Monday, May 12, 2008
BAKER'S DOZEN
I don't know how formatted this will be compared to any earlier output, but here goes.
-- The Mariners lost tonight on a game-ending blast by Ramon Vazquez, who merely put the barrel on a Brandon Morrow fastball. How I wish he had three pitches and could be a starter (sigh). Anyway, when I used to do the game posts after every game, the race against the decade was included near the end of the post (along with the gameballs and goats). Here is that race...
Yr W-L pct GB
2001 31-9 .775 --
2002 28-12 .700 3
2003 25-15 .625 6
2000 22-18 .550 9
2007 19-21 .475 12
2006 17-23 .425 14
2005 16-24 .400 15
2008 15-25 .375 16
2004 14-26 .350 17
-- Streaks. The Mariners have had single-game win streaks (not really streaks) six times, two-game winning streaks three times, and one three-game winning streak. Conversely, the Mariners have had three one-gamers (not counting the current one), two two-game losing streaks, one three-gamer, one four-gamer, and two five-game losing streaks. They've lost six of their last seven, 11 of 12, 12 of 15, and 15 of 19. Related to the last of the previous sentence, they've lost 15 of 19 games since they last won conseuctive games. That was way back when they were 11-10, one game above .500, and that may prove to be the high-water mark of the season.
-- The worst way to read the pseudo-decade standings is that the current Mariners are only one game better than the 2004 team, which is not good. This 2008 team had pretty high expectations placed upon it, maybe not necessarily from the fans en masse, but definitely by the front office, who in turn wanted us to believe the expectations were high. I didn't expect the 2004 team to be anywhere near as good as the 2003 team, and I didn't think they'd make the playoffs, but no one expected it to be that horrible. I expected the current team to have roughly the same record or slightly worse than they had last year, of course not seeing it go quite this bad in this case either. Still, before the season I didn't expect them to make the playoffs, and I definitely don't now. While Geoff Baker may not buy the argument by haters of the Bedard trade (the Mariners making the move like they were one-piece-away), my take on that trade was that it was the kind of move a division winner makes to get to the World Series and possibly win it rather than a trade a middling team makes to get into the playoffs. I can't help but think "they traded how much to only probably get how far?"
-- During the Mariners' latest dash of hitting futility (which makes it hilarious that they scored a dozen runs tonight and still lost), they were completely and utterly unwatchable. I think I watched or listened to every game of the 2006 season, and even then there weren't times where I just said, "aw, screw it, I'm not watching the game today," or got sick of a game and turned it off. When the Mariners had that series at Yankee Stadium a couple weekends ago, I seriously turned off those games. I mean, they were brutally bad. At least during a hilariously bad game I can still laugh, but these were worse. Couple any of this with the Geoff Baker-endorsed trailing-by-two-runs stat (the Mariners finally won on their 20th try!), and you pretty much gave up hope anyway. So usually I'd pull up the Mariners in my browser and pray like hell something good happens. At the point of futility the Mariners found themselves, I was willing to settle for anything to make me want to give a crap about the team again. That's when Richie Sexson charged the mound, threw his helmet at the back of Kason Gabbard, then tackled him. Sure, such a thing doesn't work as well as it would in hockey, but I was absolutely tired of seeing/hearing/reading this team having no fight or emotion in them whatsoever. I felt like between last season's Canucks and the Mariners so far, I'd been had since neither team played with fire or heart or emotion, etc. At least the Mariners didn't have a playoff spot within their reach. The Canucks lost seven of eight down the stretch to fall out of the playoff picture. Imagine if every night was a must-win and your team didn't come through. If I did a little more thinking, I'd run some hockey/baseball comparison -- for the Canucks, Tom Larscheid always says your best players have to be your best players. In other words, if Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler are your best players while your captain and $6 million man is held off the scoresheet for six or seven straight games, there's a problem. In baseball (hunch), I think your best players just have to be your most consistent players. This is probably just me spouting gibberish, but in baseball you can't double-shift your guy in the lineup, so the thinking is a bit different, I think. I'm rusty here, work with me.
Back in the day, I would never end a post so I could watch some random Discovery Channel show, but here I am cutting it so I can watch Verminators. Oh yes.
