Thursday, May 13, 2004
TWINS DOUBLE-TRIFECTA
Threes are wild today as the Minnesota Twins completed their three-game sweep to give the Seattle Mariners their third five-game losing streak of the year. Sounds to me like it's a great time for the Mariners to hit up the Bronx, right? Right?
Of course, I had class at 11am and went to lunch afterward, completely forgetting about the game. However, I'll do the best that I can using the AP wire blip, the box score, and the game logs.
With just one look at the score (1-0), one can tell that the Mariner offense was probably crap, and that whoever the starting pitcher was got screwed. Not that we aren't used to that anyway.
Ryan Franklin was the starting pitcher du jour to get the shaft. Franklin allowed three runners to get into scoring position the entire game. In the 2nd, Mike Cuddyer's RBI double (i.e., all the runs the Twins needed) scored Lew Ford from first. In the 5th, Shannon Stewart got aboard on an infield single with two out, pushing Luis Rivas to second. In the 6th, Jacque Jones hit a one-out single to push Doug Mientkiewicz to second. Needless to say, no one scored in the latter two scenarios. Semi-disturbing is the fact that Franklin allowed baserunners in all innings except the 3rd and 7th (a nice five-pitch inning). Jeff at L43 (this recap is made before I've looked at the other blogs' postgame reactions...) and others will have some nominal work to do in the realm of calculating Franklin's balls-in-play statistics, as he allowed seven hits, walked one, and struck out three of the total 28 batters he faced (seven innings, 105 pitches). Hey, Ryan Franklin didn't even give up a home run today; I'll be damned. Mike Myers and JJ Putz handled the Twins 8th inning, with Myers allowing the lone baserunner (Cristian Guzman leadoff single).
This brings us to the Mariner offense. Eight more singles. Yippee!! I know it's Johan Santana out there, and he's not chop liver by any means, but over the course of the entire game, they had seven runners in scoring position (only five of them are truly vital to me though) and pushed exactly zero runners across the plate.
Mariner RISP situations today...
4th: Edgar moves Randy Winn to second with a groundout (RISP #1). Raul Ibanez flies out and Scott Spiezio lines out to end the inning.
6th: With Ichiro on first and one out, Randy Winn singles Ichiro into second (RISP #2). Ichiro gets nailed trying to swipe third, and Edgar bounces out to third.
7th: John Olerud draws a two-out walk to push Scott Spiezio (aboard on a one-out single) to second (RISP #3). In a play that was probably the absolute death knell of the game, Dan Wilson hit a single into center. Dave Myers waved Scott Spiezio around; no surprise there. Rarely playing centerfield as of late, Torii Hunter fired a strike to home plate on which catcher Henry Blanco cut off the short hop and reached back to tag Spiezio coming in from third. In a year where everything has gone wrong, why not just add another thing to the pile? I guess John Olerud counts as a RISP on the play (ticky-tack RISP, #4), because he did reach second safely.
8th: With Terry Mulholland now on the mound, Ichiro singles to move Ramon Santiago (aboard on a leadoff single) to second (RISP #5). Randy Winn bunts the runners into scoring position (RISP #6). Edgar is intentionally walked because after all, Raul Ibanez was on deck. JC Romero was brought in to face Raul. Ibanez swung at a 2-2 pitch and bounced into the ol' 5-2 fielders' choice that scores nobody (RISP #7, ticky-tack because it's a different runner). Scott Spiezio got down 0-2 in the count right away, and got a seven-pitch at-bat out of it. Of course, the outcome was a strikeout.
Scott Spiezio, on his at-bat against JC Romero to end the 8th, "I'll give him credit. I saw a lot of pitches in that at-bat and he didn't make one mistake."
Can we all agree that the lineup was basically punting again today (as if it wasn't bad enough already)? The high-octane offense up the middle (Jolbert Cabrera/Ramon Santiago) combined with Pat Borders behind the plate? I'm past the point of saying that this team is dead without Bret Boone. They were dead WITH Bret Boone. That's no knock on Bret Boone, that's a knock on this pathetic team as a whole. Healthy Bret Boone or not, just having him back isn't going to make a whole lot of a difference. There's a laundry list of things wrong with team right now. We knew that an inordinate amount of things had to break the Mariners' way if they were to have a legitimate shot at a playoff spot this year, and quite frankly, the Mariner brass didn't equip this team well enough to better their chances. The brass relied way too heavily on the past successes (and a few times, anomalous successes) of their veterans to basically happen all at the same time to carry them where they wanted to go. It's like they wanted 2001 to happen again, except with older players.
