Thursday, April 22, 2004
NINE-INNING SPOILED LUNCH
There was no televised broadcast of the game today, but even if there was, I would have had some pressing team assignment work that is still due the next day. That said, this is sadly another detached game semi-recap where I try to dissect the game via game logs, box scores, and other recaps.
The Mariner offense had innings in the 4th, 6th, and 8th when they had runners in scoring position with less than two outs. What happened in these innings?
4th: Bases loaded with nobody out. Two runs would score in the inning, both on outs. Dan Wilson hit a sacrifice fly to push Scott Spiezio across, while Raul Ibanez scored on a Jolbert Cabrera groundout. This gave the Mariners two runs in the inning. Little did they know at that point that they were done scoring in the game. Also, the Mariners were already down 3-0 before the rally, and this wasn't enough to put them over the top. Like I said, In perfect hindsight (or like in hockey when they use the "game-winning goal" stat), Eric Chavez had already won the game offensively.
6th: Rich Aurilia walked to push Raul Ibanez to second with one out. After ending the game last night, Dan Wilson came to the plate, ready to reprise his past role as resident rallykiller. He would line a 2-2 pitch right to Marco Scutaro, who stepped on the bag to force out Ibanez. End of threat.
8th: Edgar got aboard with a one-out double. Scott Spiezio came up, swung at the second pitch and roped it right at Eric Chavez. With Edgar on at second, well, that's a sure double play.
So the Mariners offense was largely impotent in the game. This isn't to say they were the only facet of the Mariners at fault for the game (though they were pretty bad though).
Jamie Moyer obviously didn't have it today, making it three of four outings this year that haven't been too Moyer-like. In this game, he couldn't get past the 5th inning, throwing 91 pitches and giving up five of Oakland's right runs. Moyer definitely didn't pitch as long as the Mariners would have liked him to, but the score was only 5-2 when he left, so one could argue the Mariners still had a chance to win the game. Given that the Mariners would have two chances to put runners across, it wouldn't be a bad argument. The trusty SportsLine recap (okay, it's a wire article with the box score) quoted Eric Chavez as saying Jamie Moyer wasn't getting the corners all day from Terry Craft behind the plate. As you may remember, QuesTec expanded to all the parks this year (correct me if I'm wrong) from the trial basis of a few ballparks last year. This brings the question that I thought had a chance to arise -- Is Jamie Moyer getting burned by QuesTec? We know he's meticulous with his pitches and needs certain calls, and if he can't get the corners, and QuesTec is now ubiquitous...this might be bad news. Taking away corner calls from a guy who depends on placement because he can't depend on speed is something that could be heavily detrimental.
The Mariners would end up surrendering three more runs to the A's offense, however, not the least of which was Oakland's 6th run, which scored in the 7th. This is pretty well-documented by Jason Barker, who was a firsthand witness to the carnage. Randy Winn made two gaffes in the inning, first misplaying what ended up being a leadoff double by Eric Karros. The wire says he lost the ball in the sun, whereas Barker noted he was in position to make the play and just plum dropped it. Later in the inning, Winn bobbled a two-out Damian Miller single with Eric Karros on second to start the play. Apparently there were some discrepancies over whether Winn was charged with an error in the inning (the play-by-play gives Winn an error, whereas he isn't charged with an error in the final boxscore). Barker notes that it was debatable whether Winn would have had Karros at home on the play. This is all too true, even though the single was "hard" (play-by-play word) to Winn, but once again, Randy's arm more than likely would have done what it usually does on that play. Given the psychological ramifications and the fact that apparently boos rained down from the stands, the run that made it 6-2 was probably the killer in this game. Ron Villone would chip in and give the A's another run in the form of Eric Byrnes (stole second ON THE LEFTY to put himself in scoring position), who was plated on Jermaine Dye's RBI single. Three hitters later, Dye would score on an error, the only one that was officially scored in the game.
Before I go further...
Goat: Willie Bloomquist. 0-for-3. E3. Three runners stranded.
Gameball: Edgar Martinez. 2-for-4. He singlehandedly put himself into scoring position twice (that's what happens when you hit doubles) and never scored.
By the way, James Barker thought the official scorer at the Safe might be smoking something. I already knew Terry Mosher was from Bremerton and contributed to The Sun at one time (this article won't tell you he ran an independent rag called the Sports Paper, which wasn't too bad), but I wasn't aware of the scorer-choosing process.
Lastly, Jeff noted of Melvin's great handling of Ed Guardado, who did pitch with an 8-2 lead today after not pitching at all last night with the game on the line.
Hey Bob...this isn't Kazu you're dealing with here. Did you ever think there might be a chance that maybe Guardado WON'T suck if you bring him into a tie game? You don't know unless you try, and hell, I'm sure you could dig up some stats on this...
The Mariners have officially negated half of the four-game winning streak they were just on. Note that even with the Mariners' winning streak, they were STILL two games under .500 before losing these two games.