-- The Mariners lost tonight on a game-ending blast by Ramon Vazquez, who merely put the barrel on a Brandon Morrow fastball. How I wish he had three pitches and could be a starter (sigh). Anyway, when I used to do the game posts after every game, the race against the decade was included near the end of the post (along with the gameballs and goats). Here is that race...
Yr W-L pct GB
2001 31-9 .775 --
2002 28-12 .700 3
2003 25-15 .625 6
2000 22-18 .550 9
2007 19-21 .475 12
2006 17-23 .425 14
2005 16-24 .400 15
2008 15-25 .375 16
2004 14-26 .350 17
-- Streaks. The Mariners have had single-game win streaks (not really streaks) six times, two-game winning streaks three times, and one three-game winning streak. Conversely, the Mariners have had three one-gamers (not counting the current one), two two-game losing streaks, one three-gamer, one four-gamer, and two five-game losing streaks. They've lost six of their last seven, 11 of 12, 12 of 15, and 15 of 19. Related to the last of the previous sentence, they've lost 15 of 19 games since they last won conseuctive games. That was way back when they were 11-10, one game above .500, and that may prove to be the high-water mark of the season.
-- The worst way to read the pseudo-decade standings is that the current Mariners are only one game better than the 2004 team, which is not good. This 2008 team had pretty high expectations placed upon it, maybe not necessarily from the fans en masse, but definitely by the front office, who in turn wanted us to believe the expectations were high. I didn't expect the 2004 team to be anywhere near as good as the 2003 team, and I didn't think they'd make the playoffs, but no one expected it to be that horrible. I expected the current team to have roughly the same record or slightly worse than they had last year, of course not seeing it go quite this bad in this case either. Still, before the season I didn't expect them to make the playoffs, and I definitely don't now. While Geoff Baker may not buy the argument by haters of the Bedard trade (the Mariners making the move like they were one-piece-away), my take on that trade was that it was the kind of move a division winner makes to get to the World Series and possibly win it rather than a trade a middling team makes to get into the playoffs. I can't help but think "they traded how much to only probably get how far?"
-- During the Mariners' latest dash of hitting futility (which makes it hilarious that they scored a dozen runs tonight and still lost), they were completely and utterly unwatchable. I think I watched or listened to every game of the 2006 season, and even then there weren't times where I just said, "aw, screw it, I'm not watching the game today," or got sick of a game and turned it off. When the Mariners had that series at Yankee Stadium a couple weekends ago, I seriously turned off those games. I mean, they were brutally bad. At least during a hilariously bad game I can still laugh, but these were worse. Couple any of this with the Geoff Baker-endorsed trailing-by-two-runs stat (the Mariners finally won on their 20th try!), and you pretty much gave up hope anyway. So usually I'd pull up the Mariners in my browser and pray like hell something good happens. At the point of futility the Mariners found themselves, I was willing to settle for anything to make me want to give a crap about the team again. That's when Richie Sexson charged the mound, threw his helmet at the back of Kason Gabbard, then tackled him. Sure, such a thing doesn't work as well as it would in hockey, but I was absolutely tired of seeing/hearing/reading this team having no fight or emotion in them whatsoever. I felt like between last season's Canucks and the Mariners so far, I'd been had since neither team played with fire or heart or emotion, etc. At least the Mariners didn't have a playoff spot within their reach. The Canucks lost seven of eight down the stretch to fall out of the playoff picture. Imagine if every night was a must-win and your team didn't come through. If I did a little more thinking, I'd run some hockey/baseball comparison -- for the Canucks, Tom Larscheid always says your best players have to be your best players. In other words, if Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler are your best players while your captain and $6 million man is held off the scoresheet for six or seven straight games, there's a problem. In baseball (hunch), I think your best players just have to be your most consistent players. This is probably just me spouting gibberish, but in baseball you can't double-shift your guy in the lineup, so the thinking is a bit different, I think. I'm rusty here, work with me.
Back in the day, I would never end a post so I could watch some random Discovery Channel show, but here I am cutting it so I can watch Verminators. Oh yes.
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