Add new comment

I just do not think cutting a couple marginal players gets you bad karma. Doc and Moe are correct in that there must be something else missing... but I am not an expert in this area... but how about a few observations.
What I do see though is that EVERY team the Mariners play seem to have most of their batters at peace when they are in the batters box. All these teams have a majority of their players almost in a zen like state of see ball - hit ball. Ackley has 40% chance at best currently of putting a hanging slider in play, and much less hitting it to the wall. Seagar is trying to make sure he hits every fast ball thrown, so he does not have to try hitting anything off speed. Heck even Morse and Ibanez feel they must hit homers every time there are players in scoring position. So know maybe Wedge or Hanson wants the players on edge in the batters box, but it looks to me that someone is managing these at bats by chaos versus zen.
On the flip side, every team we face knows ALL the Mariner pitchers are throwing strikes. Our philosophy is not to WALK ANYONE. If you know that as a hitter, you dig in your back foot, you lean in to make sure you reach the outside corner, and especially the last week, you look for the mistake pitches that are up... and you just crush the ball. There is nothing that scares you about facing the Mariners pitching staff. Not even the un-hittable Felix change up is immune.
I am not saying we start a bean ball war or hitting guys just for the sport of it... although I do think Oliver or Pryor should have hit someone last night after Morse got hit on 2 straight pitches. I do think we need to throw inside a LOT MORE, and get opposing players moving their feet away from the plate. Ya know... add some Ron Villone or Drysdale to your pitching diet. Now maybe this is where a Shoppach catching may help, but Montero is not too young to learn.
For what ever it is worth, I do remember that during Felix's great stretch last year that Felix hit Ichiro, Jeter and A-Rod all in the same game...and I think we won.