Sunday, August 01, 2004
RED RIDER
The Mariners managed to drive Bartolo Colon out of the game today after six innings, but it didn't prove to be enough as the Angels took three of four from the Mariners in the weekend series, winning today in a tight one by the score of 3-2. In reference to the post title, the Mariners didn't shoot their eye out. Hopefully more people other than me get that reference.
As a quick aside, I asked myself in yesterday's recap how long the Mariners could possibly justify keeping Travis Blackley and his 10-plus ERA over six starts on the big club. My question was answered today, as Blackley was sent to Tacoma, and Clint Nageotte was brought back up in his place.
If there's one thing the Mariners did well as a team today, it was ramping up Bartolo Colon's pitch count. Five of the 27 batters Colon faced put the ball in play on the first pitch. I'm just putting that out there (I don't know what the normal numbers are), but what I know correlated into this is that the Mariner offense managed to get at least one baserunner per inning. Colon's only inning in which he faced the minimum amount of batters (three, of course) was his 6th and final inning, in which Justin Leone hit a one-out single, then Jose Lopez hit one right to Colon's right side. Colon managed to snare the quick liner and double off Leone at first. Colon had thrown 100 pitches through five innings, with his only tarnish being Bucky Jacobsen's opposite-field two-run blast in the 4th. He threw 12 more pitches in the 6th, and the Angels got the lead (and what turned out to be the win) for him in the bottom of the inning.
Ryan Franklin ate up seven innings for the Mariners today, which I thought he might have some trouble doing after being visibly ticked off on the mound following the two balk calls on his pickoff moves (ump Angel Hernandez at first), Justin Leone's error on what should have been a groundout to end the 3rd, his own error on a pickoff throw in the 5th, and the strike zone of the rookie umpire Adam Dowdy behind the plate. Still, he got the bullpen some much-needed rest following the two extra-inning games in the series, and heading into an off day before a day-night doubleheader in which Ron Villone ("effectively wild" = no more than 6 innings) and Jamie Moyer will start the two games. Interesting fact here: three of the first four Angel baserunners that got into scoring position got there via Ryan Franklin's two balks and the pickoff throwing error.
Franklin's toughest innings were the 3rd and 5th, before he unraveled (not really, just enough to lose the lead and the game) in the 6th. Adam Kennedy bunted himself aboard in the 3rd, before Jose Molina couldn't get the bunt down and whiffed. Kennedy went to second on Franklin's second balk on the day. Oddly enough, Franklin was called for only two balks all of last season, so I had a hard time trying to decide if something had changed about Franklin's pickoff move or if the umpires were finally cracking down on it. Anyway, replay showed that he was sort of motioning ("deceiving the baserunner") toward home plate with the front knee before performing the spin move, therefore making it a balk. I wondered to myself how someone could make the pickoff move without moving their front knee first, and that motivated me to pick an empty area of floor in the house and try it myself. My conclusion: you've either got to raise both feet at the same time or do some sort of lateral crow-hop deal where you plant your right foot away from the rubber before stepping with the left and throwing. I was never an expert at this in my years of organized ball (don't think I picked anyone off, though I almost picked a guy off at second in a scrimmage when I was trying to do a Kevin Brown delivery, you know, where he looks toward second with the leg kick and then throws home). Three pitches later, Franklin got Chone Figgins to pop up to Bret Boone. Franklin induced a ground ball from Curtis Pride, but Justin Leone got sort of tangled up by the presence of Adam Kennedy running from second to third, and subsequently muffed the play. Curtis Pride stole second on the first pitch to Garret Anderson (I believe this was the play where the ball bounced up off Lopez' glove and went right to Bret Boone, preventing Kennedy from scoring). Franklin then got the clutch groundout to first by Garret to end the 3rd.
In the 5th, Robb Quinlan sent Ryan Franklin's second pitch into the rock quarry beyond the wall in leftcenter. Franklin then beaned Kennedy (debatable, it might not even have clipped the jersey) before Jose Molina flied out to left. With a 2-2 count on Chone Figgins, Franklin attempted to pick Adam Kennedy off of first (a balk happened the last time he tried it) and one-hopped Scott Spiezio on the runners' side of first base. Needless to say, Spiezio is no Olerud (not the fielder, not left-handed), so that ball went into foul ground and Kennedy ended up on third. Needing only an outfield fly ball to anyone but Ichiro to tie the game, Figgins whiffed two pitches after Franklin's error. 'Twas a clutch strikeout for Franklin. Curtis Pride would bounce out to first to end the inning; the Mariners still led 2-1.
Then came the 6th. Garret Anderson singled. Vlad Guerrero doubled. Two runners in scoring position with nobody out. Jose Guillen hit a fly ball to rightfield, but Ichiro has an arm and Garret has a bum leg, so there wouldn't be any scoring on that play. Darin Erstad solved that problem by hitting a fly ball to Randy Winn in centerfield to tie the score at 2. Then Robb Quinlan came up and hit a double to give the Angels the lead for good at 3-2. Quinlan only went 7-for-15 in the series. Not too bad. Ryan Franklin's final line: 7 innings, 3 runs, 6 hits, no walks, 4 strikeouts, 103 pitches (69 strikes). For what it's worth, he recorded six groundouts and 12 flyouts (not surprising).
