Friday, April 16, 2004
YOU'VE BEEN PARK'D!
...that's what the Ranger pitcher had to say to the Mariner lineup tonight, as one of the worst starting pitchers in the Majors over the last three years held the Mariners scoreless through seven innings, scattering (textbook use of the word in this context) eight hits, walking three and striking out four.
Here's the recap, with the regular drill as I hear Bob Melvin being boring and letting the same drivel roll from his mouth after the game on FSNNW...
top 1 -- Young 0-2...curve look K; Blalock 1-0 HR RF SHOT (TEXAS 1-0); Soriano first-pitch HBP; Fullmer fly CF; Perry 2-2 FC 6-4
bot 1 -- Ichiro fly CF; Olerud 4-pitch BB; Edgar 1st pitch fly RF; Boone 1-0 1B LF; Ibanez 1st-pitch fly LF
>> Meche gets tagged for the home run on the second pitch to Hank Blalock and it would prove to hold up at the end. Meche beaned Soriano but got out of it without further damage to anything other than his pitch count. John Olerud drew a four-pitch walk and was in scoring position with two out when Raul Ibanez came up, but nothing happened.
top 2 -- Dellucci 2-2...full under Olerud glove 1B RF; Mench 1-2 breaker swing K; Nix 1st-pitch HR CF (TEXAS 3-0); Laird 1-2...2-2...1B CF; Young liner sliding Ichiro catch RF; Blalock 1st-pitch RCF gap 2B (TEXAS 4-0); Soriano 3-1 end bat drop CF (42 pitches, TEXAS 5-0, JARVIS WARMING); Fullmer 1st-pitch U3
bot 2 -- Aurilia 1-3; Winn 1B CF; Wilson (Winn gunned at 2B 2-5) 2B LF line; Cabrera 2-1 HBP; Ichiro fly C
>> Dave Dellucci rolled a ball just under the glove of John Olerud and into RF, another unlucky bounce for the Mariners. Just like I thought it would, the Mariners would get burned by the unlucky bounce as two hitters later Laynce Nix hit a booming shot toward the hitters' backdrop over the wall in CF. Unlike the first inning, Meche didn't exhibit a good sense of damage control, as Gerald Laird singled after the homer, followed by an Ichiro sliding catch and a gapper of the bat of Hank Blalock. Alfonso Soriano poked one off the end of the bat into CF to put the Rangers up 5-0 and cap the scoring for the game. Dave Niehaus and Ron Fairly were on TV at this point saying that the Rangers were tagging Meche's fastball and that Meche was now afraid to throw it. Kevin Jarvis was warming up in the bullpen, which I will always equate to Bob Melvin throwing in the towel, no matter how Jarvis ends up pitching. Randy Winn got aboard on a single but was quickly erased trying to steal second. Of course, Dan Wilson would hit a double, yet another thing not going the Mariners' way, as Winn may have scored on the ball down the LF line.
top 3 -- Perry 5-3 great Cabrera barehand off-balance; Dellucci fly LF; Mench fly RF
bot 3 -- Olerud 3-0...3-1 BB; Edgar 0-2...look K; Boone 1st-pitch 1B RF; Ibanez fly RF; Aurilia 2-0...track fly LF -- Runner in scoring position with one out is stranded.
>> Meche had an easy inning in the 3rd, thanks in part to Jolbert Cabrera's nice barehanded off-balance throw to nail Herbert Perry. John Olerud drew a leadoff walk and was pushed to second by Boone. With two on and one out, Raul Ibanez flew out to RF and Rich Aurilia got ahead 2-0 then took a ball to the track in LF. Threat over. And who can forget that we live in some sort of weird parallel universe where we get to see Edgar Martinez get caught looking at the hands of Chan Ho Park?
