I'm going to go out on a limb here. We are going to do that more often.
Our slow starters may be beginning to come around. Eventually, they have to. There is no reason to believe that this isn’t the start of that. Our starting pitching is sound, defense is there, we’ve just been waiting to get the bats warmed up. I’m still concerned about Loafie at the bat and Josh Wilson in the field, but I think we might have turned a corner tonight. This was definitely the line up that Wak should have been playing all along.
For all the talk about how lucky or fortunate Fister has been
That 2-run inning was pretty well pitched and pretty damn unlucky.
He should have gotten out of it without any runs allowed and 3 of of the 4 balls hit touched infield glove. He was close to a 1-2-3 inning, even if the balls were hit hard.
It sucks that the Wilson error cost a double play, especially. But with a contact pitcher, you’re going to have innings like that (especially when key defensive spots are being filled with scrubs).
Some of this is, I think, regression from Fister’s awesome BABIP. I’m glad it happened on a night when we still pulled out a win. It’s nice for our SPs to know they don’t have to be perfect, and even if the defense flops occasionally we can still give them some support.
I nominate Doug Fister for a future award he can pick up in 5 years called the
“Fuck You, I told you I could pitch” award. aka the Jamie Moyer Award.
I’m really, really rooting for the guy. He’s gone 7 innings or more in 7 of his last 8 starts and what more can you ask from a guy with his skillset? We saw Carlos Silva pitch in front of this defense last year and he was the worst pitcher in the AL. We’ve watched Snell and RRS pitch in front of this defense. Fister’s stuff isn’t flashy or pretty, but guys have a hard time making good line-drive contact off of him, and he does rely a lot on his defense. But two starts ago I saw him make some filthy strikeouts.
When we start talking about pitching depth in 2011 I’m automatically saying “Well at least we have Felix and Fister”
Scott Boras represents a lot of baseball players with jobs. And I’ve never heard about Washburn wanting a certain amount of money like Jermaine Dye. I won’t be suprised if he shows up on a team in July, but I’m saying Jack Z is no different than the other 29 GM’s who didn’t think he’d upgrade their starting pitching.
For Boras you pay a higher premium for a player. You can get a lot of Washburn type talent without having to pay Boras type money, and Dye was an extreme case of asking for too much; Washburn was just getting offers that he didn’t think were up to his standards. The quote I kept seeing was “not getting an acceptable deal”.
Yeah. If Washburn wants to play though he'll say "take the minimum" and Boras will have to abide.
I just think its stupid for any of these players to be sitting at home if they really had the opportunity to play and get paid. Jermaine Dye: You can only get 1 of 2 things, ZERO money or 1 million dollars. What are you proving by sitting on your butt? Maybe they’re afraid to show that they really do suck and they at least want to get paid $4 million to show they suck.
Except other GM's wanted to sign him (Minnesota offered him 5 million)
Many other just didn’t have the need, and Washburn ruled a lot of them out. And Washburn pursued Seattle. Z definitely showed some smarts in not signing him.
Wak needs a newspaper to the nose every time he doesn’t write “Milton Bradley” in the 4th spot on his lineup card. And the next time he writes “Ken Griffey Jr.” anywhere in the starting lineup, Wak can just sleep outside. Not that I don’t like Wak, he just needs some lineup card training.
No it doesn't, but it doesn't seem like they're too high on Saunders.
A couple nights ago, it was Bradley in LF and Griffey at DH… which means that they believe that either Bradley has better defense than Saunders or Griffey has better offense.
Its almost like Wak has been playing dumb for 6 weeks so that our opponents will underestimate us and now is the time to pounce with not-so-stupid decisions in the lineup card and the roster.
and if some of the hitherto underperforming players (Figgins, Kotchman, Lopez) return to their normal levels of production. I hope so. I hope it’s not just going to be one win every few games. God I would love it if the team beins climbing back towards .500. I want to believe.
(And Get well Mark Lowe. Kelley can’t pitch every day.)
I am much more excited and willing to head to the ballpark when this lineup is announced. That should be worth something. I can’t be the only one. Coming off of no sleep, I was dreading heading to the ballpark for the evening’s game but seeing that we tried the inconceivable notion that the best available lineup might work, I was looking forward to going. Sure, there was some asshole 12 year old behind me asking “When is Griffey going to bat? Why hasn’t he?” but at some point the smarter fans have to win out.
Also, why do these kids love Griffey? At no point in their existence (or at least a point where they knew what baseball was) was he any good. Ridiculous.
