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Grumpy sez, speaking for all of us,

Blech. This is getting tiresome.

"We're going to lose the ratings on Friday this season.  Sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles." - Dan Miller to super-CEO Robin Stone, The Love Machine by Jacqueline Susann

"My cookie doesn't crumble." - Stone, acidly, in reply

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Dr. D loves Seattle, and note carefully that his wife is a classic soccer mom.  However, there are certain aspects of the region he could do without.  One is the soccer mom mentality surrounding the Mariners:  oh, well, if we don't win it's still a wonderful night at the park.  

In its cyber/saber manifestation, this attitude morphs into a variation expressed as "Nobody rational (tilt nose back) expected to win, anyway.  It's important to rebuild correctly.  If we were sufficiently intelligent we'd know not to cheer in the press box."  ... of course, we bloggers aren't in the press box, but you get it.

Zduriencik said, on his radio show recently, "We were up front.  This was going to be a tough year."  That part of it, the full disclosure, I can respect, and Zduriencik himself is going to be the one paying the price in 8,000-fan crowds.

My question has been:  why allow it to be a tough year?  This club is loaded with young talent.

.........

G-Money sez,

If the starters are good, the pen falters. If the pitching all shows up, the offense is MIA. If the offense is good then the pitchers try to give it all back.

If the offense gets on base they can't drive them in. When they do, the arms screw it up.

Also known as the implosion of a team's self-confidence.  They were game, but there comes a time when your five realizes you can't beat their five, and then you stop setting screens.

Watching a young team is hard. I expect Delabar to have issues. He was teaching kids history or whatever a year ago. I expect young hitters or arms to struggle.

But that's what the vets are there for: to pick them up. Except none of our vets are able to do that. Furbush and Wilhelmsen salvaged things for the pen, only to have League blow it all and waste an offense that was finally productive for the # of hits they had, with the kids coming through in crucial places.

Vets are supposed to stop losing streaks, only Felix and Vargas and League have all blown their opportunities to do just that this week.

Veteran presence like Josh Willingham is one thing.  Willingham signed with the Twinkies for a $7M salary, and is following up a 30-100 year in Oakland* with a .600 slugging average so far this year.  He's got 22 RBI.  

Put one (1) veteran, transition, bat at cleanup for the 2012 Mariners and the whole game changes.  Pitchers are throwing the Mariners blizzards of strikes because, in the pregame meetings, they know there is nobody to fear.  They take the mound with happy-happy joy feelings, they're loose, and they attack.  

But!  If a Willingham type is knocking in 100 runs, now then Kyle Seager, Ichiro, Ackley, as supplemental bats ... look less easy to control.

Put one (1) veteran short man into the bullpen - let's say Jonathan Broxton, on pace for 40 saves in Kansas City at $4M for one year - and everything else lines up much better.  When Dayton Moore signed Broxton, he remarked

“We are delighted to add someone as talented as Jonathan to our bullpen,” Royals GM Dayton Moore said. “He will be used in a setup role to closer Joakim Soria and will help solidify what we feel is a young and talented bullpen.”

Solidify a young and talented bullpen, eh.  Such an idea.  Then when Soria tore an elbow ligament - such as maybe Brandon League is about to do - the "Veteran Presence" lent something a little more than locker room counsel.  The Veteran Presence saved critical games that the Royals would have otherwise lost.

Instead, the Mariners' "Veteran Presence" was Olivo, Ryan, and Figgins, all hitting like pitchers, and Kevin Millwood, running a 5.09 ERA in Safeco and the architect of that 8-1 blown lead that started this ball rolling.  The Veteran Presence was purely in the locker room.

You don't like names such as Willingham's and Broxton's, fill in your own, via free agency or trade.  Geoff Baker prophesied this, all winter ... you're going to lose out on Fielder and then you're going to protest that everybody else is gone and you can't do anything about it.

Here's the payoff.  A team that, right on time in early-middle May, is now finding a way to lose.

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Definitely hard to watch. I see Delabar going back to AAA for a bit and Paxton getting a look VERY shortly, though. No movement at the end of the pen, however. League needs to have a few strong outings in a row - all our vets do - cuz today hurts, especially lumped on top of the rest of the week.
~G

The Mariners have had a lack of urgency in player acquisition for the last year.  They've shown urgency at Eric Wedge's level, benching Chone Figgins, deleting Kelley and Sherrill, moving guys out of batting order spots when they didn't much care for it.

But they came north out of Arizona with a definite lack of urgency at the levels above Wedge, an "Oh well this is going to be a rough year anyway," and the seeds of that now blossom.  Let's hope the blackberry bushes don't get out of control.

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:- ) In 29 of 30 major league cities, the fans would be unanimous about all this.  In 1 city, this one, there will be about a 50-50 split as to whether the Mariners should be, at the levels above Wedge, urgently trying to win in 2012.  LOL.  It's the great thing and the weird thing about baseball here.

One thing we can agree on, I s'pose.  Olivo, Figgins, Ryan and Millwood ain't the kinda Veteran Presence(TM) straws that stir this kinda drink.  There is chemistry in baseball, but Dr. D doesn't go for this interpretation of it.

C'est la vie,

Dr D