Hiroki Kuroda

According to the Tacoma News Tribune, Seattle is actively pursueing Hiroki Kuroda, a 32 year old starter from Japan. In his 11 year career he has amassed 103 wins and 89 losses. His last 3 seasons have been far more successful, posting a 40 win - 26 loss record. He is reported to have a mid-90s fastball, a forkball and a slider (all above-average).

Since he has been playing professional for over 10 years he does not require a posting fee. This is very nice for us since we will not be wasting plenty of money on the posting fee alone.

It is reported that he is leaning towards a west coast team, and perfers west coast teams. The Mariners have a huge advantage having Ichiro and Johjima to sway him towards the Mariners.

Other teams interested in Kuroda are the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers and the Rangers.


Source: http://seattlemariners.com

Free Agent SP Rankings

Dustin and I have compiled this list of starting pitchers who will be free agents in the offseason and have ranked who we think are the top 13.

1. Freddy Garcia

P: Though 05 and 06 for Garcia in Chicago were only mediocre, he has still shown to be a very consistent pitcher throughout his career. In the eight seasons prior to 2007, Garcia's era hasn't been over 4.53 in 2006 and has been as low as 3.05 in the M's magical year of 2001. His career K:BB ratio is 2.23 : 1, a very solid mark. Though he has been hurt for most of this season, I expect this 31 year-old to have a 2008 that falls in line with his consistent track record.

D: I loved Freddy when he was with Seattle. He logged 76 wins to 50 losses. A career 4.07 ERA, which would most likely be lower had he stayed with the Mariners, instead of moving to hitter friendly US Cellular Field in Chicago where his ERA was above 4.50 for most of his time there. Now, its at an unhealthy 5.90. I am all for Freddy, and I believe he'll be fairly cheap.

2. Livan Hernandez

P: There is something about Livan Hernandez that has always told me to either draft him in fantasy leagues as a sleeper or to pick him up in free agency. At 32 years-old, he is a tremendous workhorse and will always rack up a ton of innings. With a winning ballclub, that means a lot of wins. His K's to walks have never really been impressive, and it is a slight concern. At the end of the day, he gets the job done.

D: An innings eater. He led the NL in innings pitched from 2003-2005. He also has an amazing glove for a pitcher, only committing 11 errors in his long, long career. He would eat innings and shave the innings pitched by the bullpen, which is something like 3rd most in the AL. I've wanted him for quite some time, and I believe he will come cheap due to age.

3. Randy Wolf

P: Wolf is well-past his two short glory years with the Phillies in 01 and 02; the only two seasons where his era ended at under 4.00. He is an injury risk, but when healthy he can be a decent number 4 guy.

D: Incredible risk. He could command money, and he might also be worth it, if he can stay healthy. That is a HUGE if though. He hasn't started more than 23 games in the last 4 years, and this year won't break that trend. With a career 4.26 ERA he looks like a "get 'em if he's still there" guy, but he's only had 3 full MLB years since coming up in 1999. I'd pass on him except for the the little stat of G/F. He's an extreme fly ball pitcher. His career mark is .89, compared to Washburn's .78. They aren't vastly different.

4. Carlos Silva

5. Kenny Rogers

6. Paul Byrd

7. Odalis Perez

8. Bartolo Colon

9. Joel Pineiro

10 Wade Miller

11. Jon Lieber

12. Matt Clement

13. Kris Benson


Did dot make top 13: Shawn Chacon, Scott Elarton, Josh Fogg, Casey Fossum, Jason Jennings, Brian Lawrence, Kyle Lohse, Rodrigo Lopez, Eric Milton, Julian Tavarez, Brett Tomko, Kip Wells, Jaret Wright, Victor Zambrano

Stottlemyre and Charlton Among New Mariners Coaches Named Monday

McLaren officially named his new coaching staff on Monday and I have to say I'm a fan of the moves that he has made. The headliners of the new staff are Mel Stottlemyre as the pitching coach and Norm Charlton as the bullpen coach. Jim Riggleman takes post at Bench Coach and Eddie Rodriguez is the 1st Base Coach. Larry Bowa has been offered the 3rd base coach job. Jeff Pentland is the only holdover from Hargrove's staff.

