The Nasty Attendences of Late

Barely getting over the 15,000 mark, which is great for a hockey game, or for the Florida Marlins, but for a Mariners team that was suppossed to be raking in the wins and putting bums in the seats are doing much of either. A little bit from the PI:

''You expect some ebb and flow,'' Armstrong said. ''The weather hasn't been good. We haven't played as well as we wanted. And this is the worst schedule ever.

How much effect will the whether have when you play in a stadium with a retractable roof? I guess the whether would have an effect on those travelling to the game, but it shouldn't be that significant.

''I'm optimistic, but when you see 15,000 against a division rival, yes, you are disappointed.''

Of course you should be dissapointed. If those are the lame crowds you'll pull in come September when the Angels come to town? I hope not. I see these points as an arguement for the fans who don't show up:

• When your team isn't doing very well, you probably don't want to go and watch that team. I understand that, but when everybpdy else thinks that you might want to pull out that fifty and go support your team.
• It is May and some people have jobs to do that might not allow them the oppurtunities to go to the games that they might have during the summer months.
• School. My excuse. It's still Spring and people still have to go to school. Homework and that garbage takes up more time than it should. Also those with kids in school will likely find it just as hard to get to the game as those in school for six hours a day learning stuff that they will probably never use.

Now that my points are out there, it's time for my points that the fans who show up will say.

• Support your team. Thirty bucks for a decent seat isn't bad. Four bucks for a Coke is.
• Get away for a few hours and hang with your buds at the ballpark.
• It's usually fun, and when there's nobody there you can sneak down to better seats!!

Atleast there will likely be more than 15,000 next Friday night seeing as it's JJ Putz Bobblehead night.

Junior and Seattle

Ken Griffey Jr. has been rumored to be traded for a while now, and the rumors of him returning to Seattle are heating up.

Personally, I've always like Griffey, as a player and as a person. He was a termendous player who would likely be chasing down Barry Bonds right now if it weren't for all of his injuries. Not to say that he was or is injury prone by any means, but when you break your wrist jumping in to a wall to make a catch, that shows who much you're willing to wisk for your team. That's the type of player Griffey was with Seattle and will always be.

Back to the trade rumors. The money could become an issue at one point. Jr. is owed $12.5M for this year, and has a $16.5M option for 2009 with a $4M buyout, which makes his option worth $12.5M (in a theory that I don't feel like explaining right now). The M's are throwing $16-something-M at Richie Sexson this year, I'm sure that they would spend that on one of the franchise's greatest players. Richie Sexson's contract comes off of the books, and Raul Ibanez and Jose Vidro will become free agents, although Vidro has a vesting option, giving the Mariners two places where Griffey could play easily. Or switch Wlad in to left and insert Griffey in to right.

What it's going to take to get Griffey over here is the biggest question. Would the Mariners give up Wladimir Balentien or Jeff Clement? I don't know. The Mariners would probably be hard pressed to part with their top prospects. Other than those two, guys like Phillipe Amount and Carlos Truinfel come to mind. Cha Seung Baek and Jeremy Reed apear to be extra parts, and are still young and have some potential, so maybe Baek, Reed and another high-ish level prospect would get the job done?

Would there be any liklihood of the Mariners sending Richie Sexson or Jose Vidro over to the Reds in a potential deal?

.......................

Yesternight's game was one worth forgetting. Miguel Batista would happily agree with that statement.

I'm having a hard time finding positive things from the last couple Mariners 'games'. Jose Lopez and Wladimir Balentien both had a couple of hits, and Wlad scored the Mariners only pathetic run. Ichiro stole number 13 of the season.

Cha Seung Baek comtinued to prove his imprtance to the club giving up four runs in 4.2 innings of 'work'. I don't see why he is here and RA Dickey isn't. It would make more sense to get rid of Baek and call up someone half way effective. On a positive note, Mark Lowe and RRS each pitched a scoreless inning. RRS looks like he has figured a little bit out as of late. What I mean is that he hasn't been as awful lately. The M's need to do better tonight. I expect more than the pitiful crowd of 15,818. Do we need to send 40,000 out there every night for the Mariners to win?

Slump Breaker

Now I can be happy! Maybe not as happy as Ichiro is, or Lookout Landing, but the final outcome is better than the last little while.

Jarrod Washburn did what he needed to do, sort of, enough. You can't give him the wrong side of the (insert word here because I can't think of one right now) because he left the game due to an injury. He made it through six, enough for the win on 87 pitches, so seven innings had to have been in the equation had the injury not occurred. He let in three runs on four hits and struck out three. A pretty good night by Washburn standerds. The bullpen was great again. Sean Green pitched two scoreless, and JJ finished off the ninth, but didn't earn a save.