top 4 -- Nix 4-pitch walk; Laird fly SS (JARVIS WARMING); Young 2-2 FC 6-4 (no DP); Blalock 3-0 greenlight...full swing K
bot 4 -- Winn 0-2...2-2 swing K; Wilson 0-2...2-2...1B CF bouncer; Cabrera 1st-pitch fly LF running catch; Ichiro U3
>> Meche pitched out of a mini-threat when he walked Nix on four pitches and fell behind Hank Blalock 3-0. Meche got out of it, though. Dan Wilson got on, but nothing else was doing. Ron Fairly noted that teams were starting to bust high fastballs on Ichiro, then said someday Ichiro would turn on one of those high fastballs and knock one off the Hit It Here Cafe. I think that will never happen, because Ichiro will have to golf it and get a lot on it to do that. I just don't think his swing is mechanically tailored to ever do that.
top 5 -- Soriano lineout 3B; Fullmer 1-2...full...lazy fly 3B; Perry 2-0 2B RF; Dellucci (JARVIS WARMING) 2-2 lazy fly sliding catch RF
bot 5 -- Olerud 1st-pitch fly CF; Edgar 1B RF; Boone 2-2 bloop 1B CF (3-for-3); Ibanez 3-0...full swing K; Aurilia 0-2...fly LF
>> Herb Perry hit the ball that was almost a home run, but Ichiro kept the ball in the
yard with his glove, though he didn't actually catch it on the fly. The replay showed that a fan went for the ball and may have come close to it, though I'm not sure it was that close because of that little walkway for the ushers in between the wall and the first row of seats. Still though, a fan reaching over to take a home run off the bat of the other team? That's like a reverse Jeffrey Maier deal going on there. Be smart, fans. If you're going to reach over at all, reach over when your team is up. Learn from Jeffrey Maier. Edgar and Boone were aboard with one out. Raul Ibanez came up, was ahead 3-0 in the count, and STRUCK OUT. Rich Aurilia was in the hole quickly and flew out to end the threat.
top 6 -- JARVIS IN; Mench 1st-pitch 5-3; Nix 2B LCF between Winn/Ichiro; Laird 1B LF between SS/3B; Young 4-6-3 DP
bot 6 -- Winn 0-2...fly RF; Wilson liner LF 1B; Cabrera 0-2...2-2 5-4-3 DP
>> Kevin Jarvis came in and I thought Melvin was throwing in the towel. I don't care how well Jarvis does for at least the first few months here, I'm not going to ever feel secure as a Mariner fan with this guy in there. Laynce Nix gapped one and Gerald Laird hit a ball to the left side to hold Nix at 3rd. Then Jarvis was lucky enough to get the double play from the guys up the middle. Dave Niehaus talked about how some people thought the Mariner black tops were the lucky uniform combination. Dave, that was only for a couple weeks toward the end of last year. It was a nice false-hope superstition. In that same week last year, Bob Melvin probably moved from SweetTarts to Sour Patch Kids to Mike & Ikes to Ferrero Rocher (yeah, surprised me too) to Twix to Butterfinger, etc., and wrote up his lineup cards with every crayon (another superstition) in his 96-crayon Crayola box (scented). Niehaus nearly jumped out of his shoes saying SWING when the ball came off Randy Winn's bat, but it ended up being a flyout. Wilson got another hit, but eas erased around the horn on a Cabrera DP ball.
top 7 -- Blalock 0-2...full fly LF; Soriano 1st-pitch fister CF 1B; Fullmer 0-2...full track fly RF; Perry first-pitch fly CF
bot 7 -- Ichiro 6-3; Olerud 3-1...full BB; Edgar 0-2 checkswing K; Boone 3-1...(swung over top of breaker) full swing over slider low/away K
>> Jarvis had a fairly easy inning with only the Soriano poke being the blemish. Olerud drew another walk and was again stranded as Edgar checkswung but didn't hold up (disputed) on the 0-2 pitch and then Boone swung over the top of yet another slider low and away, this time on a full count.