Heres a quick synopsis of each new coach:

Mel Stottlemyre:
I really like this move by the Mariners. Not only is Stottlemyre a former successful big league pitcher (three time 20 game winner) and father of two former big league pitchers but he was also the mind behind the pitching staff of the New York Yankees during their 4 World Series Championships of the Torre era. Plain and simple the guy knows what he's going when it comes to coaching pitchers. I can't wait to see what he can do with Felix, Morrow and some of the other young guys out in the pen. Hopefully Stottlemyre will be able to influence McLaren into making better decisions when it comes to handling the bullpen.

Norm Charlton:
I like this move probably as much if not more than hiring Stottlemyre. I was always a fan of Charlton even if he did sometimes about give me a heart attack when he took the mound. Charlton is not only a former Mariner but was a very good relief pitcher for many years in the big leagues. He knows what it takes to come out of the pen and perform in just about every relief situation. Hopefully he'll be able to convey this knowledge to our young guys out in the pen.

Jim Riggleman:
I've said before that I think that Bench Coach is an irrelevant position but that may just be me speaking out of ignorance. Riggleman is a former major league manager and has a lot of experience as a coach. If anything hopefully he'll be able to help McLaren make better choices in key situations because gods knows Jonny Mac could use the help.

Larry Bowa:
I really hope that Bowa accepts the offer to become 3rd base coach. He's another former big league manager that hopefully can help McLaren mature into a manager who makes the correct decision more often than not.

In general I think McLaren did a very very good job choosing his staff. He's surrounded himself with guys who have many years of experience both playing and coaching in the big leagues. Hopefully the coaching staff's experience will go a long ways towards him making better decisions in critical situations. And I really really can't wait to see what Stottlemyre can do with our young pitchers...

Potential Offseason Moves: Free Agent Starting Pitchers

While there are many moves that could be made this off season to improve the Mariners this off season, starting pitching is the most glaring need. I'll address free agents moves for starting pitching, trades for starting pitching and other general roster moves. For this post I'm sticking with moves the Mariners could make on the slim free agent market for starting pitching.

We made two terrible off season moves last year to try and improve our starting pitching by signing Jeff "Nightmare" Weaver to an 8.3 million dollar one year deal and trading potential star reliever Rafael Soriano for Horacio "Oh No!" Ramirez. These two combined to be perhaps one of the worst 4 and 5 starting combos in Major League history. They obviously won't be back next season but they do need to be replaced somehow. Some people would say ANYONE WOULD BE BETTER THAN WEAVER AND RAMIREZ. However, that was essentially the thinking that got us those two nightmares on our team last off season so lets try and get out of that mindset.

This year's free agent pool for pitchers is slim at best. Which means that anybody that has had anything revealing some sort of success at the major league level won't be cheap (this is exactly the same reason why we gave Weaver so much money last off season). The best of who could be in the free agent pool (some of these players have options for next year) are: Freddy Garcia, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Carlos Silva, Paul Byrd, Bartolo Colon, Randy Wolf and Jon Lieber.

I'll toss out the old guys who I really don't think would be a viable choice for the Mariners, so you can throw out Maddux, Schilling, Byrd and Lieber from this list. Although it could be viable to sign Maddux or Schilling for one year to help groom Morrow as a starter, I just don't think it's worth the money either of those guys will be demanding (assuming neither of them retire). Any of these older guys could be a solution until we can develop a couple of the young guys in our farm system, however, I think the younger four guys are a much more viable solution for the Mariners. So those four aside leaves us Freddy Garcia, Carlos Silva, Bartolo Colon and Randy Wolf. Slim pickings really considering there are 29 other MLB teams to compete with. I'll take a look at each of these guys stats in depth.

FREDDY GARCIA:

He's my personal pick for who we should go after the hardest. He had season ending shoulder surgery in August. While there is a risk he could never be the same pitcher after the surgery, I like him for two reasons. He is an 31 year old 8 year veteran, two time all-star and has won a WS with the White Sox. He is a former Mariner fan favorite when he started his career in Seattle. While he won't be exactly cheap I think he'll be well worth the money coming to the Mariners as the potential #1 or strong #2 behind Felix. His 2007 stats are anything but stunning but his career numbers are solid and I think he can come back from the surgery strong and be one of the solid starters the Mariners are in dire need of, not to mention a great mentor for Felix. Look for him to want more than the 3 year $27 million contract that just expired for him, probably somewhere between 10 and 12 million a year.