--WARNING: 2000 Mariners nostalgia tilt coming...--
The last time the Mariners reached the playoffs with a non-crazy team (i.e., pre-2001) was 2000, a year in which they won 91 games. Jamie Moyer had his season ended on a line drive off Chris Widger's bat in a rehab simulation game and ended the season with a 5.49 ERA (remember the August game in Chicago where Lou left him out there to rot). They also managed to get by with John Halama going 14-9 in 30 starts with a 5.08 ERA. Yes, that's two starters with ERAs over 5. Also, Freddy Garcia was hurt much of the year, appearing in only 21 games. Paul Abbott made 27 starts and went 9-7, leading me to wonder exactly how he got 11 no-decisions. [Edit ~8:20p -- Paul Abbott did have eight relief appearances, so the no-decision number as a starter might even be bigger.] Aaron Sele went 17-10 and had a 4.51 ERA; the most dependable pitcher that year on account of a couple of rotation injuries.
Naturally, the 2000 team had to get by with offense. Remember offense? Think hard, you might be able to visualize offense (Ryan Franklin mentioned visualization in one of his postgame quotes today). John Olerud (103), Alex Rodriguez (132), and Edgar (145!) all eclipsed the century mark in RBIs. Olerud (102) and Alex (100) managed to draw at least 100 walks too. Olerud had 14 more doubles than Edgar that year (45 to 31), if you can imagine that now. Throw in Jay Buhner's 26 bombs and 82 RBI, and Mike Cameron's stellar defense, and it makes the following things tolerable: Dan Wilson hitting .235, Mark McLemore hitting .245, David Bell hitting .247 (I liked the defense though), Alex's 121 strikeouts, and Mike Cameron's 133 strikeouts.
Another thing of note about the 2000 team: Rickey Henderson was brought on in midseason because Mike Cameron (it was him, right?) wasn't clicking in the leadoff spot. Comparisons here...
Rickey 2000: 92 games, .238 BA, .362 on-base, 63 walks, 31/40 on steal attempts
Ichiro 2002: 157 games, .321 BA, .388 on-base, 68 walks, 31/46 on steal attempts
Ichiro 2003: 159 games, .312 BA, .352 on-base, 36 walks, 34/42 on steal attempts
Sorry 2004: what the Mariners are headed for. Also a horrible song sung by Ruben Studdard.
Needless to say, I'm not trying to argue who was the better hitter -- it's Ichiro, no questions asked. I'm just trying to point a couple things out. Look at what Rickey did in just 92 games. Sure, he hit for crap, but that on-base clip is better than Ichiro's from last year. Rickey stole 31 bases in 92 games. Rickey walked 27 more times in 2000 than Ichiro did in 2003, and with 67 less games. Rickey didn't hit well, but do I dare say that his tenure in Seattle was greatly underrated? How many bases could Rickey have nabbed in a full season?
Okay, I've totally gone nuts with this post. I'm sure it's lost all coherence, and it's quite possible because a fellow geology cohort came into the geology undergrad room here at Lind Hall and we talked baseball and the Mariners for about 45 minutes or so. So this post might have been choppy and the ending is definitely sudden.
Gameball: Ryan Franklin. No hitter deserves a gameball today. It's that simple. Ryan pitched a hell of a game, and got screwed. I'm sure he's numb to it by now, though.
Goat: Raul Ibanez. 1-for-4, stranding four. I could have easily given this to Scott Spiezio, not for getting nailed by Torii Hunter at the plate, but for going 1-for-4, striking out once, and stranding five. But...Ibanez has some responsibilities as a cleanup hitter. Behold the Mariners' first offseason priority of the winter of 2003-04, Raul Ibanez, he of the grand .248 average, 6 homers, and 15 RBI. Also note 11 walks and 24 strikeouts. An on-base percentage of .312, a slugging percentage of .472 and and OPS of .784. This guy hasn't truly hit the skids yet, and since I don't think he can keep this pace up, I don't think he'll reach the 29 homers and 74 RBI he's on pace for. The 118 strikeouts is something I think he can definitely reach though.
Can the Mariners make it six tomorrow? To Gotham, Batman!!
Meche. Mussina. Tomorrow.
(Why does Blogger keep jacking up the times on my posts? It was off by two hours and I have it set to Pacific time and everything...)
[Edit ~9:10p -- I HAD to go for the Ruben Studdard joke. Had to. I don't know why I didn't think of it right away.]
[Edit Fri ~2:30a -- Fundamental flaw corrected. Ichiro now moves Ramon Santiago along in the 8th with a single as opposed to vice-versa. With such rationale (Ichiro as leadoff and #1 hitter), Randy Winn would have been hitting 3rd on the lineup card. Sorry if that scared anyone.]