top 8 -- (PUTZ WARMING) Dellucci 0-2...full 4-3; Mench fly CF; Nix 2-0...3-1 BB; Laird 2-0 2B LF corner; Young 0-2 1-3
bot 8 -- ALMANZAR IN; Ibanez 2-0...2-1 (fool swing)...2-2 checkswing K; Aurilia 0-2 swing K (4 SEA K in a row); Winn 0-2...1-2 swing K
>> Niehaus and Fairly were bored by this inning, as the conversation wound around to the Rangers' training facility in Surprise, AZ. Niehaus wondered who the person was that names all the new towns in the desert. He mentioned the town of Carefree, AZ, where he had his picture taken at the streetcorner of Ho and Hum. Fairly asked Niehaus if he'd ever been at a restaurant called The Satisfied Frog. Niehaus said no, but that he had been on Easy Street, also in Carefree. Jarvis nearly lost his good streak with two outs, as he allowed a Nix walk and a Laird double before getting Michael Young to hit a ball back to him. Niehaus even got bored enough to mention that Kevin Jarvis got a BS in biology and a chemistry minor at Wake Forest. Carlos Almanzar came in to mop up and made Ibanez look like crap (not the first time for him tonight) after the count was 2-0. Ibanez' swing on the 2-1 pitch was absolutely horrendous and he was mercifully struck out on a checkswing which he probably held up on, but who cared at that point? A question I asked myself as Ibanez was arguing the call: I surely never thought that a "world-class human being" would ever argue with an umpire, did you? I bet Howard Lincoln was shaking in his boots seeing that on television...if he was watching at all. Anyway, Aurilia and Winn then struck out to make it five straight strikeouts for Mariner hitters.
top 9 -- PUTZ IN; Blalock 1-2 foul-tip K; Soriano fly CF; Fullmer 1-3 -- Putz quick, good.
bot 9 -- Wilson 3-0...BB; Cabrera 2-0 (Niehaus references ERASMO RAMIREZ WARMING's "eephus" pitch once more)...2-2 6-4-3 DP; Ichiro 3-0...3-1 U3 GAME -- Almanzar solid
>> JJ Putz came in for a soft landing though he had to slice through the 2-3-4 hitters in the Ranger lineup. He had no trouble though. The 8-9-1 hitters were up for the Mariners. Wilson drew a leadoff walk and was doubled off on another Cabrera DP. Ichiro bounced out to cap off a great game for him.
Dave Valle pointed out after the game that the Mariners have been outscored by a margin of 17-1 in the second inning this year. Take from that what you will.
Gil Meche got his fastball mashed early and probably was a little less sure of it afterward. The second inning along with Brad Fullmer's 11-pitch at-bat in the 5th helped ramp Meche's pitch count upward as he was yanked after 5 innings and 89 pitches. I would have trotted Meche out there for the 6th after only 89 pitches and the fact that he'd mostly settled down since the 2nd, but this is Gil Meche (he of the past injuries) and he'd had a workload last year that was unprecedented for him, so this early in the year, it's probably be good to lay off on him a bit.
Bottom line here is that the Mariners did get a suitable amount of runners with which to score runs. They just didn't do it. The Mariners got hits in each of the first six innings and got runners aboard in each of the first seven innings off Chan Ho Park. Yes, the Mariners got their bee-hinds handed to them by CHAN HO PARK. Not that any of it surprises me by now.
Gameball: John Olerud. 0-for-1, three walks. Close second to Bret Boone or Dan Wilson.
Goat: Raul Ibanez. 0-for-4, 2 K, 6 runners stranded. THERE'S YOUR BIG FREE-AGENT SIGNING OF THE OFFSEASON, FANS!!! THREE YEARS, $13.25 MILLION, RIGHT THERE!!! IT'S PAYING OFF, CAN'T YOU SEE??!!?!! Sure, people say the team goes where Ichiro goes, but a simple 0-for-5 (0-for his last 10) and three runners left on doesn't hold a candle to stranding six runners on base.
Tomorrow: Colby Lewis. Jamie Moyer.
Did anyone else enjoy the guy with the combover in the Diamond Club seats that always showed up when the camera was on the left-handed batters? I know I did, as I laughed incessantly.