Bartolo Colon didn't come out for the 7th inning, and the Mariners were only down 3-2. Should be easier, right? Not when you can't do jack against Kevin Gregg (the four-wild-pitches-in-one-inning guy) and Scot Shields. The Mariners managed only two baserunners the rest of the way, in the form of singles by Ichiro (infield) and Edgar. Ichiro was doubled off. Five of the 10 hitters the Mariners sent to the plate in the 7th-9th innings struck out.
Another microcosm of the Mariners' season: in the 3rd, Ichiro was up with a 3-1 count and Jose Lopez on first. In what apparently was a hit-and-run, Ichiro failed to connect, and Lopez was gunned down at second. Ichiro singled on the next pitch.
Bobby Madritsch needed only eight pitches to slice through Garret Anderson, Vlad Guerrero, and Jose Guillen in the 8th to lower his ERA to 3.00.
Gameball: Bucky Jacobsen. 2-for-3 with the two-run homer (i.e., all the Mariner runs), a single, and a walk. This possibly could have gone to Ryan Franklin also for eating up those seven innings.
Goat: Scott Spiezio. 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, stranding four. Speez went 3-for-15 in the series in familiar surroundings.
So, the Angels take three of four. The Mariners don't like playing with leads, apparently. The bullpen is pretty much in disarray, except now it's a much younger-on-average disarray. But now, the starting pitching is in disarray with only Jamie Moyer and Ryan Franklin still around since the start of the season and with Ron Villone providing makeshift stability.
Crab cakes ahoy!!
Villone. Ponson. Tuesday midday.
Moyer. Borkowski. Tuesday afternoon.
[Edit ~9:35p -- In a wire article that I had taken offline and worked off of, Clint Nageotte was to start one of the games of Tuesday's doubleheader. Refreshment of the same article later had the information removed, and thus, it has been removed from the post. Unfortunately, it detracts from my "bullpen will still be a little bit worked after the doubleheader" argument, but hey, what can you do? Also, sources are split over who is starting first between Ron Villone and Jamie Moyer. The FSNNW telecast today had Villone going first, so that's what I'm going with.]
[Edit ~9:56p -- Don't look now, but the Mariners are now 20 games back of the division-leading Oakland Athletics. I now raise my glass of orange juice in honor of the 2004 Seattle Mariners.]
[Edit Mon ~11:15a -- Another thing I forgot to mention: I need to pour another glass of orange juice and raise it in honor of Jose Lopez, who notched his first Major League hit in the above game.]
As a quick aside, I asked myself in yesterday's recap how long the Mariners could possibly justify keeping Travis Blackley and his 10-plus ERA over six starts on the big club. My question was answered today, as Blackley was sent to Tacoma, and Clint Nageotte was brought back up in his place.
If there's one thing the Mariners did well as a team today, it was ramping up Bartolo Colon's pitch count. Five of the 27 batters Colon faced put the ball in play on the first pitch. I'm just putting that out there (I don't know what the normal numbers are), but what I know correlated into this is that the Mariner offense managed to get at least one baserunner per inning. Colon's only inning in which he faced the minimum amount of batters (three, of course) was his 6th and final inning, in which Justin Leone hit a one-out single, then Jose Lopez hit one right to Colon's right side. Colon managed to snare the quick liner and double off Leone at first. Colon had thrown 100 pitches through five innings, with his only tarnish being Bucky Jacobsen's opposite-field two-run blast in the 4th. He threw 12 more pitches in the 6th, and the Angels got the lead (and what turned out to be the win) for him in the bottom of the inning.
Ryan Franklin ate up seven innings for the Mariners today, which I thought he might have some trouble doing after being visibly ticked off on the mound following the two balk calls on his pickoff moves (ump Angel Hernandez at first), Justin Leone's error on what should have been a groundout to end the 3rd, his own error on a pickoff throw in the 5th, and the strike zone of the rookie umpire Adam Dowdy behind the plate. Still, he got the bullpen some much-needed rest following the two extra-inning games in the series, and heading into an off day before a day-night doubleheader in which Ron Villone ("effectively wild" = no more than 6 innings) and Jamie Moyer will start the two games. Interesting fact here: three of the first four Angel baserunners that got into scoring position got there via Ryan Franklin's two balks and the pickoff throwing error.