The bats decided to come out tonight. A couple in the first innings, and then a four spot in the third got the job done. I'll take them if they come in bunches. Wladimir Balentien hit his second homerun of the year, hitting in the nine spot for some reason. He finished the night off at 2-3 with three RBI and one strikout. Jeff Clement went hitless, again and struck out a couple of times. Richie Sexson hit number 301 and has picked up a little bit lately. Ichiro went 1-4 with a double. He didn't steal any bases tonight though. Joh even had a couple hits and a couple runs.

Overall the team showed up really nicely and made me feel proud to be a Mariners fan. I wouldn't expect them to choose Kevin Millwood to be their slump buster, but whatever works. The only complaint I have is that only 16,637 hauled their butts out to the game. That's it? How come there's all of these small crowds showing up lately? I guess that the M's are stil doing a long shot better than the Marlins.

Just keep it up!!

Norton Now a Brave

This one took me a couple minutes or hours to put up, but the Atlanta Braves have acquired Greg Norton from the Mariners for a player to be named or cash considerations. Nortan was DFA'd along with Brad Wilkerson five days(ish) ago.

Unfortunate is a word I want to use but can't - I just did - because Norton didn't really deserve to get dropped, but at the same time he didn't prove that he would be more valuable than Wlad Balentien or Jeff Clemnt. Jason Churchill wants enough money to cover Jose Vidro's contract for 2008 to make this trade worth it. I have to say that I agree with him. Why is Miguel Cairo still here?

Maybe I Should be Negative More Often

A lovely picture of Ichiro from Spring Training (taken by me) to get me in a happy mood.

It looks like the negativity from one of my latest posts has paid off. Not only did I get a mention in AngryBeltre (a solid M's blog btw), but the M's scored two runs in the first inning tonight! Maybe I should be negative more often.

I'm not a negative person, but when you have your aces on the mound and they only get one run of support each...wouldn't you be a little ticked off too? Hopefully Texas will give us a boost back up to the .500 mark.

Series Preview: 5/5-8/08

Time to take a look at the series ahead when the Rangers come to town.

May 5
TEX: Kevin Millwood, RHP, 2-2, 3.86 ERA
SEA: Jarrod Washburn, LHP, 1-4, 4.86 ERA

Scouting Report
Wash looks to clean up the mess by Seattle starters after this weekend. He could really use a good performance to get his mind set on excellence. I'm not seeing much of that 'contract year really good playing' yet. Manny's even turned it on. The bats have to come out and get more than one run. Four of five would be good. Three might even suffice. Washburn will also need to get fairly deep in to the game after five innings of bullpen work in Sunday's game.

May 6
TEX: Sidney Ponson, RHP, 1-0, 1.35 ERA
SEA: Miguel Batista, RHP, 2-3, 4.41 ERA

Scouting Report
The Mariners were rumored to be interested in Ponson a while back, but nothing turned out from it. Time to see what could have been. Same thing as I mentioned earlier: innings from the starter and runs from the batting order.

May 7
TEX: Vicente Padilla, RHP, 4-2, 3.50 ERA
SEA: Erik Bedard, LHP, 2-1, 1.82 ERA

Scouting Report
Mr. Erik will need to pick up the pieces from his last start and try again. His first loss as a Mariner was his only poor performance so far this season. He'll hope to rebound and pitch at the Cy Young level that he is capable of.

Swept out of the Bronx

Even without this moron the Mariners still managed to get swept by the Yankees (sidenote: I said that A-Rod wasn't a bum mainly because I want him to break Barroids HR record, he sort of sucks as a person).

After another terrifac pitching performance from one of the 'aces' of the staff, the M's still managed to lose 6-2. Alright, enough bashing for this paragraph.

Carlos Silva looked alright, other than the forgetable third inning. Six runs isn't very Silva-like. As I've mentioned soooo many times, I'm a fan of the off day, but why do three starters decide to take theirs all on the same weekend? I'm going to have to get back to you on that one. Adrian Beltre hit a nice two run shot for the Mariners only runs. They got as many runs today as they did in the first two games. That's terrible. Ibanez woke up and got a couple hits. Ichiro stole number 12 on his single.

On a good note, the bullpen was very good. Even Mr. RRS pitched two scoreless innings walking and striking out one while giving up only one hit. Mark Lowe, Brandon Morrow, and Aurthor Rhodes each pitched a scoreless inng. That's about the only bright spot from today's game. Other than that it was terrible. Except for Ichiro's stolen base of course.

Maybe a Roster Shakeup?

