time for the sold-out first game of the season, and I believe the start time is later so it’s easier to knock off work/school early and still make it to Opening Day. The Padres moved all but one of their weekday afternoon starts this year to 3:35, in part to reduce traffic/parking impact on downtown businesses and commuters. It also helps stimulate business if fans get out of the game at 6:30 and are looking for somewhere to have dinner.
With the exception of one other 3:40 start (Wednesday 9/16 vs. Boston), M’s start times this season are 12:40 for weekday day games.
lemonverbena - April 12, 2010
Somewhat unrelated to this series but yay Lee and Bedard
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5075687
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
I wish I could be there tonight
Hopefully we’ll gain some momentum by being at home. I sure hope so… GO M’S!!
E-Lizz - April 12, 2010
Randy! Randy! Randy!
A little homesauce never hurts for a slumping team…LET’S GO M’S!!!!
Omerta - April 12, 2010
I hope Edgar, Buhner, and Wilson make apperances too
I’d love to see them reunited with Junior and Randy.
OceanBird - April 12, 2010
Hey, look!
Mariner John - April 12, 2010
Happy Home Opener
Go M’s. Please win base ball games.
lemonverbena - April 12, 2010
Oh dear
@ TNTmariners Wak said on KJR that Ian Snell has left the team with family issues
msb - April 12, 2010
Does this mean it's Luke French time?
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
I'd imagine he'd be back before his next start.
Eyebrows - April 12, 2010 via mobile
Interesting.
royalcurve - April 12, 2010
Might explain the distracted pitching yesterday
msb - April 12, 2010
That, or the fact that he kinda sucks.
Eyebrows - April 12, 2010 via mobile
I choose to consider it a combination of both!
seattlebruin - April 12, 2010
News, and worthy of it's own post.
Lets try to keep this thread on this series. Ian Snell was not slated to start this series.
Matthew - April 12, 2010
OK.
msb - April 12, 2010
Oh no...
E-Lizz - April 12, 2010
God, another series with the fucking A's.
Way to bore me to tears in the second week of the season, MLB schedulers.
Benne - April 12, 2010
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