This raises questions about what you do against lefties
Can you, realistically, put Sweeney at 1B to replace the struggling Kotchman? Can either Saunders or Langerhans hit enough to make Langerhans/Saunders LF + Bradley DH better than Bradley LF + Sweeney DH? If you play Mike Sweeney at 1B do his legs explode? Is that a good or bad thing?
“Detroit made a pitching change, and Bradley just couldn’t stand at first base for long. He raced to the Mariners dugout during the time out.
"He wanted to give us all some love," manager Don Wakamatsu said, laughing.
Had Wakamatsu ever seen it done before?
"No, but I’d like to see a lot more of it," he deadpanned.
Bradley’s explanation was simple.
"The way I was feeling, all that joy, I wanted to share it with my teammates," he said. "Have I done that before? Probably not. I was just full of joy today. I felt right. My mind was clear.""
Hopefully this is the start of something 2008-like for him.
Fun random B-R facts about Bradley: Last season was the first season since 2003 that he OPS+’d under 100 (he was at 99 last season) and he hasn’t had an OPS under .800 since 2003 (except last season)
Since we have only had him a couple months, and he took a 2 week sabbatical, there have been glimpses of bad things and glimpses of good things. I hope that at the end of the season we can still enjoy watching him play. He has a good track record in the AL West
Because when you’ve got 100+ years of not doing shit and then you sign a guy to a 30 million dollar contract and expect him to be something he has never really been (despite his talent, he can’t stay healthy for a full year and expecations of him as a 30-homer, 100-rbi guy are way over the top) and he doesn’t live up to those expectations, they booed the hell out of him. And so he fought back. He hates Chicago for booing him even though he tried his hardest.
In a weird way, I think teams are loyal to reporters as well… so long as they respect the rules. As much adversity as there can be between the two, they both need each other to thrive.
His box score looks ok. He had a solid single and a sac fly. But, especially with the flyout in the 1st, it looks like his power is just GONE. He pulled it, and really ripped that ball into the gap, but it drifted lazily until the CF turned it into a routine fly ball.
Even his single, which was a “solid” line drive, didn’t have much oomph behind it.
Maybe instead of Grifflent, we should be doing Loaflent. I guess he has 1 HR already, but damned if I know how he managed to yank one out.
I love seeing Milton Bradley at DH.
Hopefully Wak sees that this lineup was a success and sticks with it.
Mataya - May 25, 2010
Gutierrez + Bradley
WPA: .608
Cantu Easley Winn - May 25, 2010
God dammit that's hot
Griffin Cooper - May 25, 2010
I can't remember another time that Ichiro was the biggest suckfest.
And we still won!
Slow Country - May 25, 2010
Ichiro's annual off night.
JAH - May 25, 2010
He was a total slacker tonight, but after 9 years, he's entitled to take one off.
TrustBaseball - May 25, 2010
He was definitely not "on" tonight.
The way he was backing away from outside pitches was just weird.
ralphie81 - May 26, 2010
H backs away from everything
He always has his momentum going towards first base
d0nkey - May 26, 2010
He wasn't swinging though.
ralphie81 - May 26, 2010
If only Saunders had gone yard or something
This would have been the perfect game….
tait644 - May 25, 2010
This game was a smashing success
Punkhazard - May 25, 2010
Literally.
Slow Country - May 25, 2010
We should do that more often.
All in favor?
SethGrandpa - May 25, 2010
Woot.
JY - May 25, 2010
I'm going to go out on a limb here. We are going to do that more often.
Our slow starters may be beginning to come around. Eventually, they have to. There is no reason to believe that this isn’t the start of that. Our starting pitching is sound, defense is there, we’ve just been waiting to get the bats warmed up. I’m still concerned about Loafie at the bat and Josh Wilson in the field, but I think we might have turned a corner tonight. This was definitely the line up that Wak should have been playing all along.
TrustBaseball - May 25, 2010
I wouldn't put money on it.
But I am hopeful, yes.
Slow Country - May 25, 2010
I think the biggest reason to have hope.
Is that we did it against an extremely good pitcher and we didn’t just do it with walks and doilies.
Hopefulmsfan - May 26, 2010
This was the first game in a long time when I saw the line-up before the game and figured we had a better than even chance of winning.
Fister continues to impress.
RustyJohn - May 25, 2010
You thought we were gonna win versus Verlander? I'm not gonna call you crazy but I'm tempted.