Here are his stats:

2007: 1-5, 5.90 ERA, 1.60 WHIP, 11 G, 58 IP, 74 H, 39 R, 12 HR, 19 BB, 50 K, 95.2 P/GS, .318 BAA

Career: 117-76, 4.07 ERA, 1.296 WHIP, 263 G, 12 CG, 4 SHO, 1701.2 IP, 1658 H, 814 R, 770 ER, 203 HR, 548 BB, 1252 SO

CARLOS SILVA:

Another viable option for the Mariners. He had pretty good stats this year on a very mediocre Twins team. He's a 5 year veteran and 28 years old. While he's never had any great seasons he is a solid candidate to be anywhere from the Mariners 3 to 5 starter next year. 36 walks in 202 innings and a 1.312 WHIP would be a giant improvement over Weaver or Ramirez. He'd probably be a little bit cheaper than Garcia but will still get a premium in this year's thin market. He'll be looking to get more than the $8.3 million we gave Weaver last year.

Here are his stats:

2007: 13-14, 4.19 ERA, 1.312 WHIP, 33 G, 33 GS, 2 CG, 1 SHO, 202 IP, 229 H, 99 R, 94 ER, 20 HR, 36 BB, 89 SO

Career: 55-46, 4.31 ERA, 1.368 WHIP, 259 G, 125 GS, 5 CG, 2 SHO, 2 SV, 945 IP, 1122 H, 489 R, 453 ER, 117 HR, 171 BB, 395 SO

BARTOLO COLON:

Colon is a 34 year old, 11 year veteran and former Cy Young winner. Colon has proven to be a viable pitcher in the Major Leagues. He does come with risk because he's been hampered by injuries the last two seasons but his last full season was a stellar one for the Angels when he won the AL Cy Young. Colon would probably be the biggest risk the Mariners could take but could come with the biggest reward if Colon can get back to his Cy Young form of 2005. By signing Colon we would be betting that he can successfully come back after struggling to come back this year from a torn rotator cuff. He also may be the most expensive option for the Mariners. Colon made $14 million in his injury shortened 2007 campaign. He would also be a great mentor for Felix. He could essentially show him what it means to be an effective power pitcher.

Here are his stats:

2007: 6-8, 6.34, 1.621 WHIP, 19 G, 18 GS, 99.3 IP, 132 H, 74 R, 70 ER, 15 HR, 29 BB, 76 SO

Career: 146-95, 309 G, 306 GS, 31 CG, 8 SHO, 1975.3 IP, 1955 H, 966 R, 899 ER, 238 HR, 679 BB, 1542 SO

RANDY WOLF:

This is the guy who is the biggest unknown for me. He is a 31 year old, 9 year veteran and one time all-star. Minus one season where he went 16-10 in 2003 he is a .500 pitcher for the most part. He as a decent career ERA and WHIP but his numbers really are nothing to brag about. Since I've never seen him pitch I don't really know anything about Wolf but he seems like the biggest risk that the Mariners could go after. He just seems to remind me too much of Ramirez or Weaver. I might be completely wrong with that but that is the feeling I get. Wolf also is the only one of these four guys I've mentioned that has a club option on his contract for $9 million for 2008. The Dodger very well may exercise that option. So Wolf may not even be a possibility for the Mariners. I'm guessing he'd be better than Ramirez or Weaver but who knows.

Here are his stats:

2007: 9-6, 4.73 ERA, 4.53 WHIP, 18 G, 18 GS, 102.7 IP, 110 H, 55 R, 54 ER, 10 HR, 39 BB, 94 SO

Career: 78-66, 4.34 ERA, 1.342 WHIP, 212 G, 208 GS, 11 CG, 7 SHO, 1277.7 IP, 1239 H, 642 R, 604 ER, 167 HR, 476 BB, 1065 SO

The pickings for the Mariners are certainly slim. There just aren't many quality free agent starting pitchers available. Personally I think that we should go after Garcia and Silva as hard as possible. We should also get into the bidding for Colon and Wolf (if the Dodgers don't exercise his option). If we pursue all of them hopefully we'll sign at least one of them. If we sign two of them it'd be even better because then we wouldn't have to rely on one of the young guys next year. I won't lie, I want us to get Garcia real bad and hope to see him in a Mariners uniform next year. I think he could be just the #1/#2 starter the Mariners need to be a real competitor next year. Not only would he be a great mentor for Felix, he would give him some competition at the top and hopefully push Felix to his full potential.