Of course, I had class at 11am and went to lunch afterward, completely forgetting about the game. However, I'll do the best that I can using the AP wire blip, the box score, and the game logs.
With just one look at the score (1-0), one can tell that the Mariner offense was probably crap, and that whoever the starting pitcher was got screwed. Not that we aren't used to that anyway.
Ryan Franklin was the starting pitcher du jour to get the shaft. Franklin allowed three runners to get into scoring position the entire game. In the 2nd, Mike Cuddyer's RBI double (i.e., all the runs the Twins needed) scored Lew Ford from first. In the 5th, Shannon Stewart got aboard on an infield single with two out, pushing Luis Rivas to second. In the 6th, Jacque Jones hit a one-out single to push Doug Mientkiewicz to second. Needless to say, no one scored in the latter two scenarios. Semi-disturbing is the fact that Franklin allowed baserunners in all innings except the 3rd and 7th (a nice five-pitch inning). Jeff at L43 (this recap is made before I've looked at the other blogs' postgame reactions...) and others will have some nominal work to do in the realm of calculating Franklin's balls-in-play statistics, as he allowed seven hits, walked one, and struck out three of the total 28 batters he faced (seven innings, 105 pitches). Hey, Ryan Franklin didn't even give up a home run today; I'll be damned. Mike Myers and JJ Putz handled the Twins 8th inning, with Myers allowing the lone baserunner (Cristian Guzman leadoff single).
This brings us to the Mariner offense. Eight more singles. Yippee!! I know it's Johan Santana out there, and he's not chop liver by any means, but over the course of the entire game, they had seven runners in scoring position (only five of them are truly vital to me though) and pushed exactly zero runners across the plate.
Mariner RISP situations today...
4th: Edgar moves Randy Winn to second with a groundout (RISP #1). Raul Ibanez flies out and Scott Spiezio lines out to end the inning.
6th: With Ichiro on first and one out, Randy Winn singles Ichiro into second (RISP #2). Ichiro gets nailed trying to swipe third, and Edgar bounces out to third.
7th: John Olerud draws a two-out walk to push Scott Spiezio (aboard on a one-out single) to second (RISP #3). In a play that was probably the absolute death knell of the game, Dan Wilson hit a single into center. Dave Myers waved Scott Spiezio around; no surprise there. Rarely playing centerfield as of late, Torii Hunter fired a strike to home plate on which catcher Henry Blanco cut off the short hop and reached back to tag Spiezio coming in from third. In a year where everything has gone wrong, why not just add another thing to the pile? I guess John Olerud counts as a RISP on the play (ticky-tack RISP, #4), because he did reach second safely.
8th: With Terry Mulholland now on the mound, Ichiro singles to move Ramon Santiago (aboard on a leadoff single) to second (RISP #5). Randy Winn bunts the runners into scoring position (RISP #6). Edgar is intentionally walked because after all, Raul Ibanez was on deck. JC Romero was brought in to face Raul. Ibanez swung at a 2-2 pitch and bounced into the ol' 5-2 fielders' choice that scores nobody (RISP #7, ticky-tack because it's a different runner). Scott Spiezio got down 0-2 in the count right away, and got a seven-pitch at-bat out of it. Of course, the outcome was a strikeout.
Scott Spiezio, on his at-bat against JC Romero to end the 8th, "I'll give him credit. I saw a lot of pitches in that at-bat and he didn't make one mistake."
Can we all agree that the lineup was basically punting again today (as if it wasn't bad enough already)? The high-octane offense up the middle (Jolbert Cabrera/Ramon Santiago) combined with Pat Borders behind the plate? I'm past the point of saying that this team is dead without Bret Boone. They were dead WITH Bret Boone. That's no knock on Bret Boone, that's a knock on this pathetic team as a whole. Healthy Bret Boone or not, just having him back isn't going to make a whole lot of a difference. There's a laundry list of things wrong with team right now. We knew that an inordinate amount of things had to break the Mariners' way if they were to have a legitimate shot at a playoff spot this year, and quite frankly, the Mariner brass didn't equip this team well enough to better their chances. The brass relied way too heavily on the past successes (and a few times, anomalous successes) of their veterans to basically happen all at the same time to carry them where they wanted to go. It's like they wanted 2001 to happen again, except with older players.
