Tuesday, February 24, 2004
MAKIN' ROUNDS
Ben Davis seems to be a favorite target on this day, as both Hickey and LaRue ran stories on the plight of the switch-hitting catcher.
In the Hickey article, Ben Davis' at-bat toward the end of that first game of the series at Fenway was cited as a microcosm of the entire second half of the season, and in a lot of ways, it was (here's my reaction post, way back in the archives, after the second game). I think this was the last day in a multi-week period in which the Mariners kept treading water and hovering with their division lead at 3 and 4 games. The next three days would spell the dagger to the Mariners' playoff hopes. We know how the Mariners ended up. The A's were in Toronto at that time doing what a good team is supposed to do against no-name Toronto pitching, except when you look at the pitchers they faced that series, they were Sturtze, Escobar, and Lidle. Sturtze is crap, Escobar is decent at best (I think Anaheim has him grossly overrated and overpaid), and Lidle is decent, with flashes of brilliance. The bottom line is that none of those three guys are named Mark Hendrickson or Josh Towers. And Oakland beat all three of them.
Anyway, to those two articles...mentioned in both is Davis' current weight and where it was at the beginning and end of last season. Also mentioned in both was Ben's .140 clip after the All-Star break. Ouchness. The Tribune also had their short recap of the Ben Davis really-deep flyout to Trot Nixon, in that both Melvin and Davis thought it was a home run. What was pathetic was when Melvin came out and tried to argue the home run. It seemed sore loser-ish at the time. Replays clearly showed a cup behind the bullpen wall being sent airborne after the catch. At some other point in the series Melvin was ejected for arguing balls and strikes (I think it was the Saturday game) and it was the most pathetic argument by a manager I'd ever seen.
Hickey and LaRue also weighed in on the Rafael Soriano strained left side muscle. KJR today says (via Bob Melvin) that Soriano has undergone an MRI and that its results will come in later today. I'm really hoping this doesn't turn out to be serious, because if it does turn out that way, that gives me one less reason to happily invest my time in the Mariners. I'll still invest time, I just hope I'll be happy while doing it.
**MID-POST NEWS ~10:50A -- KJR SAYS RAFAEL SORIANO OUT FOR FOUR WEEKS AFTER MRI REVEALS STRAINED INTERNAL OBLIQUE MUSCLE...more later**
From the Tribune article,
"Eddie Guardado is our closer, but on nights he can't go, I'd have no problem using Rafael to close a game," Melvin said.
This somewhat flies in the face of what Bob Melvin told Mitch Levy on KJR this morning, basically saying that if Eddie goes three days in a row, he'll more than likely go to Shig and use Soriano in the 7th and/or 8th. Melvin also said he might have done a few things differently at the end of last year, but didn't because he didn't want to deviate from the precedents set early in the year. Case in point: Jamie Moyer had been going on four days' rest for the whole year, and questions were asked as to whether Melvin would run Moyer out to the mound on three days' rest; the Mariners had taken two games of the three-game series in Oakland heading into the Sunday game (21 Sep). He didn't. The matchup that Sunday when I was driving back to Ellensburg was Gil Meche (who was burning out and had a horrible second half) against Ted Lilly. End result: 12-0 shellacking, Oakland. As Steve Sandmeyer pointed out this morning on KJR (conveniently after Melvin was off the air, but Mitch was the one interviewing him), not only was Melvin wrong in not throwing Moyer on three days' rest (Sandmeyer's rationale: you do everything you can to make the playoffs, and worry about the ramifications later...there's no tomorrow; you go all-out), but Moyer going on three days' rest shouldn't have even been an issue. On the 8th of September, the Mariners had an off-day heading into division play. There was a big debate at the time after Melvin laid out the pitching assignments. Jamie Moyer was slated to go in the final Oakland series at the Safe, but not in the series at Oakland. I know there was some argument in favor of Melvin sending Franklin, Pineiro, and Meche out there in Oaktown, but frankly, I forgot what it was. The point is, Moyer was 17-7 before divisional play (he was fresh off getting beaten by Eric DuBose...ugh), and had been the most solid pitcher in the rotation all year. Why the hell wouldn't you want him to go twice against Oakland?
