Bronxx Bullying
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Quoth DaddyO:
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Didn't watch today's game, but the MLB play log shows Motter, as a pinch runner after a Cruz leadoff single, got picked off with the team trailing 6-4 in the 9th inninig. That is BRAIN-DEAD! That is inexcusable. Tee ball? Sure. But Major League Baseball? His run meant ZERO. His remaining a "live" baserunner and avoiding outs meant EVERYTHING. There was nothing to be gained by taking a long lead off first. I can only assume he didn't pay attention. Did anyone watch it? Have any insight into what happened?
No wonder this team can't stay above .500. All I can say is, Motter was being "True To The Blue." That's the way the Mariners play baseball. Losing baseball.
Rant? Yeah. Blame me?
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Dr. D blames you NNNOT
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And Silentpadna follows his mate to the corner turnbuckle, at full tilt, to clothesline our Mariner Baddie Personified and flip him over the rope into the top row:
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They do have a knack for this don't they? Bulid up the fan base. Huge important series to really get this thing rolling in front of a big crowd. What do the M's do?
a) Rise to the occasion and give the fans what they've been dying to see?
b) Lay an egg and send 'em home disappointed.
By no means does this torpedo the season by itself. But this team - regardless of personnel - has done this over and over and over again. I hated the fact that I was bettin on "b" before the series began.......
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The M's did a lot of good things in the series but the bottom line is that, in these four games, they looked Unready For Prime Time. The series felt a lot like Yankee-Mariner series used to feel, back in the 90's. A bit of Bronx Bullying applied in Seattle if you ask us three.
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Dr. D wearing his ref stripes will introduce his own foreign object into the ring, slamming the Mariner wrestler over the head with it. We hear a lot about the fact that the injury-prone M's have had to riffle through 32 pitchers already here in July. Well over half the 52-card deck.
Okay, we've got that excuse. But how is it, with that much "layering" going on, they needed a panic Gallardo move for the last game in front of a packed house? Gaviglio woulda run screaming off the mound like The Scout's first audition in front of George Steinbrenner, fine, isolated incident. But a winter's worth of grocery shopping, and a year's worth of player development, and out of those 32 guys there still was no #5 guy you weren't squeamish about?
No way to spin that one. A year and a half of "layering" came up very thin on Sunday.
At SSI we look up to Jerry Dipoto as a state-of-the-art 21st-century GM, a man who is both a baseball scientist and ar-tiste. Of course things would look different with Drew Smyly in there. The complaint about pitcher layering sticks, though, we think.
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That said, we liked David Robertson's quote that "I threw that pitch as well as I could throw it. Tip your cap to a really good hitter" as applied to Cano's late homer on Saturday. Big players are big, in big games. A playoff team especially has some star power to dig into when the innings become condensed. That's why SSI thought this team needed impact pitching in July.
Still and all, the M's played pretty fair, showed us some things. Gamel slugged .581 against the Stros and Yankees. Zuumball slugged .667 the past week. Seager hit .320/.420/.600 against the two playoff colossi. Haniger hit .313, Boomstick didn't hit but he is no issue to say the least. Valencia played his game.
... David Phelps' swagger was a revelation and the whole bullpen is up to playoff baseball. (BRAND new teammates staring at him from the dugout, Phelps was confidently thrown in to protect a slim 1-run lead in a packed house; he was Large and In Charge and it won't take much more for Dr. D to anoint him to #2 Mariner reliever.) This particular Mariner team needs to lean on that pen in big games. Sorry, Jerry, against the Yankees they need to come in after 5.2 IP, not 6.1 IP.
They probably would have split the series with one out of two things: (1) an appearance by James Paxton - only a 20% chance he sits any 4-game series, OR (2) a bit of luck in Felix' lockdown game.
The M's battled hard. Problem is, vs. NYY the whole was less than the sum of the parts. But like Chuck Knox once said, a team like this needs to find a way to win that one big game (err, series, whatever). To put them in the playoffs, for example, and get themselves "knowing" rather than "thinking."
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Red Sox series up, with Paxton opening. Win this series and they do wind up 8-5 out of the ASB gate, with weaker teams coming in.
Enjoy,
Dr D