Edgar for Pres - May 25, 2010
Verlander has a 70-46 career record and five of those losses are against the M's.
Recognizing that team splits against a single player tend to be a bit ridiculous in the leaps they take, we’ve done well against him in the past.
JY - May 25, 2010
Not having Griffey or Rob Johnson in the line-up does that to me.
RustyJohn - May 25, 2010
For all the talk about how lucky or fortunate Fister has been
That 2-run inning was pretty well pitched and pretty damn unlucky.
He should have gotten out of it without any runs allowed and 3 of of the 4 balls hit touched infield glove. He was close to a 1-2-3 inning, even if the balls were hit hard.
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
That's what happens when you're a contact pitcher
It sucks that the Wilson error cost a double play, especially. But with a contact pitcher, you’re going to have innings like that (especially when key defensive spots are being filled with scrubs).
Some of this is, I think, regression from Fister’s awesome BABIP. I’m glad it happened on a night when we still pulled out a win. It’s nice for our SPs to know they don’t have to be perfect, and even if the defense flops occasionally we can still give them some support.
HititHere - May 26, 2010
I nominate Doug Fister for a future award he can pick up in 5 years called the
“Fuck You, I told you I could pitch” award. aka the Jamie Moyer Award.
I’m really, really rooting for the guy. He’s gone 7 innings or more in 7 of his last 8 starts and what more can you ask from a guy with his skillset? We saw Carlos Silva pitch in front of this defense last year and he was the worst pitcher in the AL. We’ve watched Snell and RRS pitch in front of this defense. Fister’s stuff isn’t flashy or pretty, but guys have a hard time making good line-drive contact off of him, and he does rely a lot on his defense. But two starts ago I saw him make some filthy strikeouts.
When we start talking about pitching depth in 2011 I’m automatically saying “Well at least we have Felix and Fister”
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
Silva had Betancourt at shortstop and Lopez at second.
That’s way worse than either Wilson at short and Figgins on the keystone.
thehemogoblin - May 26, 2010
And that was against Verlander!
Nice job…
fortyniners - May 25, 2010
When our bats can hander Verlander, you know they aren't hopeless, and this wasn't the first time.
TrustBaseball - May 25, 2010
Oh, hey, the M's won with the line-up everyone repeatedly said would work best.
Weird.
sanford_and_son - May 25, 2010
Funny how that works.
RustyJohn - May 25, 2010
Indeed!
sanford_and_son - May 25, 2010
This is a .500 team with Bradley in the lineup
Maybe even better. And it’s a hell of a lot more fun to watch.
Fuckmikereilly - May 25, 2010
You are so right about this being more fun to watch. I don't want to put any undue pressure on Bradley
but he certainly gives you cause for hope when he’s batting clean-up.
TrustBaseball - May 25, 2010
Also, Fister had been worth 1.4 wins before this game.
Higher now. No way that rate keeps up, but I am so fucking glad Z was smart enough not to sign Washburn.
Fuckmikereilly - May 25, 2010
Although Washburn would've been useful throwing Rob Johnson under the bus.
ThundaPC - May 25, 2010
He's not Japanese so unlikely.
Mariner John - May 25, 2010
That's an interesting play on words
And creates unpleasant images in my head of Johnson under The Bus.
Eew.
HititHere - May 26, 2010
While I'm happy we don't have Washburn
29 other GM’s were “smart enough” to not sign him either.
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
Remember when you sign Washburn you also sign Boras
I’m pretty sure Wash could still be playing baseball if front offices didn’t have to deal with the additional headache.
Drew_D - May 26, 2010
I don't know about that.
Scott Boras represents a lot of baseball players with jobs. And I’ve never heard about Washburn wanting a certain amount of money like Jermaine Dye. I won’t be suprised if he shows up on a team in July, but I’m saying Jack Z is no different than the other 29 GM’s who didn’t think he’d upgrade their starting pitching.
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
My point is the cost
For Boras you pay a higher premium for a player. You can get a lot of Washburn type talent without having to pay Boras type money, and Dye was an extreme case of asking for too much; Washburn was just getting offers that he didn’t think were up to his standards. The quote I kept seeing was “not getting an acceptable deal”.
Drew_D - May 26, 2010
Ugg grammar failure. More coffee before posting next time.
Drew_D - May 26, 2010
Yeah. If Washburn wants to play though he'll say "take the minimum" and Boras will have to abide.