Nightcap: 09/28/07 vs. Texas

And the Mariners are in the win column for the 86th time this year thanks to more late inning heroics. For the second time this week rookie Jeff Clement hit a HR in the ninth inning, this time it was a two-run walkoff to give the Mariners a 6-4 victory. This is coming only two nights after Clement hit a game tying HR in the ninth inning of the nightcap of a double header, which helped the Mariners take that game 3-2.

The Mariners went down early when Jeff Weaver gave up 2 runs in the 3rd. The Mariners battled back by scoring 3 runs in the 6th to take a short-lived lead. The Rangers shot back in the 7th on a two run Travis Metcalf HR. The Mariners then tied the game in the 8th thanks to a clutch pinch-hit RBI single by Jose "Turbo" Vidro.

JJ Putz came in to shut down the Rangers in the 9th to set up Clements 9th inning heroics and up his record to an impressive 6-1. Which is great considering he only has two blown saves in 41 opportunities. Weaver had a decent outing tonight that keep the Mariners in the game, going 8 innings and giving up 4 earned runs on 9 hits with 0 walks.

Lets hope this late inning excitement continues in the Mariner's favor for the next two games. If anything it will give us reason to watch the games and enable us to see the end to a suprising season for the Mariners.

Winning Pitcher: JJ Putz (6-1) Losing Pitcher: Mike Wood (3-2)

Tomorrows starters: Miguel Batista (15-11, 4.43) vs. Kevin Millwood (10-13, 5.16)

Attendance: 31,954

Game Time: 3:08

GameZone 9/28/2007 @ Safeco

Texas Rangers (75-84) @ Seattle Mariners (85-74)

Starters: Jeff "Soon to be Just a Dream" Weaver (7-13, 6.30) vs. Edinson Volquez (2-1, 4.40)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro CF
Beltre 3B
Ibanez LF
Guillen RF
Clement DH
Johjima C
Morse 1B
Lopez 2B
Bloomquist SS

TEX
Frank Catalanotto 1B
Ian Kinsler 2B
Micheal Young SS
Marlon Byrd CF
Hank Blaylock DH
Jason Botts LF
David Murphy RF
Jarrod Saltalamacchia C
Travis Metcalf 3B

Lets see if we can close out the season with a sweep of the last place Rangers, who were at the forefront of our slide from contention. A season record of 88-74 doesn't look too bad to me.

McLaren and Bavasi Coming Back for 2008

Well if you haven't already heard it was announced before last night's win that McLaren and Bavasi will be back to give it another go in 2008. I agree with bringing Bavasi back. As much as the entire Mariner Nation has criticized some of the bad decisions he has made, he has made enough good decisions to put a winning team on the field this year. Let's face it, no Mariner fan who follows the team closely expected this team to have 85 wins heading into the final series of the year. Yeah, we're not going to make the playoffs but we've improved our record for the third straight season under Bavasi and have a solid core of players coming back next year that should keep us in the playoff hunt again. While Bavasi hasn't made all the right decisions, he's certainly done well enough to earn himself another year to try and put a team on the field that will make the playoffs.

Now, as far a bringing McLaren back, I gotta wholeheartedly disagree with this move. Yes, McLaren was put in a tough situation when Hargrove "retired" suddenly in the middle of the season. He even kept us in realistic contention through August. You really can't complain about a 40-41 record from a first time manager who took over unexpectedly. However, you can complain about how McLaren has repeatedly proven over the last 81 games that he lacks the ability to make competent decisions in critical game situations. I think Jeff over at Lookout Landing may have put it best when he said that managers rarely get fired for the decisions they make from the dugout, instead it's when they can't run the clubhouse when they get the boot most often. McLaren keeps the clubhouse and Ichiro happy, which is about as good as it seems to get in the Mariner's eyes.