Pineiro. Drese. Tomorrow.
[Edit Fri ~5p -- Aparently it's Drese, and not Snare. SportsLine hath lied to me.]
The Mariner offense had innings in the 4th, 6th, and 8th when they had runners in scoring position with less than two outs. What happened in these innings?
4th: Bases loaded with nobody out. Two runs would score in the inning, both on outs. Dan Wilson hit a sacrifice fly to push Scott Spiezio across, while Raul Ibanez scored on a Jolbert Cabrera groundout. This gave the Mariners two runs in the inning. Little did they know at that point that they were done scoring in the game. Also, the Mariners were already down 3-0 before the rally, and this wasn't enough to put them over the top. Like I said, In perfect hindsight (or like in hockey when they use the "game-winning goal" stat), Eric Chavez had already won the game offensively.
6th: Rich Aurilia walked to push Raul Ibanez to second with one out. After ending the game last night, Dan Wilson came to the plate, ready to reprise his past role as resident rallykiller. He would line a 2-2 pitch right to Marco Scutaro, who stepped on the bag to force out Ibanez. End of threat.
8th: Edgar got aboard with a one-out double. Scott Spiezio came up, swung at the second pitch and roped it right at Eric Chavez. With Edgar on at second, well, that's a sure double play.
So the Mariners offense was largely impotent in the game. This isn't to say they were the only facet of the Mariners at fault for the game (though they were pretty bad though).
Jamie Moyer obviously didn't have it today, making it three of four outings this year that haven't been too Moyer-like. In this game, he couldn't get past the 5th inning, throwing 91 pitches and giving up five of Oakland's right runs. Moyer definitely didn't pitch as long as the Mariners would have liked him to, but the score was only 5-2 when he left, so one could argue the Mariners still had a chance to win the game. Given that the Mariners would have two chances to put runners across, it wouldn't be a bad argument. The trusty SportsLine recap (okay, it's a wire article with the box score) quoted Eric Chavez as saying Jamie Moyer wasn't getting the corners all day from Terry Craft behind the plate. As you may remember, QuesTec expanded to all the parks this year (correct me if I'm wrong) from the trial basis of a few ballparks last year. This brings the question that I thought had a chance to arise -- Is Jamie Moyer getting burned by QuesTec? We know he's meticulous with his pitches and needs certain calls, and if he can't get the corners, and QuesTec is now ubiquitous...this might be bad news. Taking away corner calls from a guy who depends on placement because he can't depend on speed is something that could be heavily detrimental.
The Mariners would end up surrendering three more runs to the A's offense, however, not the least of which was Oakland's 6th run, which scored in the 7th. This is pretty well-documented by Jason Barker, who was a firsthand witness to the carnage. Randy Winn made two gaffes in the inning, first misplaying what ended up being a leadoff double by Eric Karros. The wire says he lost the ball in the sun, whereas Barker noted he was in position to make the play and just plum dropped it. Later in the inning, Winn bobbled a two-out Damian Miller single with Eric Karros on second to start the play. Apparently there were some discrepancies over whether Winn was charged with an error in the inning (the play-by-play gives Winn an error, whereas he isn't charged with an error in the final boxscore). Barker notes that it was debatable whether Winn would have had Karros at home on the play. This is all too true, even though the single was "hard" (play-by-play word) to Winn, but once again, Randy's arm more than likely would have done what it usually does on that play. Given the psychological ramifications and the fact that apparently boos rained down from the stands, the run that made it 6-2 was probably the killer in this game. Ron Villone would chip in and give the A's another run in the form of Eric Byrnes (stole second ON THE LEFTY to put himself in scoring position), who was plated on Jermaine Dye's RBI single. Three hitters later, Dye would score on an error, the only one that was officially scored in the game.
Before I go further...
Goat: Willie Bloomquist. 0-for-3. E3. Three runners stranded.
Gameball: Edgar Martinez. 2-for-4. He singlehandedly put himself into scoring position twice (that's what happens when you hit doubles) and never scored.
By the way, James Barker thought the official scorer at the Safe might be smoking something. I already knew Terry Mosher was from Bremerton and contributed to The Sun at one time (this article won't tell you he ran an independent rag called the Sports Paper, which wasn't too bad), but I wasn't aware of the scorer-choosing process.
Lastly, Jeff noted of Melvin's great handling of Ed Guardado, who did pitch with an 8-2 lead today after not pitching at all last night with the game on the line.
Hey Bob...this isn't Kazu you're dealing with here. Did you ever think there might be a chance that maybe Guardado WON'T suck if you bring him into a tie game? You don't know unless you try, and hell, I'm sure you could dig up some stats on this...
The Mariners have officially negated half of the four-game winning streak they were just on. Note that even with the Mariners' winning streak, they were STILL two games under .500 before losing these two games.
Pineiro. Drese. Tomorrow.
[Edit Fri ~5p -- Aparently it's Drese, and not Snare. SportsLine hath lied to me.]
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