Hell, if there's two things I want to change about last September -- tweak it so Moyer goes twice against Oakland, and leave Ryan Franklin in to face Rafael Palmeiro instead of bringing in Armando Benitez to throw meat. Granted, the Moyer thing would change all of the matchups that took place, but at a purely mathematical and transpositional standpoint, those two things I mentioned could have bought the Mariners two games in the standings. I'm sure it won't be hard for someone else to think of a third game the Mariners could have had. The A's won the division by...three games.
By the way, looking at last September's schedule, notice that Ryan Franklin went 2-2 in the month. His two losses were by scores of 1-0 (to Tampa Bay -- Jorge Sosa, anyone?) and 2-1 (Anaheim -- I'd like a side order of Kevin Gregg).
Final two articles are on Jay Buhner getting inducted into the Mariner Hall of Fame, and minor-league arm George Sherrill.
The Sherrill article has some tidbits regarding the difficulty of maintaining a somewhat healthy diet, some Winnipeg stuff, and his travails of this winter. It's good to know some other stuff about Sherrill, but the kick I got out of the online version of the article is that there's two photographs in the article and neither of them are of Sherrill.
One topic on Softy's show this morning on KJR is, where the hell's the Mariner Hall of Fame? Softy knows already that it's an area stashed away in the corner of the team store. Softy suggests many outlandish things (vintage Softy) including ripping out the playground in CF to put up the Mariner HOF ("screw the kids!"), or moving the bronze hole-in-glove statue (he says it's there just so bums can sleep in or on it) outside the NW gate. Callers suggested removing some of the huge posters and moving from there.
Anyway, I've been sitting here for a long while posting this, and I gotta get to other stuff...stuff like hoping Soriano can bounce back after staying off an oblique muscle injury for a month. Apparently Dan Wilson had the same injury last year and Bill Bloomquist has had said injury also.
In the Hickey article, Ben Davis' at-bat toward the end of that first game of the series at Fenway was cited as a microcosm of the entire second half of the season, and in a lot of ways, it was (here's my reaction post, way back in the archives, after the second game). I think this was the last day in a multi-week period in which the Mariners kept treading water and hovering with their division lead at 3 and 4 games. The next three days would spell the dagger to the Mariners' playoff hopes. We know how the Mariners ended up. The A's were in Toronto at that time doing what a good team is supposed to do against no-name Toronto pitching, except when you look at the pitchers they faced that series, they were Sturtze, Escobar, and Lidle. Sturtze is crap, Escobar is decent at best (I think Anaheim has him grossly overrated and overpaid), and Lidle is decent, with flashes of brilliance. The bottom line is that none of those three guys are named Mark Hendrickson or Josh Towers. And Oakland beat all three of them.
Anyway, to those two articles...mentioned in both is Davis' current weight and where it was at the beginning and end of last season. Also mentioned in both was Ben's .140 clip after the All-Star break. Ouchness. The Tribune also had their short recap of the Ben Davis really-deep flyout to Trot Nixon, in that both Melvin and Davis thought it was a home run. What was pathetic was when Melvin came out and tried to argue the home run. It seemed sore loser-ish at the time. Replays clearly showed a cup behind the bullpen wall being sent airborne after the catch. At some other point in the series Melvin was ejected for arguing balls and strikes (I think it was the Saturday game) and it was the most pathetic argument by a manager I'd ever seen.
Hickey and LaRue also weighed in on the Rafael Soriano strained left side muscle. KJR today says (via Bob Melvin) that Soriano has undergone an MRI and that its results will come in later today. I'm really hoping this doesn't turn out to be serious, because if it does turn out that way, that gives me one less reason to happily invest my time in the Mariners. I'll still invest time, I just hope I'll be happy while doing it.