While I understand why McLaren is getting a chance to come back, that isn't going to stop me from complaining about why it is a bad move. McLaren is a 56 year old rookie manager and I think he has shown why he has never gotten a shot to run the show until now. He simply cannot do the little things that keeps a team in contention by helping them win ballgames in critical situations.

He fails to take advantage of lefty vs. righty situations by pinch-hitting late in games claiming that he "doesn't buy too much into whole lefty vs. righty thing". However, on the otherside of the ball he repeatedly takes advantage of lefty vs. lefty (and vice versa) matchups by making far too many bullpen moves. You simply don't need to change pitchers every other batter to match up lefty vs lefty and righty vs. righty at all times. It'll wear your bullpen down, and it certainly wore the Mariner's bullpen out (our starting pitching is partly to blame for this but if McLaren didn't use 7 pitchers every game our great bullpen wouldn't look so ragged right now).

McLaren also seems to be a HUGE believer in toeing the line when it comes to toying with team chemistry. He seems to think our veterans have no backbone at all to stand upon and fails to toy with lineups because of this. Rather than putting the lineup that matches up the best and gives us the best chance to win McLaren would run out the same lineup game after game after game so our "chemistry" wasn't affected. This hurt us for two reasons. The first being that he stuck with Richie Sexson entirely too long this season. Richie was doing terrible, yet, as a veteran, McLaren marched him out there everyday in hopes that he would snap out of it, all the while Broussard sat on the bench rotting away after repeatedly proving he could perform this year.

The second reason this hurt us is because McLaren failed to take advantage of all the young players, including Adam Jones, who came up in late in the season. It was questionable bringing all these guys up, and most of them probably won't have a regular spot on the Mariner roster anytime soon, but if anything they weren't going to do any worse than the regulars during our late season struggles.

First of all Adam Jones could've been worked into the lineup atleast 4 to 5 days a week without drastically cutting into anyone's playing time. It's called giving guys regular rests and most teams do it. There is no reason why Ibanez and Guillen couldn't have gotten a rest about once a week to give Jones a chance to play. Work in DHing Ibanez twice a week (with Vidro starting at 2B one of the games and resting the other) and you get 4 starts a week for Jones and all the veterans should be fresh and happy. The situation with Adam Jones just wasn't as hard as McLaren made it seem. Most of the last two months was wasted for AJ and his great season at AAA seemed to go by the wayside. By the way, take note of the above scenario for next year McLaren, it'll do wonders if you are faced with the same situation for AN ENTIRE YEAR.

Second of all we haven't realistically been in the playoff race for the last two weeks, and playing the young guys more isn't going to hurt anything (not even the team chemistry, if the vets can't deal with the young guys playing late in the season than they shouldn't be on a major league roster). If playing the young guys more would have done anything it would have gave them a chance to showcase their talents to other teams for potential trades. Let's face it, a majority of the young guys who are up with the big club right now don't fit into the big picture too well and the best value they are to the Mariners is as trade bait. If players like Jeff Clement, Jeremy Reed, Wladimir Balentien and Mike Morse would've got a little more time on the field late in the season they may have become more attractive to a team who might be willing to send us a quality starting pitcher. I'm not saying play all of them every day but three of them every game for the last three weeks of the season would've utilized them much better and might've brought better value for these players in any potential trades this offseason.

I'm a big believer that any person can learn and become better at things with time. Hopefully McLaren has learned alot in his 84 games this year as a MLB manager and will take what he has learned into next year. If he does, he might not be as bad a manager as I percieve him at this moment. However, if he doesn't learn from the mistakes that he has made this season, I may die of blunt force trauma to the head by the All-Star break from banging my head repeatedly into the wall watching McLaren make decisions on-par with those that a volunteer little league manager would make.