A .200 winning percentage extrapolated across an entire season would land the Mariners with a mark of either 32-130 (.198) or 33-129 (.204).
Goodnight, y'all. GO CANUCKS!!
Here's the recap, with the regular drill as I hear Bob Melvin being boring and letting the same drivel roll from his mouth after the game on FSNNW...
top 1 -- Young 0-2...curve look K; Blalock 1-0 HR RF SHOT (TEXAS 1-0); Soriano first-pitch HBP; Fullmer fly CF; Perry 2-2 FC 6-4
bot 1 -- Ichiro fly CF; Olerud 4-pitch BB; Edgar 1st pitch fly RF; Boone 1-0 1B LF; Ibanez 1st-pitch fly LF
>> Meche gets tagged for the home run on the second pitch to Hank Blalock and it would prove to hold up at the end. Meche beaned Soriano but got out of it without further damage to anything other than his pitch count. John Olerud drew a four-pitch walk and was in scoring position with two out when Raul Ibanez came up, but nothing happened.
top 2 -- Dellucci 2-2...full under Olerud glove 1B RF; Mench 1-2 breaker swing K; Nix 1st-pitch HR CF (TEXAS 3-0); Laird 1-2...2-2...1B CF; Young liner sliding Ichiro catch RF; Blalock 1st-pitch RCF gap 2B (TEXAS 4-0); Soriano 3-1 end bat drop CF (42 pitches, TEXAS 5-0, JARVIS WARMING); Fullmer 1st-pitch U3
bot 2 -- Aurilia 1-3; Winn 1B CF; Wilson (Winn gunned at 2B 2-5) 2B LF line; Cabrera 2-1 HBP; Ichiro fly C
>> Dave Dellucci rolled a ball just under the glove of John Olerud and into RF, another unlucky bounce for the Mariners. Just like I thought it would, the Mariners would get burned by the unlucky bounce as two hitters later Laynce Nix hit a booming shot toward the hitters' backdrop over the wall in CF. Unlike the first inning, Meche didn't exhibit a good sense of damage control, as Gerald Laird singled after the homer, followed by an Ichiro sliding catch and a gapper of the bat of Hank Blalock. Alfonso Soriano poked one off the end of the bat into CF to put the Rangers up 5-0 and cap the scoring for the game. Dave Niehaus and Ron Fairly were on TV at this point saying that the Rangers were tagging Meche's fastball and that Meche was now afraid to throw it. Kevin Jarvis was warming up in the bullpen, which I will always equate to Bob Melvin throwing in the towel, no matter how Jarvis ends up pitching. Randy Winn got aboard on a single but was quickly erased trying to steal second. Of course, Dan Wilson would hit a double, yet another thing not going the Mariners' way, as Winn may have scored on the ball down the LF line.
top 3 -- Perry 5-3 great Cabrera barehand off-balance; Dellucci fly LF; Mench fly RF
bot 3 -- Olerud 3-0...3-1 BB; Edgar 0-2...look K; Boone 1st-pitch 1B RF; Ibanez fly RF; Aurilia 2-0...track fly LF -- Runner in scoring position with one out is stranded.
>> Meche had an easy inning in the 3rd, thanks in part to Jolbert Cabrera's nice barehanded off-balance throw to nail Herbert Perry. John Olerud drew a leadoff walk and was pushed to second by Boone. With two on and one out, Raul Ibanez flew out to RF and Rich Aurilia got ahead 2-0 then took a ball to the track in LF. Threat over. And who can forget that we live in some sort of weird parallel universe where we get to see Edgar Martinez get caught looking at the hands of Chan Ho Park?