Maybe it's time to shake up the lineup a bit. Maybe not in terms of players, but where those players are playing. In wake of Raul Ibanez' heroics in the outfield today, I realized that Ibanez isn't much of an outfielder anymore, and that Lookout Landing has been right when they put LF next to Raul's name in the lineup like this "LF".

WARNING: What I'm about to tell you completely makes sense in my mind, and probably my mind only. What I say may not be possible, but when your losing like this, you'll probably try anything.

Scenario 1
First thing to do is to get Ibanez out of the outfield to either first base, or DH. For this scenario, we'll have him at first. Call up Jeremy Reed and have him and Richie Sexson platoon in left field untill Sexson figures out what is going on and can play full time in the outfield. I thought that I'd heard Mac say something about Sexson playing in the outfield a little while ago.

Scenario 2
Ibanez is at DH, and Sexson is in the outfield doing the same thing mentioned in Scenario 1. Have Kenji Johjima play first a little bit, or Jeff Clement and try to turn one of them in to a Victor Martinez.

Scenario 3
Trade a package of mid-level prospects, not that we have any left, or somebody useful, maybe Baek and Reed to the Reds for Ken Griffey Jr., and have him play in left or right, depending on what you do with Wlad.

What do you think would be most likely to happen? Personally, I see the acquisition of Griffey being the most likely, but would the Mariners have the pieces? I mentioned Reed and Baek being spare parts, but it would likely take a little bit more than that to get Jr. back here. I'd like to see him retire as a Mariners and don an M's cap in to Cooperstown. I probably will look in to the possibility of Jr. coming back in the next couple months.

Mac Rips M's, I might Too

After a terrible performance, manager John McLaren went off on the team after watching the bats go cold, again, and their record slipping to 13-18.

What happened to Felix out there? Six runs over 5.2 innings. He gave up 12 hits and he walked three!! I don't care if he struck out 40 when the end result is that terrible. Yes, everyone deserves a break at one point or another, and Felix deserved better with no thanks to his team, but Felix dissapointed me this afternoon. I guess you can say that I've gotten expectant of Felix, but how can I not? He's pitched amazing so far this season.

Once again, where the heck was the defence? Another two errors, and even one by... I can't say it...Ich----... I can't say it ICHIRO! There I said it. Yes he deserves a break after going like three years without commiting an error, but he could've picked a better night to make a blunder. Like if Felix pitched a shutout, or he hit an inside the park homerun, or more importantly the team won. He still went 2-4 with an RBI, and was pretty much the only Mariners who knew what they were doing out there. Johjima was the other guy awake out there, he went 2-4. What a dissapointment Clement was. 1-4 with three strikeouts and three men left on base. Nasty. Maybe Mac should consider Vidro for the DH position again. Betancourt and Ichiro each stole a base. Ichiro is up to 11 now to start the season. Mac wanted him to run, and he is.

What happened with Raul Ibanez out there? Was he mad at the ground or something? Actually, what happened to him period? He was looking really good for the first couple weeks of the season, but lately has plummeted to a .295 AVG, still good, but looked better two weeks ago. Ibanez had a single and a walk, so he was doing his job of getting on base, but didn't do his job in driving in runs.

All in all, poor performance. The M's made Mike Mussina look like a Hall-of-Famer out there. Although the Mariners did get to the bullpen after six innings, a good sign, they still lost two of two to the Yankees. All we can do is hope for a better performance tomorrow.

Hasegawa Influenced Kuroda?

It's ok if your not Japanese enough to read the title, but former Mariners closer Shigatoshi Hasegawa was rumored to have been an influence in Japanese starter Huroki Kuroda's decision to sign with the LA Dodgers over the Mariners. We find out today, that he was not.

"It was not my decision, of course, and until the last one or two days, when he decided to go there instead of Seattle, I thought he would sign with the Mariners," said Hasegawa, an analyst for NHK television, which is televising this weekend's Mariners-Yankees series in Japan. "I don't know why he changed his mind -- that's none of my business -- but I heard his family thought Los Angeles was the best place."

I hadn't heard of this before, but I think that he was genuine about it. Shigi had some great success in Seattle, and with Ichiro and Kenji Johjima - both Japanese - already in Seattle along with the Japanese ownership and such, why wouldn't Kuroda want to come to Seattle? It would only make sense for us to jump to the conclusion that Shigi had something to do with it.

Instead of signing Kuroda, the Mariners decided to go after Carlos Silva, who they signed to a four year deal worth $48M, eight days after Kuroda signed a three year deal worth $35.3M with the Dodgers. So far this season, Silva is 3-0 with a 2.79 ERA in 42 IP, while Kuroda is 1-2 with a 3.82 ERA in the same number of starts, six, as Silva. Looks like the Mariners made the better choice.