GameZone 9/27/2007 @ Safeco

Cleveland Indians (94-64) @ Seattle Mariners (84-74)

Starters: Cha Seung Baek (3-3, 5.48) vs. Paul Byrd (15-7, 4.55)

Lineups:
SEA
Ichiro CF
Beltre 3B
Ibanez LF
Guillen RF
Broussard 1B
Johjima C
Clement DH
Lopez 2B
Bloomquist SS

CLE
Grady Sizemore CF
Chris Gomez 1B
Asdrubal Cabrera SS
Travis Hafner DH
Franklin Gutierrez RF
Casey Blake 3B
Kenny Lofton LF
Kelly Shoppach C
Luis Rivas 2B

Let's hope today's game is less painful to watch from a decision making standpoint than last nights. Baek will get his final chance this year to try and get a step ahead at earning one of the available starting roles for next year. Another blown save by Borowski for a third consecutive night would be awesome. That guy just seems to like to throw straight up gopher balls. I'm amazed that he leads the league with 43 saves with his 5.23 ERA and 1.43 WHIP. This just makes me even more glad that we have JJ. I don't know if it's true because I just got home but I just heard my dad say something about McLaren announcing he might be back next year for sure.....If that's true I'll post a long and well thought out rant about why I might die next year from blunt force trauma to the head....

GameZone 9/26/2007 @ Safeco

Game 1 (Makeup from snowout in April)

Seattle Mariners (83-73) @ Cleveland Indians (93-63)

Starters: Ryan Feierabend (1-5, 7.33) vs. Fausto Carmona (18-8, 3.03)

Game 1 Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro CF
Beltre 3B
Ibanez DH
Guillen RF
Broussard 1B
Johjima C
Reed LF
Lopez 2B
Bloomquist SS

CLE
Grady Sizemore CF
Asdrubal Cabrera SS
Travis Hafner DH
Victor Martinez C
Ryan Garko 1B
Jason Micheals RF
Casey Black 3B
Ben Francisco LF
Luis Rivas 2B

This first game will be an odd one since we'll be the visiting team at home due to the fact that this is the final makeup game from the snowouts in April. Interesting enough the Mariners have stuck with just about the same lineup because "they want to ensure the integrity of Cleveland's battle for the AL's best record", yet the Indians seem to be mixing up their lineup...Hmmm....Maybe, just maybe, we'll see some more of the youth for the second game. On the good side of things we do get to see young 23 year old phenom Fausto Carmona on the mound tonight for the Indians. Let's hope the Felix ends up being as good as Fausto when Felix is 23.

Game 2

Cleveland Indians (93-63) @ Seattle Mariners (83-73)

Starters: Jarrod Washburn (10-15, 4.36) vs. Jeremy Sowers (1-6, 6.93)

Game 2 Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro CF
Bloomquist SS
Guillen RF
Beltre DH
Mike Morse 3B
Vidro 1B
Lopez 2B
Jones LF
Burke C
Nick Green 2B

CLE
Franklin Guttierez CF
Chris Gomez 1B
Jhonny Peralta SS
Ryan Garko DH
Jason Micheals LF
Trot Nixon RF
Casey Shoppach C
Josh Barfield 2B
Andy Marte 3B

GameZone 9/25/2007 @ Safeco

Cleveland Indians (92-63) @ Seattle Mariners (83-72)

Starters: Felix Hernandez (13-7, 4.07) vs. Aaron Laffey (3-2, 5.35)

Lineups:
SEA
Ichiro CF
Lopez 2B
Ibanez LF
Guillen DH
Beltre 3B
Vidro 1B
Johjima C
Jones RF
Bloomquist SS


CLE
Kenny Lofton CF
Chris Gomez 3B
Travis Hafner DH
Victor Martinez C
Ryan Garko 1B
Jhonny Peralta SS
Trot Nixon RF
Ben Francisco LF
Josh Barfield 2B

The good news is that the Mariners don't have to face Sabathia in this series since the Indians are getting their rotation in line for the playoffs. The bad news that as I write this the Mariners are already down 3-0. Doesn't look like this is going to be a gem for "The King".

GameZone: 9/23/07 @ Angels

Seattle Mariners (83-71)@ "Los Angeles" Angels of Anaheim (91-64)

Starters: Jeff Weaver (7-12, 6.21) vs. John Lackey (17-9, 3.13)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro CF
Beltre 3B
Ibanez LF
Guillen RF
Broussard 1B
Vidro DH
Lopez 2B
Burke C
Bloomquist SS

LAA
Chone Figgins RF
Orlando Cabrera SS
Guerrero DH
Anderson LF
Casey Kotchman 1B
Matthews, Jr CF
Maicer Izturis 3B
Howie Hendrick 2B
Jeff Mathis C


The Mariners look to delay the Angels inevitable clich of the AL West and stay mathematically alive in the Wild Card race for one more day as they go for a third straight win against the Angels and 84th win of the season. Should be a tough one with Cy Young candidate Lackey on the mound.

