Tuesday, June 01, 2004
LABRUM?
Well, thanks in part to Roy Halladay not starting this game for the Blue Jays, and the fact that Gil Meche circa 2004 did start for the Mariners as scheduled, this turned into the long relief variety of bullpen battle. Wouldn't you know it, Bob Melvin even sent Clint Nageotte out there for his Major League debut. For one game at least, the new kids are the same as the old kids, as Nageotte's four runs in four innings leaves him with a nice round ERA of 9.00. It's just one game, though, and I expect Clint to pick it up.
If there's only one thing we should agree on, it should be this: Gil Meche has punched his ticket out of the starting rotation. He doesn't appear to be making progress at all, really. In a snippet of the first part of the game that I saw, Dave Niehaus and Ron Fairly pointed out that Meche was getting only the fastball over out of all of his pitches. From what I remember (long no-sleep jag of late), Gil kept throwing a bunch of junk up there, none of it was getting over, and four walks in two innings is a hell of a lot of walks. The Mariners as well as Meche were lucky to get out of those first two innings with the Blue Jays having only scored twice. Keep in mind that this Blue Jay lineup is an absolute mash unit, and Carlos Delgado isn't at the Safe to make visitors' batting practice twenty times more entertaining than it probably has been over the last two days. If the Blue Jays' full-strength lineup was Michaelangelo's David, the one that was out there tonight was the Hammering Man made by a kindergartener out of five cans of different colors of Play-Doh that combined to make that God-awful gray color that contradicts everything you were taught beforehand about primary colors.
You might remember the rant I had about the possibility of the Mariners needing to send five hitters to the plate to get a three-spot on the scoreboard. In the first two innings tonight, the Blue Jays sent 13 batters to the plate and only scored twice. That is some futility right there.
The Mariners scored two runs on a single hit in the first to get a lead that wouldn't last past the next half-inning. The Mariner 6th inning is tonight's "Yup, This Offense Still Sucks" Inning (sponsored tonight by Osborne-McCann Cadillac), as Jolbert Cabrera led off with a double and was masterfully followed by Pat Borders striking out, Ichiro being put on, Randy Winn grounding out (probably praised at that point for "moving the runners over," but Ichiro can score from first on a single anyway), then Edgar getting 2-0 and 3-1 counts before popping out. Yippee!! And who can forget the Novus Windshield Repair False Hope Inning, which tonight is the 8th? I'll bet you one of the guys at the kettle corn stands outside the Safe was probably ready with a screen-printing press and a bunch of blank shirts, as with two out, Dave Hansen drew a pinch walk, Ichiro singled, and Winn walked. Edgar came up in another key situation...and lined out to centerfield. Put the shirt press away, Guy At Kettle Corn Stand.
Of course, I'm not going to gloss over the good happenings of the Mariner offense tonight, including a Raul Ibanez homer to lead off the 5th (fitting, he homers with nobody on..."even when they win, they lose" may get copyrighted soon in Jeremy's name, we'll look into it). The Mariners also drew blood in the 4th (I'm looking at the log in a weird order here), which is probably why I can think of the guy at the kettle corn stand firing up the screen-printer, because this one was a two-out rally. Jolbert Cabrera must have had one hell of a triple, because John Olerud scored from first. This instance of John Olerud scoring from first is brought to you by a little scenario called "running on contact with two outs." Then Pat Borders chipped in with a rare base knock, driving in Cabrera. An Ichiro single and a Winn walk would load the bases for Edgar, who would fall behind and hit a comebacker to the mound. Ouch.
As for Clint Nageotte's Major League debut, I think it's fair to say he had the horrid 4th inning sandwiched between some decent innings. He went 1-2-3 in the 3rd, fell off the wagon in the 4th, had Cabrera make an error with two out in the 5th, and then did what probably a lot of people have done in the 6th against Toronto: hitter in front of Vernon Wells hits a single, pitcher falls behind 2-0 to Vernon Wells, pitcher has to come in with something juicy, Vernon Wells homers. What are you gonna do? The kid's young, so he gets a pass there, albeit in a very pivotal situation considering that made the game 6-5. But that 4th...three walks in the inning. What more do we need to say?
Gameball: Julio Mateo. Three shutout innings, one hit, one walk, and four strikeouts. The Mariners could really use an in-the-groove Julio Mateo. We'll see what happens with Julio's next few outings.
Goat: Edgar Martinez. Tough one here. I'd usually go with Gil Meche for forcing the bullpen to be burnt, but the Mariners have on off-day on Thursday, so they can afford to load up on bullpen innings a little bit more than usual. As for Edgar, he did have that 2-run double in the first, but with what we've come to expect from this guy, he comes up in three situations (all with two out) and comes up empty. Is it a case of our expectations being too high, or is he just falling off quicker than we think?
19-32. Wow. A season at this pace comes out to 60-102. But would the century mark in losses be brought to us by Century 21???
Ladies and gentlemen, I have just looked at the boxscore, and yes, that was the smallest crowd at the Safe this season, at a grand total of 24848. You know, I remember when 19k at a Kingdome game was a lot, and it coincided with baseball of a similar winning percentage as this current team.
And to anyone that didn't know, Roy Halladay had soreness in his throwing shoulder before the game. So the Mariners didn't face Halladay, didn't really blow the doors of a guy making his first Major League start (Jason Kershner, not to be confused with Eric Kirschner, Metro Traffic Control, KING-5 News), and the winning pitcher (Aquilino Lopez) was a Mariner farmhand at one time. Nice going, guys.