**MID-POST NEWS ~10:50A -- KJR SAYS RAFAEL SORIANO OUT FOR FOUR WEEKS AFTER MRI REVEALS STRAINED INTERNAL OBLIQUE MUSCLE...more later**
From the Tribune article,
"Eddie Guardado is our closer, but on nights he can't go, I'd have no problem using Rafael to close a game," Melvin said.
This somewhat flies in the face of what Bob Melvin told Mitch Levy on KJR this morning, basically saying that if Eddie goes three days in a row, he'll more than likely go to Shig and use Soriano in the 7th and/or 8th. Melvin also said he might have done a few things differently at the end of last year, but didn't because he didn't want to deviate from the precedents set early in the year. Case in point: Jamie Moyer had been going on four days' rest for the whole year, and questions were asked as to whether Melvin would run Moyer out to the mound on three days' rest; the Mariners had taken two games of the three-game series in Oakland heading into the Sunday game (21 Sep). He didn't. The matchup that Sunday when I was driving back to Ellensburg was Gil Meche (who was burning out and had a horrible second half) against Ted Lilly. End result: 12-0 shellacking, Oakland. As Steve Sandmeyer pointed out this morning on KJR (conveniently after Melvin was off the air, but Mitch was the one interviewing him), not only was Melvin wrong in not throwing Moyer on three days' rest (Sandmeyer's rationale: you do everything you can to make the playoffs, and worry about the ramifications later...there's no tomorrow; you go all-out), but Moyer going on three days' rest shouldn't have even been an issue. On the 8th of September, the Mariners had an off-day heading into division play. There was a big debate at the time after Melvin laid out the pitching assignments. Jamie Moyer was slated to go in the final Oakland series at the Safe, but not in the series at Oakland. I know there was some argument in favor of Melvin sending Franklin, Pineiro, and Meche out there in Oaktown, but frankly, I forgot what it was. The point is, Moyer was 17-7 before divisional play (he was fresh off getting beaten by Eric DuBose...ugh), and had been the most solid pitcher in the rotation all year. Why the hell wouldn't you want him to go twice against Oakland?
Hell, if there's two things I want to change about last September -- tweak it so Moyer goes twice against Oakland, and leave Ryan Franklin in to face Rafael Palmeiro instead of bringing in Armando Benitez to throw meat. Granted, the Moyer thing would change all of the matchups that took place, but at a purely mathematical and transpositional standpoint, those two things I mentioned could have bought the Mariners two games in the standings. I'm sure it won't be hard for someone else to think of a third game the Mariners could have had. The A's won the division by...three games.
By the way, looking at last September's schedule, notice that Ryan Franklin went 2-2 in the month. His two losses were by scores of 1-0 (to Tampa Bay -- Jorge Sosa, anyone?) and 2-1 (Anaheim -- I'd like a side order of Kevin Gregg).
Final two articles are on Jay Buhner getting inducted into the Mariner Hall of Fame, and minor-league arm George Sherrill.
The Sherrill article has some tidbits regarding the difficulty of maintaining a somewhat healthy diet, some Winnipeg stuff, and his travails of this winter. It's good to know some other stuff about Sherrill, but the kick I got out of the online version of the article is that there's two photographs in the article and neither of them are of Sherrill.
One topic on Softy's show this morning on KJR is, where the hell's the Mariner Hall of Fame? Softy knows already that it's an area stashed away in the corner of the team store. Softy suggests many outlandish things (vintage Softy) including ripping out the playground in CF to put up the Mariner HOF ("screw the kids!"), or moving the bronze hole-in-glove statue (he says it's there just so bums can sleep in or on it) outside the NW gate. Callers suggested removing some of the huge posters and moving from there.
Anyway, I've been sitting here for a long while posting this, and I gotta get to other stuff...stuff like hoping Soriano can bounce back after staying off an oblique muscle injury for a month. Apparently Dan Wilson had the same injury last year and Bill Bloomquist has had said injury also.
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