Thanks, Doc :-) - cosign the idea of McLendon as Manager of the Year. It's been fun watching someone manage this team again. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing anyone manage like this, day to day. I don't always agree, but I see him using the entire roster, and Tacoma's, to get the results we need. I love it.

You can pull Erasmo in the 5th because you have the meanest/coolest bullpen in the known universe.  Man, a guy could argue that (if you weren't looking at the leverage impact of closing) F. Rodney is the "weakest" guy in our pen, outside of a loogie name Furbish.  That's stout, with a capital S!
And you can pull him because you have Felix throwing today...so you won't need much pen.
And you can pull him if you are bold.
And you can pull him because he's just kind of a placeholder until Walker gets here.
And you can pull him because you have a very cheap David Price in James Paxton.  Or is Price only a very expensive Paxton?  One of the two...
Either way, now we're cooking with gas.
Go team.
moe
 

I'm not at all unhappy that we won yesterday.  I don't even know that it was the wrong move to pull Erasmo at But Erasmo has been a casualty of McClendon's style since day one.  Lloyd needed a whipping boy in Spring Training, and Erasmo's "horse-****" pitches provided him with one, launching him on a tirade back in March.  Since then, there's nothing that Erasmo has done to Lloyd's liking.
On April 22nd, E-Ram's ERA was a nice 6.75.  Lloyd had successfully scared him "straight" and Erasmo didn't know how to pitch, since challenging hitters and then ruining them with his plus changeup was his modus operandi.  He was demoted to "figure it out," and then recalled for sport starts, random gigs and partial trials, mostly out of need and always under his manager's distrustful eye. For a time he didn't dare to throw a strike, he was so messed up.  But he's struggled through, and gotten back on track.
His ERA is down to 4-ish, now, or basically what Roenis Elias has done.  Erasmo is younger than Roenis, btw.  And James Paxton.  And three years younger than a Hector Noesi.  
But in a game where Erasmo is doing what his manager asked him to do - avoid challenge pitches over the plate on pitcher's counts - and where he has both his pitch count and the scoreboard in near-perfect shape, Lloyd comes out to get him in the middle of an at-bat.  
No pitching coach visit to the mound.  No call for the catcher to go settle him down.  One wobble and he's outta there.  Hit the showers.  No chance at a win for you, no "attaboy," no chance to earn the favor or respect of his manager.
Lloyd doesn't like Erasmo, and doesn't care if he knows it. Or if he rubs the kid's face in it.
Lou was like that too, y'know.  It's the reason they basically had to take the pitching staff away from him - to keep him from ruining the kids on the mound.
Elias is gonna run outta gas before the playoffs.  Nothing says Paxton or Walker can stay off the DL. Young will be throwing his most innings since 2007, if not setting a career high. If we NEED Erasmo, really need him, are we gonna have him there emotionally?  Or are we gonna put it all on the pen because Erasmo isn't trust-worthy?  Certainly not worthy of Lloyd's trust.
After the game, Lloyd said he thought Erasmo was tired.  Erasmo, also after the game, said he'd lost the feel for a bit, that it wasn't about being tired. But now Erasmo knows even when he's pitching well he's not gonna get any leeway for those momentary lapses every pitcher gets.  No one has any faith in him.  
I hope we don't have to count on Erasmo this year. And I would expect to trade him in the offseason.  Lloyd has a doghouse and getting out of it seems like quite the chore, especially if you're not allowed to pitch and everyone treats you like a dirty placeholder.
The win was good, and nobody can argue that Lloyd has been good for a lotta guys in that dugout.  But much like with Sweet Lou, there will be certain personality and player types we may need to find a buffer for - or we'll really need to count on Jack drafting a ton of dudes so we can find one who doesn't rub Lloyd the wrong way.  
I hope we didn't win that battle only to lose the war later in September when a confident Erasmo could mean the difference between the playoffs and going home... and we ruined the kid along the way.  Whoops.
~G

Good stuff G!
From Day 1....You're right.
Montero was from Day 1B.
 

Right now, the whole TEAM is under 3!
Has anyone done that for a whole season since they lowered the mound?

Agreed - Lloyd has been unnecessarily harsh on E-Ram, who is a talented pitcher who would most likely respond better to more even-handed treatment. Similarly, Lloyd was unreasonably lenient on Almonte, who made numerous mental mistakes in the OF and on the bases, with impunity. GMZ solved Lloyd's Almonte crush once and for all by trading him, after The Pencil wrote him in to the line-up for 15-20 games too many. As you point out, GMZ will probably get E-Ram out of Lloyd's dog house with an off-season trade.
Lloyd has done many things right as the M's manager, most significantly his management of the bull pen and the resurrection of TW. Overall, Lloyd is a big improvement over the Wedgie-one. He would be even better if he didn't irrationally throw a talented pitcher like E-Ram into the doghouse.

When I was a cub reporter a hundred years ago, an old editor told me something I repeated often during my career: "don't guess on motives."
Of course, those were the days before the Internet...and even cable TV. So the rules have certainly changed. Plus, it's a free country.
But I look at it this way. Was Lloyd's decision based on a personal dislike of Erasmo? Or was it based on his belief that it was the best decision to help him win a ballgame? Of course, we can't say. And we could surmise that in part it might have been driven by his personal (erroneous?) opinion of Erasmo.
But I have to think the only thing going through his mind at the moment was what would best avoid a split with the White Sox.
But of course, that's just guessing, too.