I just think its stupid for any of these players to be sitting at home if they really had the opportunity to play and get paid. Jermaine Dye: You can only get 1 of 2 things, ZERO money or 1 million dollars. What are you proving by sitting on your butt? Maybe they’re afraid to show that they really do suck and they at least want to get paid $4 million to show they suck.
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
Except other GM's wanted to sign him (Minnesota offered him 5 million)
Many other just didn’t have the need, and Washburn ruled a lot of them out. And Washburn pursued Seattle. Z definitely showed some smarts in not signing him.
Fuckmikereilly - May 26, 2010
Woooo Milton!
Wak needs a newspaper to the nose every time he doesn’t write “Milton Bradley” in the 4th spot on his lineup card. And the next time he writes “Ken Griffey Jr.” anywhere in the starting lineup, Wak can just sleep outside. Not that I don’t like Wak, he just needs some lineup card training.
Jon S. - May 25, 2010 via mobile
I really appreciate "newspaper to the nose".
I hope after today it doesn’t come down to that, but if necessary that’s exactly what’s needed.
TrustBaseball - May 25, 2010
Offense!
<img src=“http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk170/serpentear/branyanbobble.gif?t=1274854148”/ “height=300”>
Mariner Melee - May 25, 2010
Doh!
Offense!
Mariner Melee - May 25, 2010
I don't have any idea what this is about, but I strangely love it.
Two Rs and Two Ls - May 25, 2010
So Saunders rotting on the bench turns into a 0-for night.
Let this be a lesson.
Mariner Melee - May 25, 2010
More realistic interpretation by the powers in charge:
We give Saunders a chance and he blows it… he sucks.
Mataya - May 25, 2010
Realistic?
MT Olson - May 25, 2010
As in, the most likely reaction by management.
Mataya - May 25, 2010
I think it's more likely that they'll say it wasn't his night and move on
One game doesn’t prove anything.
MT Olson - May 25, 2010
No it doesn't, but it doesn't seem like they're too high on Saunders.
A couple nights ago, it was Bradley in LF and Griffey at DH… which means that they believe that either Bradley has better defense than Saunders or Griffey has better offense.
Mataya - May 25, 2010
Or they want Griffey to be out there at least once a homestand.
Mariner John - May 26, 2010
Saunders made plays in left that Milton wouldn't have reached tonight
Hopefully Wak notices that. Saunders makes our pitchers look better than Milton.
skjes - May 26, 2010 via mobile
In one of the articles on the mariners homepage, Wak said he wanted to play Saunders as much as he could.
joey90 - May 26, 2010
Griffey has started once in the last 8 days.
Its almost like Wak has been playing dumb for 6 weeks so that our opponents will underestimate us and now is the time to pounce with not-so-stupid decisions in the lineup card and the roster.
Well played Don.
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
Please, I hope not.
TrustBaseball - May 25, 2010
Justin Verlander is pretty good.
I Lick Squirrels - May 26, 2010
It's so nice having 3-4 hitters who are actually good at hitting.
I Lick Squirrels - May 26, 2010
If hot Sweeney had been in there instead of Kotchman it might have been even better.
But, Yay! it’s good to win again.
Sam Regens - May 26, 2010
But then that would have ruined the oddity of a smart line-up.
Boz86 - May 26, 2010
We'll see if Wak settles on a reasonable line-up
and if some of the hitherto underperforming players (Figgins, Kotchman, Lopez) return to their normal levels of production. I hope so. I hope it’s not just going to be one win every few games. God I would love it if the team beins climbing back towards .500. I want to believe.
(And Get well Mark Lowe. Kelley can’t pitch every day.)
ignacio - May 26, 2010
As a season-ticket holder,
I am much more excited and willing to head to the ballpark when this lineup is announced. That should be worth something. I can’t be the only one. Coming off of no sleep, I was dreading heading to the ballpark for the evening’s game but seeing that we tried the inconceivable notion that the best available lineup might work, I was looking forward to going. Sure, there was some asshole 12 year old behind me asking “When is Griffey going to bat? Why hasn’t he?” but at some point the smarter fans have to win out.
Also, why do these kids love Griffey? At no point in their existence (or at least a point where they knew what baseball was) was he any good. Ridiculous.
hova9 - May 26, 2010
He hit 29 Home Runs 3 years ago so those twelve year olds would have been 9.
Cougars Hunt and Kill - May 26, 2010 via mobile
This raises questions about what you do against lefties
Can you, realistically, put Sweeney at 1B to replace the struggling Kotchman? Can either Saunders or Langerhans hit enough to make Langerhans/Saunders LF + Bradley DH better than Bradley LF + Sweeney DH? If you play Mike Sweeney at 1B do his legs explode? Is that a good or bad thing?