top 4 -- Nix 4-pitch walk; Laird fly SS (JARVIS WARMING); Young 2-2 FC 6-4 (no DP); Blalock 3-0 greenlight...full swing K
bot 4 -- Winn 0-2...2-2 swing K; Wilson 0-2...2-2...1B CF bouncer; Cabrera 1st-pitch fly LF running catch; Ichiro U3
>> Meche pitched out of a mini-threat when he walked Nix on four pitches and fell behind Hank Blalock 3-0. Meche got out of it, though. Dan Wilson got on, but nothing else was doing. Ron Fairly noted that teams were starting to bust high fastballs on Ichiro, then said someday Ichiro would turn on one of those high fastballs and knock one off the Hit It Here Cafe. I think that will never happen, because Ichiro will have to golf it and get a lot on it to do that. I just don't think his swing is mechanically tailored to ever do that.
top 5 -- Soriano lineout 3B; Fullmer 1-2...full...lazy fly 3B; Perry 2-0 2B RF; Dellucci (JARVIS WARMING) 2-2 lazy fly sliding catch RF
bot 5 -- Olerud 1st-pitch fly CF; Edgar 1B RF; Boone 2-2 bloop 1B CF (3-for-3); Ibanez 3-0...full swing K; Aurilia 0-2...fly LF
>> Herb Perry hit the ball that was almost a home run, but Ichiro kept the ball in the
yard with his glove, though he didn't actually catch it on the fly. The replay showed that a fan went for the ball and may have come close to it, though I'm not sure it was that close because of that little walkway for the ushers in between the wall and the first row of seats. Still though, a fan reaching over to take a home run off the bat of the other team? That's like a reverse Jeffrey Maier deal going on there. Be smart, fans. If you're going to reach over at all, reach over when your team is up. Learn from Jeffrey Maier. Edgar and Boone were aboard with one out. Raul Ibanez came up, was ahead 3-0 in the count, and STRUCK OUT. Rich Aurilia was in the hole quickly and flew out to end the threat.
top 6 -- JARVIS IN; Mench 1st-pitch 5-3; Nix 2B LCF between Winn/Ichiro; Laird 1B LF between SS/3B; Young 4-6-3 DP
bot 6 -- Winn 0-2...fly RF; Wilson liner LF 1B; Cabrera 0-2...2-2 5-4-3 DP
>> Kevin Jarvis came in and I thought Melvin was throwing in the towel. I don't care how well Jarvis does for at least the first few months here, I'm not going to ever feel secure as a Mariner fan with this guy in there. Laynce Nix gapped one and Gerald Laird hit a ball to the left side to hold Nix at 3rd. Then Jarvis was lucky enough to get the double play from the guys up the middle. Dave Niehaus talked about how some people thought the Mariner black tops were the lucky uniform combination. Dave, that was only for a couple weeks toward the end of last year. It was a nice false-hope superstition. In that same week last year, Bob Melvin probably moved from SweetTarts to Sour Patch Kids to Mike & Ikes to Ferrero Rocher (yeah, surprised me too) to Twix to Butterfinger, etc., and wrote up his lineup cards with every crayon (another superstition) in his 96-crayon Crayola box (scented). Niehaus nearly jumped out of his shoes saying SWING when the ball came off Randy Winn's bat, but it ended up being a flyout. Wilson got another hit, but eas erased around the horn on a Cabrera DP ball.
top 7 -- Blalock 0-2...full fly LF; Soriano 1st-pitch fister CF 1B; Fullmer 0-2...full track fly RF; Perry first-pitch fly CF
bot 7 -- Ichiro 6-3; Olerud 3-1...full BB; Edgar 0-2 checkswing K; Boone 3-1...(swung over top of breaker) full swing over slider low/away K
>> Jarvis had a fairly easy inning with only the Soriano poke being the blemish. Olerud drew another walk and was again stranded as Edgar checkswung but didn't hold up (disputed) on the 0-2 pitch and then Boone swung over the top of yet another slider low and away, this time on a full count.
