I promise to not wuss out, Doc.
But McClendon needs to promise that Corey Hart sees no PT from here on out!
Fair trade, doncha' think?
And I really wouldn't mind if the skipper said something like, "We're going to rest Kendrys for while. He's been nursing a _______________________________ (Insert one of the following: slightly tweaked ankle, sprained wrist, sore shoulder, hangover, completely broken batting stroke) and a fortnight or two, oops...I mean day or two off, will do him good."
Kendrys is on a 1-16 streak, an 8-43 streak and an 18-85 streak. He's OPS'ing .536 vs. RHP this year.
You know, Smoak vs. righties would be just ducky. Or Jones. Or anybody but Morales...... Sucre, even!!! Ty Kelly, maybe.........wait.......Oh, crud.
But not Morales. OK, throw him a bone and let him whack at Wilson (he's OPSing .735 vs. LHP)....but bury him at the end of the bench vs. righties.
Right next to Corey Hart.
And I bet Morales would like to take a Louisville Slugger to Boras. But considering that Boras is a righty, Kendrys would probably whiff, meekly.
The skipper has been good this year about rolling out the hot bats.......now he needs to be good about deep-sixing the frozen ones.
Ya gotta' believe!
But just not in Morales or Hart
moe
.
Q. What is the probability of the M's making the postseason? 2%, or 5%, or what?
A. According to MLB.com, it's 43%. Flip a coin. Your chances of calling it correctly, are about the same as the M's chances of gearing up for a big national TV game in October.
Of course, you have no feelings about the coin; you do have residual electroshock convulsions when you look at a Mariner logo. Those were acquired from the last two horrible games. But, as with dice and coins, MLB teams tend to forget what happened on the last toss.
"Momentum is as good as that night's starting pitcher." Again, the M's win a game or two, and all feels right with the universe again. Ahhhhh, the bittersweet flavor that is the Human Experience.
.
Q. I'm a more casual fan. Why would the M's win a tiebreaker?
A. In this case it's head-to-head results. The M's beat the Royals 5 of 7 games this season.
That's not coincidental, exactly, since the Royals' run differential is a paltry +22 runs. Their Pythagorean record is 76-72; they should be +4 over .500, not +14 over.
The Mariners, by contrast, are a full +100 runs to the good, the watermark for "legitimate contender." And their Pythag is 87-61; they should be +26 games over .500, not +12.
So, theoretically, you have a 90-win team that is behind one half a game to a .500-ish team. Hard to see where the "almost eliminated" sentiment comes from ... well, that's it, isn't it? We have an "almost eliminated" sentiment, not an "almost eliminated" logic.
.
Q. But is this offense ever going to score another run?
A. Time and chance happeneth to every man. The Mariners collected 7 hits and 5 walks Sunday, but no runs.
True, it was 9 days ago that they last scored more than 4 runs. But the Mainframe says that they are swinging the bats pretty good now, as opposed to the little 3-game blip they had of swinging too carefully.
.
Q. Do you really buy into this team?
A. On a scale of 1-10, the M's offense is a 3 or a 4. Its pitching is well-and-truly a 10. Take the average there, and the team is a 6.5 to 7 out of 10. Yeah, the offense is annoying. But the pitching is a lot more good than the offense is bad.
The M's have an ERA+ of 124 and an OPS+ of 93.
The 2005 White Sox, who won the World Serious, were at 125 and 95. Sure, the Mariners are feasible World Series winners this year. Stay invested emotionally after a loss. :- ) It makes the winning a lot sweeter.
Hey, from where we sit, this season's ballclub went out there and fought like lions. I'm proud of this ballclub win or lose. ... and you know we'd be only too glad to scream bloody murder over a team that threw in the towel halfway along, as did the 2012 nimwits.
.
Q. The M's pitching is a 10 out of 10?! What kinds of meds did they give you last week?
A. Opiates and ketamine. We set some serious records, I think, but now it's back to whey protein and running stairs. ... Buying into the 2014 Mariners as a hallucination, though? The last AL team with a lower ERA was who, the 1974 Oakland A's?
Dr. D was taken aback to realize that the 2001 Mariners, the 116-win team, led the American League with an ERA of 3.54. They had the amazing bullpen, they had Moyer, they had Drop Dead Freddy, they had 4 other good starters ... and they had a BABIP against of .273. That defense was perhaps the best major league defense since they started keeping track of BABIP.
We're talking apples to apples, because both teams played in Safeco. This year's team has an ERA of 3.01, without the benefit of team defense!
Granted, 2001 was the 'roid era, but still, the ERA+ is 124 compared to the 2001 squad's ERA+ of 117.
Yes, gentlemen, the 2014 Seattle Mariners are a very fine ballclub. The Kansas City Royals, essentially, are not. The M's do have 7 games with the Angels, which is the main reason that we've got a "Pick Em" call on this race today.
.
Q. How do the SP's line up for the 4-gamer in LAA?
A. Thusly. We skip Chris Young (whew). They skip Hector Santiago, who had a 2.85 ERA his last 10 starts, and we miss their best pitcher, Garret Richards DL, who had a 2.61 ERA against the league and who had criminal charges for brutalizing the Mariners specifically.
We'd like to think that the most likely outcome would be 2-2, which would be just fine.
Day | Sea | LAA | Remark |
Mon | WBC-san | Matt Shoemaker | Shoemaker is a TOR |
Tue | Elias | Some reliever or other | |
Wed | K-PAX | C.J. Wilson | C.J. ain't what he usedta be |
Thur | KING FELIX | Jered and his 86 fastball | Jered kinda is, though |
C.J., by the way, ran 135-150 ERA+'s in Texas. Three years in LAA it's been 110, 100, and now 78. He can still pitch, but he hasn't been an Opening Day starter for a while. So we've got 3 Opening Day starters; they've got two. They, of course, have a lineup that is miles better. Angels for choice, but we're goin' to war.
Don't wuss out. This kind of 4-game matchup is why we watch sports.
See you at the ballpark,
Dr D
Comments
The M's pitching is fading. Unless that stops, they may be done.
The problem is that the Royals have 3 games against Detroit and then 11 games against no-one even remotely good while we get the hot blue jays for 4 the THERMO-NUCLEAR Angels for 7 and the annoyingly effective Astros for three.
Might the media finally drop the 'apathetic' fan meme?
100,000+ over the weekend...including almost 30k yesterday at exactly the same time the Seahawks were playing. Those were baseball fans.
And I have to say the atmosphere inside the Safe Saturday was the most raucous I've experienced since the one game playoff against the Angels...when I felt like the lid was going to blow off the dome.
Which would seem to indicate that the fans care.
Unless, of course, you read Brewer this morning lamenting the 'skeptical' fan base...
*sigh*
M's would have to play KC for the right to be the WC2 and play the WC1 in an elimination game, even though we won the head-to-head series. They only use the tiebreaker to determine home field advantage, not an actual playoff birth (so at least we would host the play-in for the play-in)
Evidence: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/59527184/playoff-tiebreaker-rules
Keep up the good work! I had a birthday recently so I upgraded from LurKrBoi29, by the way.
After all these years. I always thought that LrKrBoi29 was an allegory or a myth, yet here he is in the digital flesh! It's like having a sasquatch stop by for coffee. Greetings. Hope you post more often.
The Mariners are a streaky and weird ballclub. They only lose against the bad teams, and wallop the Angels pretty consistently. Expect the A game this series.
LrKrBoi30,
You're not an Oakland Orc spy are you?
B. Beane will stop at nothing!
:)
Welcome....
moe