Some Days/Weeks it Sucks to be a Mariner Fan

What the heck happened out there? All I can say is that it's too bad for Erik Bedard.

Even Roberto Luongo felt that crap. Hey, the M's are kind of reminding me of the 2007-08 Canucks: a team with a star doing everything (this game it was Mr. Bedard) and a team around him doing nothing.

If the Mariners want to win again they will have to put in a nine inning effort. Bedard pitched seven innings giving up only ONE earned run and struck out six. Pretty darn good performance if you are asking me. Bedard shouldn't havc a 3 in that R column. What happened to our amazing defence? Our Gold Glove 3B Adrian Beltre made a fielding error. The 'Magician' Yuiesky Betancout made his FIFTH error of the season. HIS FIFTH!!!!!! I thought that this guy was suppossed to be one of the best. Jose Lopez misses a catch, his third error of the year. And the cherry on that crap cake was Jamie Burke comitting his first error of the season. I don't care if it's May 2nd, but you can't make that many errors in a game.

The bullpen was once again terrible. Ryan Rowland-Suck gave up another two runs in a third of an innings work. Why is this guy pitching still? He can't do anything!!! Atleast Sean Green looked alright in two thirds of work.

Two walks and four hits won't do it against the Yankees. The Marlins maybe, but not the Yankees. Ichiro was probably the only batter genuinely interested in earing his paychek last night. He went 2-4 and scored the team's only run. Ibanez drove Ichiro in on a double. He finished 1-4. Betancourt got a single, and both Burke and Clement walked. What happened with Wlad and Clement last night? Both go 0-3, striking out twice and leaving a man on each. Could Brad Wilkerson and Greg Nortan have produced better? Perhaps we will never know.

The Yankees are good. Do you want to know why they are good? Because they can spend a bajillion dollars on their team of overpaid losers (except for A-Rod, Jeter, Hughes, Joba, Rivera) that are aged, injured, crappy or all three. I don't expect a 40-0 win for the M's in all three of the games, but I need a better effort than what they showed me last night.

Sexson hits #300

Although he is still a long ways away from getting near Barry Bonds' record, Richie Sexson hit his 300th career homerun last night in the Mariners extra innings loss to the Indians. Sexson is now up to six homeruns on the season, and has produced alright so far this season. His .230 AVG is better than what he did last season, but through the first month of the season (and a day) he has six homeruns and 17 RBI's. Pretty good power numbers, let's just see the average bump up to around .250. But, still I want to congraudgulate Sexson for the accomplishment.

Buzzie Bavasi 1914-2008

Our condolances go out to the Bavasi family after the loss of the late Emil Joseph "Buzzie'' Bavasi who passed away yesterday in his California home after battling a short illness.

Buzzie, the father of current Mariners GM Bill, had been a key part of the Mariners organization for many years. He will be missed by many.

Series Preview: M's @ Yanks 5/02-04/08

Time to look at the Mariners next opponent, the New York Yankees. Tonight, Jamie Burke will complete one of his dreams by starting at Yankee Stadium.

May 2
SEA: Erik Bedard, LHP, 2-0, 2.04 ERA
NYY: Chien-Ming Wang, RHP, 5-0, 3.23 ERA

Scouting Report
It's a battle of unbeaten aces tonight. Bedard is looking to build off of some success. The Mariners will have to rebound after last night's heartbreaker, and will need innings from Bedard because of how much the bullpen was used last night. The offence was sort of there, but will need to show up earlier for the Mariners to have success against a top groundball pitcher in Wang.

May 3
SEA: Felix Hernendez, RHP, 2-1, 2.22 ERA
NYY: Mike Mussina, RHP, 3-3, 4.73 ERA

Scouting Report
Felix continues to impress after another dominent start against Oakland, untill the eighth inning that is, and will need another good performance. Moose hasn't done that well so far this season, and the Mariners will have to hit him hard and early. The Yankees have a good bullpen with guys like Joba and Rivera in the backend, but could falter in middle relief work. If the M's can put up a few runs early and hold the Yankees offence off, which is weakened without A-Rod in the middle, they could be in line for a win.

May 4
SEA: Carlos Silva, RHP, 3-0, 2.79 ERA
NYY: Darrel Rasner, RHP, -----------

Scouting Report
Silva has been a great surprise so far this season and should continue against the Yankees. He's been able to pitch deep in to games and give the bullpen rest, something that should come as a relief. The Mariners bats are facing the new guy, replacing Phil Hughes in the rotation. Rasner had been pitching extremely well with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (AAA) going 4-0 with a 0.83 ERA in five starts. Getting to him early will be huge.