Game 72, Royals at Mariners
Mike Montgomery vs. Jeremy Guthrie, 7:10pm
Last night, Joe Blanton shut down the M’s offense for 7 IP and the Royals beat Felix and the M’s easily. Today, Jeremy Guthrie, who had 2 WAR seasons in 2007, 2008 and 2010, and none since then, faces off against Mike Montgomery, who’s been one of the M’s unlikely (and all too few) success stories this year. If/when that happens, where do the M’s go from here? Sure, a loss to Joe Blanton is just the same in the standings as a loss to Chris Archer, but the difference in how you *feel* is staggering. One is soul destroying, the other doesn’t hurt at all. One makes you sure – absolutely sure – that the M’s aren’t ready for prime time, while you can pick over the bones of the other for signs of hope, good at-bat processes amidst a series of bad results. The math is already stacked firmly against the M’s. You can’t score 3.37 runs per game and win anything. All we have here is Felix Day and the hope that things are building, or that change is imperceptibly working its magic behind the scenes, and that the results will follow in a flood. How can these pleasant stories survive an encounter with Joe Blanton, winning pitcher? Of course, you can’t predict baseball and any-given-day cliches, blah blah blah, but seriously, what do we tell ourselves? And now Jeremy Guthrie, sub-replacement level hurler, aged 36, takes the mound and looks in. Et tu, Guthrie?
1: Morrison, 1B
2: Jackson, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, RF
7: Ackley, LF
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Montgomery
Cruz came out of the game yesterday with a minor (?) injury when a bone in his pelvis dislocated. Apparently, this is a thing that sometimes happens to him, and isn’t a big deal, but there, think on that if you can stand to ruminate on yesterday any more. Gaaahhh.
Justin Germano and Luiz Gohara start for the only M’s affiliates in action. Tacoma hosts Reno, will Everett travels to Spokane.
Andrew Moore had a great debut for the AquaSox in last night’s game. The OSU product worked 3 perfect innings, striking out 5.
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14 Responses to “Game 72, Royals at Mariners”
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Well, at least Cruz, that man’s man, is back in the lineup.
Walking that tightrope early there, Montgomery…
They need to change the automatic double rule and give umpires discretion to send the runner from first home. Seager would have scored easily if that ball had hit the wall.
It’s fine and dandy for the Royals to blow scoring opportunities, but the Mariners may not get 2nd and 3rd with one out again for a week.
The Mariners are just very polite. Like Seattle drivers.
An off the top of the wall HR > a ground rule double. The fact that Ackley hit them both probably says more about the pitcher than Ackley.
But it’s nice to see.
Royals are swinging early in the count since the first couple innings. Surprising, at least earlier when they’d had him on the ropes a couple times.
Montgomery has pitched a game like we expect from Felix. The KC batters are off balance and are taking bad swings. I hope he can continue doing this.
MIKE MONTGOMERY!
What a ray of sunshine this kid has been so far! nice game Mike!!!!! Ackley looked decent as well so that’s good.
Hey, a win!
Twilight Zone .500 ball.
The Mariners are the only AL club currently playing .500 ball that isn’t playing at or above .521 overall.
Regrettably, according to the early projections they were destined for, if not having a lock on, a playoff spot. The only thing they’ve got a lock on these days, is Montero’s fridge. The fatal question to be faced, for anyone still dreaming dreams, is whether this team has the capacity to cobble together a couple of +4 win streaks.
Which would lift them back up into the realm of the real .500 clubs.
Uh …
Well, Fangraphs still thinks there’s a 1 in 5 chance of the playoffs.
http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx
That’s because Fangraphs thinks the M’s offense is going to come alive (pitching/defense stays about the same)
http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings
With Cano, Zunino and Ackley coming alive:
http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=11
Lloyd thinks we’re OK:
http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/lloyd-mcclendon-to-mariners-fans-just-relax-a-little-bit-this-team-is-going-to-be-ok/
The difference is this:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?date=2014-06-18
http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?date=2015-06-24
We were above .500 at this point last year, closer to the lead, and only two back in the wild card.
50-40 the rest of the year (last year’s mark) only gets us an 83 win team. We’d have to play like LA, Washington and Baltimore did last year to have a legit shot.
One of our favorite prospect busts raised his ops 52 points with this one game.