Franklin's toughest innings were the 3rd and 5th, before he unraveled (not really, just enough to lose the lead and the game) in the 6th. Adam Kennedy bunted himself aboard in the 3rd, before Jose Molina couldn't get the bunt down and whiffed. Kennedy went to second on Franklin's second balk on the day. Oddly enough, Franklin was called for only two balks all of last season, so I had a hard time trying to decide if something had changed about Franklin's pickoff move or if the umpires were finally cracking down on it. Anyway, replay showed that he was sort of motioning ("deceiving the baserunner") toward home plate with the front knee before performing the spin move, therefore making it a balk. I wondered to myself how someone could make the pickoff move without moving their front knee first, and that motivated me to pick an empty area of floor in the house and try it myself. My conclusion: you've either got to raise both feet at the same time or do some sort of lateral crow-hop deal where you plant your right foot away from the rubber before stepping with the left and throwing. I was never an expert at this in my years of organized ball (don't think I picked anyone off, though I almost picked a guy off at second in a scrimmage when I was trying to do a Kevin Brown delivery, you know, where he looks toward second with the leg kick and then throws home). Three pitches later, Franklin got Chone Figgins to pop up to Bret Boone. Franklin induced a ground ball from Curtis Pride, but Justin Leone got sort of tangled up by the presence of Adam Kennedy running from second to third, and subsequently muffed the play. Curtis Pride stole second on the first pitch to Garret Anderson (I believe this was the play where the ball bounced up off Lopez' glove and went right to Bret Boone, preventing Kennedy from scoring). Franklin then got the clutch groundout to first by Garret to end the 3rd.
In the 5th, Robb Quinlan sent Ryan Franklin's second pitch into the rock quarry beyond the wall in leftcenter. Franklin then beaned Kennedy (debatable, it might not even have clipped the jersey) before Jose Molina flied out to left. With a 2-2 count on Chone Figgins, Franklin attempted to pick Adam Kennedy off of first (a balk happened the last time he tried it) and one-hopped Scott Spiezio on the runners' side of first base. Needless to say, Spiezio is no Olerud (not the fielder, not left-handed), so that ball went into foul ground and Kennedy ended up on third. Needing only an outfield fly ball to anyone but Ichiro to tie the game, Figgins whiffed two pitches after Franklin's error. 'Twas a clutch strikeout for Franklin. Curtis Pride would bounce out to first to end the inning; the Mariners still led 2-1.
Then came the 6th. Garret Anderson singled. Vlad Guerrero doubled. Two runners in scoring position with nobody out. Jose Guillen hit a fly ball to rightfield, but Ichiro has an arm and Garret has a bum leg, so there wouldn't be any scoring on that play. Darin Erstad solved that problem by hitting a fly ball to Randy Winn in centerfield to tie the score at 2. Then Robb Quinlan came up and hit a double to give the Angels the lead for good at 3-2. Quinlan only went 7-for-15 in the series. Not too bad. Ryan Franklin's final line: 7 innings, 3 runs, 6 hits, no walks, 4 strikeouts, 103 pitches (69 strikes). For what it's worth, he recorded six groundouts and 12 flyouts (not surprising).
Bartolo Colon didn't come out for the 7th inning, and the Mariners were only down 3-2. Should be easier, right? Not when you can't do jack against Kevin Gregg (the four-wild-pitches-in-one-inning guy) and Scot Shields. The Mariners managed only two baserunners the rest of the way, in the form of singles by Ichiro (infield) and Edgar. Ichiro was doubled off. Five of the 10 hitters the Mariners sent to the plate in the 7th-9th innings struck out.
Another microcosm of the Mariners' season: in the 3rd, Ichiro was up with a 3-1 count and Jose Lopez on first. In what apparently was a hit-and-run, Ichiro failed to connect, and Lopez was gunned down at second. Ichiro singled on the next pitch.
Bobby Madritsch needed only eight pitches to slice through Garret Anderson, Vlad Guerrero, and Jose Guillen in the 8th to lower his ERA to 3.00.
Gameball: Bucky Jacobsen. 2-for-3 with the two-run homer (i.e., all the Mariner runs), a single, and a walk. This possibly could have gone to Ryan Franklin also for eating up those seven innings.
Goat: Scott Spiezio. 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, stranding four. Speez went 3-for-15 in the series in familiar surroundings.
So, the Angels take three of four. The Mariners don't like playing with leads, apparently. The bullpen is pretty much in disarray, except now it's a much younger-on-average disarray. But now, the starting pitching is in disarray with only Jamie Moyer and Ryan Franklin still around since the start of the season and with Ron Villone providing makeshift stability.
Crab cakes ahoy!!
Villone. Ponson. Tuesday midday.
Moyer. Borkowski. Tuesday afternoon.
[Edit ~9:35p -- In a wire article that I had taken offline and worked off of, Clint Nageotte was to start one of the games of Tuesday's doubleheader. Refreshment of the same article later had the information removed, and thus, it has been removed from the post. Unfortunately, it detracts from my "bullpen will still be a little bit worked after the doubleheader" argument, but hey, what can you do? Also, sources are split over who is starting first between Ron Villone and Jamie Moyer. The FSNNW telecast today had Villone going first, so that's what I'm going with.]
[Edit ~9:56p -- Don't look now, but the Mariners are now 20 games back of the division-leading Oakland Athletics. I now raise my glass of orange juice in honor of the 2004 Seattle Mariners.]
[Edit Mon ~11:15a -- Another thing I forgot to mention: I need to pour another glass of orange juice and raise it in honor of Jose Lopez, who notched his first Major League hit in the above game.]
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