--WARNING: 2000 Mariners nostalgia tilt coming...--
The last time the Mariners reached the playoffs with a non-crazy team (i.e., pre-2001) was 2000, a year in which they won 91 games. Jamie Moyer had his season ended on a line drive off Chris Widger's bat in a rehab simulation game and ended the season with a 5.49 ERA (remember the August game in Chicago where Lou left him out there to rot). They also managed to get by with John Halama going 14-9 in 30 starts with a 5.08 ERA. Yes, that's two starters with ERAs over 5. Also, Freddy Garcia was hurt much of the year, appearing in only 21 games. Paul Abbott made 27 starts and went 9-7, leading me to wonder exactly how he got 11 no-decisions. [Edit ~8:20p -- Paul Abbott did have eight relief appearances, so the no-decision number as a starter might even be bigger.] Aaron Sele went 17-10 and had a 4.51 ERA; the most dependable pitcher that year on account of a couple of rotation injuries.
Naturally, the 2000 team had to get by with offense. Remember offense? Think hard, you might be able to visualize offense (Ryan Franklin mentioned visualization in one of his postgame quotes today). John Olerud (103), Alex Rodriguez (132), and Edgar (145!) all eclipsed the century mark in RBIs. Olerud (102) and Alex (100) managed to draw at least 100 walks too. Olerud had 14 more doubles than Edgar that year (45 to 31), if you can imagine that now. Throw in Jay Buhner's 26 bombs and 82 RBI, and Mike Cameron's stellar defense, and it makes the following things tolerable: Dan Wilson hitting .235, Mark McLemore hitting .245, David Bell hitting .247 (I liked the defense though), Alex's 121 strikeouts, and Mike Cameron's 133 strikeouts.
Another thing of note about the 2000 team: Rickey Henderson was brought on in midseason because Mike Cameron (it was him, right?) wasn't clicking in the leadoff spot. Comparisons here...
Rickey 2000: 92 games, .238 BA, .362 on-base, 63 walks, 31/40 on steal attempts
Ichiro 2002: 157 games, .321 BA, .388 on-base, 68 walks, 31/46 on steal attempts
Ichiro 2003: 159 games, .312 BA, .352 on-base, 36 walks, 34/42 on steal attempts
Sorry 2004: what the Mariners are headed for. Also a horrible song sung by Ruben Studdard.
Needless to say, I'm not trying to argue who was the better hitter -- it's Ichiro, no questions asked. I'm just trying to point a couple things out. Look at what Rickey did in just 92 games. Sure, he hit for crap, but that on-base clip is better than Ichiro's from last year. Rickey stole 31 bases in 92 games. Rickey walked 27 more times in 2000 than Ichiro did in 2003, and with 67 less games. Rickey didn't hit well, but do I dare say that his tenure in Seattle was greatly underrated? How many bases could Rickey have nabbed in a full season?
Okay, I've totally gone nuts with this post. I'm sure it's lost all coherence, and it's quite possible because a fellow geology cohort came into the geology undergrad room here at Lind Hall and we talked baseball and the Mariners for about 45 minutes or so. So this post might have been choppy and the ending is definitely sudden.
Gameball: Ryan Franklin. No hitter deserves a gameball today. It's that simple. Ryan pitched a hell of a game, and got screwed. I'm sure he's numb to it by now, though.
Goat: Raul Ibanez. 1-for-4, stranding four. I could have easily given this to Scott Spiezio, not for getting nailed by Torii Hunter at the plate, but for going 1-for-4, striking out once, and stranding five. But...Ibanez has some responsibilities as a cleanup hitter. Behold the Mariners' first offseason priority of the winter of 2003-04, Raul Ibanez, he of the grand .248 average, 6 homers, and 15 RBI. Also note 11 walks and 24 strikeouts. An on-base percentage of .312, a slugging percentage of .472 and and OPS of .784. This guy hasn't truly hit the skids yet, and since I don't think he can keep this pace up, I don't think he'll reach the 29 homers and 74 RBI he's on pace for. The 118 strikeouts is something I think he can definitely reach though.
Can the Mariners make it six tomorrow? To Gotham, Batman!!
Meche. Mussina. Tomorrow.
(Why does Blogger keep jacking up the times on my posts? It was off by two hours and I have it set to Pacific time and everything...)
[Edit ~9:10p -- I HAD to go for the Ruben Studdard joke. Had to. I don't know why I didn't think of it right away.]
[Edit Fri ~2:30a -- Fundamental flaw corrected. Ichiro now moves Ramon Santiago along in the 8th with a single as opposed to vice-versa. With such rationale (Ichiro as leadoff and #1 hitter), Randy Winn would have been hitting 3rd on the lineup card. Sorry if that scared anyone.]