Both the Dodgers and Mets did it in 1988.
Of course, that counted about 400 ABs against opposing pitchers...

in the '70's and '80's.

If you start in 1969, the year they lowered the mound, right away you get hits, usually just a team or two, but in 1972 the LEAGUE ERA in the AL was 3.09, and there were FIVE teams under 3.00. This, of course, had to be at least one factor in the league adopting the DH in 1973.

Yes, diderot - there have been two teams since 1973 to have produced a team ERA under 3. Oakland in 1974 (2.95).
Yowza.
EDIT TO CORRECT: The 1973 start date accounts for the additional advent of the DH and I'm looking AL only since the league ERAs differ by 0.50 runs on average. The relevant question -> has any AL team since the DH and mound height increase ever done this. Answer: Just the one.

If E-Ram takes this continual face-spitting personally, then Skip has created a problem by trying to solve another one (winning games).  If Erasmo is okay with it (and views it as "anything necessary to win games" instead of as continuing distaste for him personally), then fine - who cares how I would take it, or how I feel about it on his behalf?
Bill Parcells used to chew up and spit out half the roster on all the new teams he'd take over, because a lot of guys couldn't take the needling and personal abuse that Bill used as motivation.
It worked for him.  He'd won stuff before with that attitude. Lloyd ain't won nothin' of note, soooo... 
But the rest of the team seems to be okay.  As long as there's one whipping boy, the rest seem to be staying pretty loose. If sacrificing Erasmo gets us a playoff run, then I take that.  Just as if we'd traded him to achieve it.
But for Erasmo's sake, I hope this is the only year he has to go through this with us, either because a) he gets through the meat grinder and earns a starting spot (and some respect) on the other side with us, or b) he's traded and succeeds elsewhere.
-------
And hey Doc. :) Had a layoff-and-new-job-thing happening, so I can't really post during the day any more.  Today is the exception... so I took advantage.
Playoff chases are fun, aren't they?  Been a long drought since 2003, when I believed the team had a legit shot at a Best-Of series...
~G 

Famous Lloyd McClendon quotes:  
On Erasmo Ramirez:
"Ramirez did not make quality strikes when he needed to, particularly ahead in the count, and it cost him tonight," McClendon said. "For me, I think he's got to pitch better than what he pitched."
On Taijuan Walker
“That’s not a good outing, I’m sorry,” McClendon said at the time. “Not for me. And you can write it. I don’t give a (expletive). I’m sure his agent will be calling mad at me, but we gotta do better.”
On James Paxton's historic rookie performances:
..............................................................................chirp chirp. . . . ..... chirp chirp. . .. (crickets)
On Roenis Elias:
He's "interesting".
On Chris Young:
"I don't know where we'd be without him".
On Felix Hernandez or Hisashi Iwakuma after a trademark blood bath:
"He listened to me"
I think part of the reason the Mariners are good this year is that Jack Zduriencik is afraid to violate McClendon's impossibly high pitching standards.  If McCLendon had witnessed some of the horse (manure) that went on last year with the likes of Joe Saunders, or Hector Noesi or Blake Beaven, he probably would've keynoted a World Health Organization summit on the proliferation of horse (manure).  Zduriencik cannot handle that level of scorn.  So, he makes sure that McClendon is stocked with good pitchers.  Z has done a few things differently since McClendon has come on board: 1. He hasn't traded any starting pitcher or any good reliever. 2. He ran off Randy Wolf in favor of Chris Young. 3. He axed Scott Baker before he even got started. The players for their part seems to be pitching better just through the force of McClendon's personality.  If they are unable to do so, Zduriencik ships them somewhere else, or hides them from McClendon for everyone's sake.
 
 

Hopefully there is someone on the coaching staff who will confront him on it - quietly, of course, but everyone needs to be held accountable by someone. No one is going to be perfect. Patton slapped a soldier for having a perfectly understandable reaction to bombs going off around him. Lloyd said some very nice things about Erasmo when he pitched lights out against the Mets, talked about how he saved the bullpen, came up big when they needed him to, etc.

Like Blowers said, "his manager doesn't trust him yet." That's all well and good in Month Four of the campaign... but some guys who are angry taskmasters always have to be shouting at someone and the veteran guys who've proven themselves often don't appreciate the schtick after a bit. Luckily for us, that's a problem for Years Three and Four.
I like Year One of Lloyd.  I'm fond of our pennant race, and his eccentricities or character flaws are no worse than any other manager. He has the team with him, has one of the greatest pitching staffs ever assembled, performance-wise (somebody get Waits a contract extension and an Assistant Moustache Groomer, STAT), and so far he's kept his simmer pointed where it needs to be (with some Erasmo-shaped exceptions).
La Russa and Cox were able to do that as well.  They also had All-World players and PED-enhanced mega-Godzillas to help out, so we'll see what Lloyd can do without the latter... but as long as the guys fight for him and we don't have overcrowding in the doghouse, we'll be all right.
And I'll do what I can to be around more often, m'man. :) We finally have good baseball to watch! Might as well talk about it...
~G

Don't forget that E-Ram had just pitched in Tacoma a couple night before, so he was going on short rest... It's not like there wasn;t a REASON for E-Ram to be tired...
Just as much as Llyod was protecting the win, he was also protecting his pitcher pitching in an unusual situation (2 days rest)