So many questions!
Drew_D - May 26, 2010
Oh, Milton.
from Larue
“Detroit made a pitching change, and Bradley just couldn’t stand at first base for long. He raced to the Mariners dugout during the time out.
"He wanted to give us all some love," manager Don Wakamatsu said, laughing.
Had Wakamatsu ever seen it done before?
"No, but I’d like to see a lot more of it," he deadpanned.
Bradley’s explanation was simple.
"The way I was feeling, all that joy, I wanted to share it with my teammates," he said. "Have I done that before? Probably not. I was just full of joy today. I felt right. My mind was clear.""
msb - May 26, 2010
Read that on Twitter... I love him.
Hopefully this is the start of something 2008-like for him.
Fun random B-R facts about Bradley: Last season was the first season since 2003 that he OPS+’d under 100 (he was at 99 last season) and he hasn’t had an OPS under .800 since 2003 (except last season)
seattlesundevil - May 26, 2010
It would be nice if it were contagious as well
Chone and Casey could use some lovin’ up
msb - May 26, 2010
This makes me smile.
Floyd Gondoli - May 26, 2010
Milton Bradely Fan Club on facebook!
Join I want everyone on here in that club!
Cougars Hunt and Kill - May 26, 2010 via mobile
Why did other cities hate him so much?
He’s quickly rising to the top-tier of my favorite M’s from this era.
HititHere - May 26, 2010
I like him too.
Since we have only had him a couple months, and he took a 2 week sabbatical, there have been glimpses of bad things and glimpses of good things. I hope that at the end of the season we can still enjoy watching him play. He has a good track record in the AL West
ambrosia2112 - May 26, 2010
Looking for something else
I came across this from last March
msb - May 26, 2010
I think most of the hate came from Chicago.
Because when you’ve got 100+ years of not doing shit and then you sign a guy to a 30 million dollar contract and expect him to be something he has never really been (despite his talent, he can’t stay healthy for a full year and expecations of him as a 30-homer, 100-rbi guy are way over the top) and he doesn’t live up to those expectations, they booed the hell out of him. And so he fought back. He hates Chicago for booing him even though he tried his hardest.
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
I understand why he gets a lot of love here,
but other cities hate him because he is or was, hopefully was, a batshit insane asshole.
Jesus Jones - May 27, 2010
I thought the team stopped talking to Larue after that Griffey-nap thing?
katal - May 26, 2010
It eased off pretty quickly
msb - May 26, 2010
I think Larue got the message
In a weird way, I think teams are loyal to reporters as well… so long as they respect the rules. As much adversity as there can be between the two, they both need each other to thrive.
johnbai - May 26, 2010
Awesome lineup again!
Even with Sweeney at 1B… Which I am ok with seeing as how Kotchman can’t get much going right now.
Perhaps more telling? Josh Bard is in there at catcher again. Even a day game after a night game can’t get Rob Johnson a start!
seattlesundevil - May 26, 2010
Where did Loafie's power go?
His box score looks ok. He had a solid single and a sac fly. But, especially with the flyout in the 1st, it looks like his power is just GONE. He pulled it, and really ripped that ball into the gap, but it drifted lazily until the CF turned it into a routine fly ball.
Even his single, which was a “solid” line drive, didn’t have much oomph behind it.
Maybe instead of Grifflent, we should be doing Loaflent. I guess he has 1 HR already, but damned if I know how he managed to yank one out.
HititHere - May 26, 2010
It barely scraped the wall in a massive hitters park.
seattlesundevil - May 26, 2010
Though it was a go-ahead grand slam!
That we ended up losing!
But yeah, he yanked one pitch all year that barely, BARELY, went over the wall.
He’s going to be traded and start hitting 25 HR a year though. I just know it.
Kenneth Arthur - May 26, 2010
Gonna be tough to find a buyer.
But, who would’ve ever guessed we would get something of value in return for Betancourt?
Mataya - May 26, 2010
Nothing better than watching Sportscenter and seeing Betancourt and Willie Ballgame with the number 6 and number 1 plays of the day.
OOF.
sanford_and_son - May 26, 2010
The Tigers have a Mike Brumley too!
I Lick Squirrels - May 26, 2010
Shit wrong thread.
I Lick Squirrels - May 26, 2010
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