top 8 -- (PUTZ WARMING) Dellucci 0-2...full 4-3; Mench fly CF; Nix 2-0...3-1 BB; Laird 2-0 2B LF corner; Young 0-2 1-3
bot 8 -- ALMANZAR IN; Ibanez 2-0...2-1 (fool swing)...2-2 checkswing K; Aurilia 0-2 swing K (4 SEA K in a row); Winn 0-2...1-2 swing K
>> Niehaus and Fairly were bored by this inning, as the conversation wound around to the Rangers' training facility in Surprise, AZ. Niehaus wondered who the person was that names all the new towns in the desert. He mentioned the town of Carefree, AZ, where he had his picture taken at the streetcorner of Ho and Hum. Fairly asked Niehaus if he'd ever been at a restaurant called The Satisfied Frog. Niehaus said no, but that he had been on Easy Street, also in Carefree. Jarvis nearly lost his good streak with two outs, as he allowed a Nix walk and a Laird double before getting Michael Young to hit a ball back to him. Niehaus even got bored enough to mention that Kevin Jarvis got a BS in biology and a chemistry minor at Wake Forest. Carlos Almanzar came in to mop up and made Ibanez look like crap (not the first time for him tonight) after the count was 2-0. Ibanez' swing on the 2-1 pitch was absolutely horrendous and he was mercifully struck out on a checkswing which he probably held up on, but who cared at that point? A question I asked myself as Ibanez was arguing the call: I surely never thought that a "world-class human being" would ever argue with an umpire, did you? I bet Howard Lincoln was shaking in his boots seeing that on television...if he was watching at all. Anyway, Aurilia and Winn then struck out to make it five straight strikeouts for Mariner hitters.
top 9 -- PUTZ IN; Blalock 1-2 foul-tip K; Soriano fly CF; Fullmer 1-3 -- Putz quick, good.
bot 9 -- Wilson 3-0...BB; Cabrera 2-0 (Niehaus references ERASMO RAMIREZ WARMING's "eephus" pitch once more)...2-2 6-4-3 DP; Ichiro 3-0...3-1 U3 GAME -- Almanzar solid
>> JJ Putz came in for a soft landing though he had to slice through the 2-3-4 hitters in the Ranger lineup. He had no trouble though. The 8-9-1 hitters were up for the Mariners. Wilson drew a leadoff walk and was doubled off on another Cabrera DP. Ichiro bounced out to cap off a great game for him.
Dave Valle pointed out after the game that the Mariners have been outscored by a margin of 17-1 in the second inning this year. Take from that what you will.
Gil Meche got his fastball mashed early and probably was a little less sure of it afterward. The second inning along with Brad Fullmer's 11-pitch at-bat in the 5th helped ramp Meche's pitch count upward as he was yanked after 5 innings and 89 pitches. I would have trotted Meche out there for the 6th after only 89 pitches and the fact that he'd mostly settled down since the 2nd, but this is Gil Meche (he of the past injuries) and he'd had a workload last year that was unprecedented for him, so this early in the year, it's probably be good to lay off on him a bit.
Bottom line here is that the Mariners did get a suitable amount of runners with which to score runs. They just didn't do it. The Mariners got hits in each of the first six innings and got runners aboard in each of the first seven innings off Chan Ho Park. Yes, the Mariners got their bee-hinds handed to them by CHAN HO PARK. Not that any of it surprises me by now.
Gameball: John Olerud. 0-for-1, three walks. Close second to Bret Boone or Dan Wilson.
Goat: Raul Ibanez. 0-for-4, 2 K, 6 runners stranded. THERE'S YOUR BIG FREE-AGENT SIGNING OF THE OFFSEASON, FANS!!! THREE YEARS, $13.25 MILLION, RIGHT THERE!!! IT'S PAYING OFF, CAN'T YOU SEE??!!?!! Sure, people say the team goes where Ichiro goes, but a simple 0-for-5 (0-for his last 10) and three runners left on doesn't hold a candle to stranding six runners on base.
Tomorrow: Colby Lewis. Jamie Moyer.
Did anyone else enjoy the guy with the combover in the Diamond Club seats that always showed up when the camera was on the left-handed batters? I know I did, as I laughed incessantly.
A .200 winning percentage extrapolated across an entire season would land the Mariners with a mark of either 32-130 (.198) or 33-129 (.204).
Goodnight, y'all. GO CANUCKS!!
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