Lilly. Pineiro. Tomorrow.
[Edit ~11:49p -- Yeah, the right record is posted...the wrong one was 60-100, which of course doesn't add up to 162.]
[Edit Wed ~12:45a -- Correction...smallest crowd EVER at the Safe.]
If there's only one thing we should agree on, it should be this: Gil Meche has punched his ticket out of the starting rotation. He doesn't appear to be making progress at all, really. In a snippet of the first part of the game that I saw, Dave Niehaus and Ron Fairly pointed out that Meche was getting only the fastball over out of all of his pitches. From what I remember (long no-sleep jag of late), Gil kept throwing a bunch of junk up there, none of it was getting over, and four walks in two innings is a hell of a lot of walks. The Mariners as well as Meche were lucky to get out of those first two innings with the Blue Jays having only scored twice. Keep in mind that this Blue Jay lineup is an absolute mash unit, and Carlos Delgado isn't at the Safe to make visitors' batting practice twenty times more entertaining than it probably has been over the last two days. If the Blue Jays' full-strength lineup was Michaelangelo's David, the one that was out there tonight was the Hammering Man made by a kindergartener out of five cans of different colors of Play-Doh that combined to make that God-awful gray color that contradicts everything you were taught beforehand about primary colors.
You might remember the rant I had about the possibility of the Mariners needing to send five hitters to the plate to get a three-spot on the scoreboard. In the first two innings tonight, the Blue Jays sent 13 batters to the plate and only scored twice. That is some futility right there.
The Mariners scored two runs on a single hit in the first to get a lead that wouldn't last past the next half-inning. The Mariner 6th inning is tonight's "Yup, This Offense Still Sucks" Inning (sponsored tonight by Osborne-McCann Cadillac), as Jolbert Cabrera led off with a double and was masterfully followed by Pat Borders striking out, Ichiro being put on, Randy Winn grounding out (probably praised at that point for "moving the runners over," but Ichiro can score from first on a single anyway), then Edgar getting 2-0 and 3-1 counts before popping out. Yippee!! And who can forget the Novus Windshield Repair False Hope Inning, which tonight is the 8th? I'll bet you one of the guys at the kettle corn stands outside the Safe was probably ready with a screen-printing press and a bunch of blank shirts, as with two out, Dave Hansen drew a pinch walk, Ichiro singled, and Winn walked. Edgar came up in another key situation...and lined out to centerfield. Put the shirt press away, Guy At Kettle Corn Stand.
Of course, I'm not going to gloss over the good happenings of the Mariner offense tonight, including a Raul Ibanez homer to lead off the 5th (fitting, he homers with nobody on..."even when they win, they lose" may get copyrighted soon in Jeremy's name, we'll look into it). The Mariners also drew blood in the 4th (I'm looking at the log in a weird order here), which is probably why I can think of the guy at the kettle corn stand firing up the screen-printer, because this one was a two-out rally. Jolbert Cabrera must have had one hell of a triple, because John Olerud scored from first. This instance of John Olerud scoring from first is brought to you by a little scenario called "running on contact with two outs." Then Pat Borders chipped in with a rare base knock, driving in Cabrera. An Ichiro single and a Winn walk would load the bases for Edgar, who would fall behind and hit a comebacker to the mound. Ouch.
As for Clint Nageotte's Major League debut, I think it's fair to say he had the horrid 4th inning sandwiched between some decent innings. He went 1-2-3 in the 3rd, fell off the wagon in the 4th, had Cabrera make an error with two out in the 5th, and then did what probably a lot of people have done in the 6th against Toronto: hitter in front of Vernon Wells hits a single, pitcher falls behind 2-0 to Vernon Wells, pitcher has to come in with something juicy, Vernon Wells homers. What are you gonna do? The kid's young, so he gets a pass there, albeit in a very pivotal situation considering that made the game 6-5. But that 4th...three walks in the inning. What more do we need to say?
Gameball: Julio Mateo. Three shutout innings, one hit, one walk, and four strikeouts. The Mariners could really use an in-the-groove Julio Mateo. We'll see what happens with Julio's next few outings.
Goat: Edgar Martinez. Tough one here. I'd usually go with Gil Meche for forcing the bullpen to be burnt, but the Mariners have on off-day on Thursday, so they can afford to load up on bullpen innings a little bit more than usual. As for Edgar, he did have that 2-run double in the first, but with what we've come to expect from this guy, he comes up in three situations (all with two out) and comes up empty. Is it a case of our expectations being too high, or is he just falling off quicker than we think?
19-32. Wow. A season at this pace comes out to 60-102. But would the century mark in losses be brought to us by Century 21???
Ladies and gentlemen, I have just looked at the boxscore, and yes, that was the smallest crowd at the Safe this season, at a grand total of 24848. You know, I remember when 19k at a Kingdome game was a lot, and it coincided with baseball of a similar winning percentage as this current team.
And to anyone that didn't know, Roy Halladay had soreness in his throwing shoulder before the game. So the Mariners didn't face Halladay, didn't really blow the doors of a guy making his first Major League start (Jason Kershner, not to be confused with Eric Kirschner, Metro Traffic Control, KING-5 News), and the winning pitcher (Aquilino Lopez) was a Mariner farmhand at one time. Nice going, guys.
Lilly. Pineiro. Tomorrow.
[Edit ~11:49p -- Yeah, the right record is posted...the wrong one was 60-100, which of course doesn't add up to 162.]
[Edit Wed ~12:45a -- Correction...smallest crowd EVER at the Safe.]
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