Sorry Guys

Now that school has started, I simply do not have the time to dedicate to this blog. I thought I put together a good core of authors that would make the blog easy to maintain, but I was sadly mistaken. It's awful hard for one person to post as big of a majority of the posts as I have been, especially when there are 7 others that are supposed to be contributing. I figured I would be inactive for about a week and see how many entries were posted in that time. Not surprisingly, there has not been a single post by anyone in the last week. I won't give up on this blog, but we may have to start fresh over the offseason. I will be recruiting new authors over the offseason and I hope we can come back strong in 2008.

GameZone: 9/8/07 @ Tigers

Seattle Mariners (74-65) @ Detroit Tigers (76-65)

Starters: Jeff Weaver (6-11, 5.85) vs. Nate Robertson (7-11, 4.95)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro Suzuki -- CF
Jose Vidro -- DH
Jose Guillen -- RF
Raul Ibanez -- LF
Adrian Beltre -- 3B
Richie Sexson -- 1B
Kenji Johjima -- C
Jose Lopez -- 2B
Yunieski Betancourt -- SS

DET
Curtis Granderson -- CF
Placido Polanco -- 2B
Gary Sheffield -- DH
Magglio Ordonez -- RF
Carlos Guillen -- SS
Ivan Rodriguez -- C
Timo Perez -- LF
Sean Casey -- 1B
Brandon Inge -- 3B

GameZone: 9/7/07 @ Tigers

Seattle Mariners (74-64) @ Detroit Tigers (75-65)

Starters: Miguel Batista (13-10, 4.59) vs. Justin Verlander (15-5, 3.67)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro Suzuki -- CF
Jose Vidro -- DH
Jose Guillen -- RF
Raul Ibanez -- LF
Adrian Beltre -- 3B
Ben Broussard -- 1B
Kenji Johjima -- C
Jose Lopez -- 2B
Yunieski Betancourt -- SS

DET
Curtis Granderson -- CF
Placido Polanco -- 2B
Gary Sheffield -- DH
Magglio Ordonez -- RF
Carlos Guillen -- SS
Ivan Rodriguez -- C
Timo Perez -- LF
Sean Casey -- 1B
Brandon Inge -- 3B

GameZone: 9/5/07 @ Yankees

Seattle Mariners (74-63) @ New York Yankees (77-62)

Starters: Jarrod Washburn (9-12, 4.37) vs. Phil Hughes (2-3, 5.65)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro Suzuki -- CF
Jose Vidro -- DH
Jose Guillen -- RF
Raul Ibanez -- LF
Adrian Beltre -- 3B
Ben Broussard -- 1B
Kenji Johjima -- C
Jose Lopez -- 2B
Yunieski Betancourt -- SS

NYY
Johnny Damon -- LF
Melky Cabrera -- CF
Derek Jeter -- SS
Alex Rodriguez -- 3B
Jorge Posada -- DH
Shelley Duncan -- RF
Robinson Cano -- 2B
Wilson Betemit -- 1B
Jose Molina -- C

8th Inning: Tacoma @ NYY

Alright so the game got out of hand tonight, and with two innings to go, down by 10, John McLaren surrendered to the Yankees and sent up 6, yes SIX, September callup players to pinch hit back to back to back to back to back to back in the eighth inning (Reed, Clement, Jones, Jimerson, Balentien, Green) and has now used Mike Morse in the 9th as the seventh consecutive pinch-hitter. Not to mention that Rob Johnson is now listed as the catcher and Willie Bloomquist came in to play short. And thats just the madness that transpired with regards to the lineup. As far as pitching goes, Ramirez started and he was followed by O'Flaherty, Morrow, Rowland-Smith, Parrish, and White. Thats 3 of the 5 lefties in the pen and 5 of the 11 available relievers.

