Game 53, Orioles At Mariners
Fister vs Arrieta, 1:10 pm.
More day baseball for the M’s and a line-up change that should make most of you rejoice – Chone Figgins has been dropped to eighth in the order. Given his .169/.204/.202 performance in May, it’s fair to say this is probably overdue. Figgins has been absolutely atrocious this year, and so now we begin the phase of the plan where the team tries to figure out if any minor changes might revive him. First, they’ll move him down in the order, and if that doesn’t work, he’ll get some more time off to clear his head. This is generally phase one of the “guy loses his starting job” career path, and Figgins is going to have show some life pretty soon or I’d imagine Adam Kennedy will become the new starting third baseman when the team calls Dustin Ackley up in a few weeks.
The leash for Chone Figgins is getting shorter. They’re not going to let him keep producing negative value forever. He’s going to have to start hitting soon, or he’ll spend the last two years of his contract as an expensive utility infielder.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Kennedy, 2B
Olivo, C
Peguero, LF
Figgins, 3B
Saunders, CF
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162 Responses to “Game 53, Orioles At Mariners”
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6-4-3. So sexy.
This has probably been taking up a larger portion of your day as the season has progressed … unfortunately for all of us.
Would we be better with L-Rod at 3rd? I think it’s quite possible.
I think we’d be better with Sweet Luis. Or Sweet Lou. Or Sweet Larry LeRue. Or a drunk New World Monkey with a cymbal rather than a glove.
I was at the game today. Here are some thoughts:
1. Fister looked great through 7. He was clearly gassed in the 8th. I was surprised Wedge let him go out for the inning, but he almost made it out of the inning unscathed (no thanks to Figgins): the hit to the hole between 2nd and 1st that scored the first run could have been a double play ball if it had been two feet towards 2nd. Kennedy almost got to it.
2. Ichiro looked like he read Steve Kelly’s column in the Times today. It was good to see him put some wood on the ball.
3. Speaking of putting wood on the ball, Figgins hit it hard his 3rd time up. Problem is, he struck out his first two times up, and looked ugly doing it. He took the crown for most LOB today. He looked lost in the field, too. The one hit right at him by Andino handcuffed him, but he let the ball play him. He just messed up on the ball hit by Guerrero in the same inning. And, in the 9th, Reimold’s “hit” could very well have been scored a throwing error on Figgins. He had to go to his left a bit, but a good throw would have gotten the runner. There were quite a few boos today for Figgins; people are getting tired of what they’re seeing going on.
4. Kennedy’s twelve-pitch walk in the 3rd was a thing of beauty.
5. Brendan Ryan is a stud, a wizard with the glove, and a catalyst for a lot of good things going on with the team. What a great pick-up by Z. Who is Maekel Cleto? I can see Ryan playing well for the M’s for a number of years. He’s not going to hit this well forever, but I see him as a steady .250 -.275 hitter, and the dude has surprising wheels.
6. I can’t imagine Carlos is going to stay up here much longer. The guy has a lot of raw talent, but looks like he needs more time at Tacoma.
7. It was nice to see Saunders hit the ball hard and get a base hit. In his other at-bats, he just looked lost. He plays nice defense, but he has to get his head back together in Tacoma.
8. League was hitting 96 mph on the radar gun and looked good. Maybe he’s gotten the Baltimore voodoo thing out of his system.
All in all, it was a beautiful day at the park, made better by a M’s win.
So much for rejoicing at Silva/Bradley coming off the books at the end of the season. It looks like we have another 2 years of Figgins wasting away precious payroll.
In other news, in the last 10 days…
1).381/.435/.667 (9 game hit streak)
3).359/.422/.564 (8 game hit streak)
4).350/.422/.675 (13 game hit streak)
I suppose the distinction is – Figgins salary is Jack’s doing, while Silva/Bradley was a legacy of the past. We can’t blame Bavasi for this one.
Looking back, it’s funny to see how excited many of us (including me) were when the M’s signed Chone Figgins. Just goes to show you nothing is 100% guaranteed, I guess.
Hey, maybe he’ll pull a Washburn and start doing well in year four. Then, when Z unloads him for a prospect, various columnists will talk about how the M’s didn’t get enough for Figgins, and will continue to suggest – years afterward – that we should spare no expense to bring him back. 😉
Yeah, obviously.
Just saying that the money coming off the books will basically be wasted on Figgins. So we are just swapping some Bavasi stink for some Jack stink (not saying it’s Jack’s fault or anything, how was he suppose to know that Figgins would drop off a cliff).
Yeah, you can do things that come up right 85% of the time…but the 15% of the time….People gotta remember that getting things right 90% of the time is tremendous, but even Homer nods at times….
Another funny stat…
May 17
Ichiro .302
Ryan .200
May 30
Ichiro .276
Ryan .276
I was at the game today as well.
I think its safe to say Figgins may have taken that long leash and wrapped it around his neck a few times. That was the most thoroughly horrible performance I’ve seen in a long time, and he was very loudly booed.
On the plus side, during the game I started wondering if Kennedy might shift to 3rd at some point to bump Figgins. Glad to see Dave is thinking along those same lines…
And it took me a really long time to turn on Chone; I was a huge fan of the signing. But I’m all the way gone now.
I was also at the game. All of Bremerton guy’s observations were dead on. And I took great pleasure in booing Figgins from the CF bullpen area 🙂