In these first two games the Yankees broadcasters have pointed out that the Mariners have a 35 man roster right now and they made a good point in saying that clubs normally don't callup that many players because they just get in the way and can disrupt chemistry. But of course our management has no sense of team chemistry, they've proven that to us. Now I understand that we've have been losing, but I have to agree completely with those guys on that one. This is the most bizarre and absurd things I've ever seen in my life... aside from squirrels climbing foul poles, go figure. I will try to not extend this part of my rant, but let me say that I am completely dumbfounded and critical of this September Mega Roster of Fat that we've sewn onto our already crippling body. This metaphorical "Mariner Man" now has man-boobs that appeared quick enough to make Pamela Anderson jealous.

But anyways back to the game. What bugged the living hell out of me tonight was using all of these roster fillers or stuffers or whatever you want to call the army of raw druid re-enforcements that were recruited for battle (no offense to the callups, but they are young and raw, and we are in a playoff race). When we are in a damn playoff race and we are playing the team that we most need to beat, I want to see my starters playing out there the entire nine innings. I don't care if we are down by 10, 20, 50, or 100 runs (which the Baltimore Orioles have shown us is a real possibility), I want to see us battle for the entire game with the best we've got. Five runs in two innings is not an impossible task. I really don't know what the deal is, but it's like John McLaren just had Christmas in September and ripped his new toys out of the boxes ASAP and had to play with them all. These players are now packed like sardines in a can. How are our veterans supposed to take these guy's under their wings and teach them how to fly when the plane is going down and all hands are in the cockpit trying to keep this baby in the air?
It's lunacy.

Note: It's sad when your top batter according to Yahoo was 1 for 1 with 2 rbi (Balentien)

Another Note: We used 18 position players and 6 pitchers in this game... that's gotta be some kind of record(s). I mean thats like All-Star Game stuff right there.

GameZone: 9/4/07 @ Yankees

Seattle Mariners (74-62) vs. New York Yankees (76-62)

Starters: Horacio Ramirez (8-4, 6.55) vs. Chien-Ming Wang (16-6, 3.79)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro Suzuki
Jose Vidro
Jose Guillen
Raul Ibanez
Adrian Beltre
Ben Broussard
Kenji Johjima
Jose Lopez
Yunieski Betancourt

NYY
Melky Cabrera
Derek Jeter
Bobby Abreu
Alex Rodriguez
Jorge Posada
Hideki Matsui
Shelley Duncan
Robinson Cano
Wilson Betemit

Austin Bibens-Dirkx's Album

ABD, an outstanding pitcher in our minor-league system who we could see as early as next year, recently released his self-titled album "Austin Bibens-Dirkx" and it is now available on Itunes. Go check it out, he's an extremely talented artist and there is some good stuff on there. Not only is he a great artist, a great pitcher, but after talking to him he's a great person too. He'll definitely be a fan favorite when he comes up.

Note: The only reason he isn't with the Mariners yet is a season-ending injury, but his rehab in Arizona is going well and he's scheduled to have surgery early this month.

GameZone: 9/3/07 @ Yankees

Seattle Mariners (73-62) @ New York Yankees (76-61)

Starters: Felix Hernandez (10-7, 4.08) vs. Roger Clemens (6-5, 4.15)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro Suzuki
Jose Vidro
Jose Guillen
Raul Ibanez
Adrian Beltre
Ben Broussard
Kenji Johjima
Jose Lopez
Yunieski Betancourt

NYY
Johnny Damon
Derek Jeter
Bobby Abreu
Alex Rodriguez
Hideki Matsui
Jorge Posada
Jason Giambi
Robinson Cano
Melky Cabrera

GameZone: 9/2/07 @ Blue Jays

Starters: Jeff Weaver (6-10, 5.62) vs. A.J. Burnett (7-7, 3.70)

Lineups:

SEA
Ichiro Suzuki
Jose Vidro
Jose Guillen
Raul Ibanez
Adrian Beltre
Ben Broussard
Kenji Johjima
Jose Lopez
Yunieski Betancourt

TOR
Vernon Wells
Russ Adams
Alex Rios
Frank Thomas
Matt Stairs
Lyle Overbay
Aaron Hill
Greg Zaun
John McDonald