In case you missed the first LL Night and the Revenge of LL Night, guess what?  This coming Monday (July 16th) is another fabulous BECU night, complete with cheap $10 upper deck seats and another attempt to get a whole bunch of LL people to take advantage of said cheap seats and get together for another in-person game thread!

Of course, rather than Felix as it's been the last two times, this time we should be getting whoever the #5 is at that point.  But hey, it's okay, since we'll be playing the Orioles.  And it's all about hanging out and being silly with other LL folks, anyway...

I think we had a great location last time, so how about we try for Section 340, Row 14 again?

What this actually means is -- get a ticket somewhere in View Reserved, preferably near section 340, but then basically just come up and hang out with us. If it's anything like the last game was, we'll just have a big section to ourselves where we can scream things like "PUTZ WOOOO" at the top of our lungs and nobody will care.

This is going to be my last big LL Night before I move away from Seattle on July 30th, so I hope to see some people there!

Bottom of the 10th, 3.5 hours and still going.

Yay for afternoon games that still manage to screw up rush-hour traffic!

June 4th is:

1. a Monday night game against the Orioles
   
2. a BECU $10-in-view-reserved night
   
3. Felix's next home start, assuming no scheduling snafus

So, let's get a gang together again like last time, buy some cheap seats in a section nobody cares about, and have a grand old time cheering for King Felix, because it's much more fun to watch a game together in person than online!

EDIT: Let's try for Section 340, Row 15 this time -- it's on the third base side, closer to the real life Lookout Landing.

(if you are going to another game in the homestand and want to try to see who else is going, feel free to try to piggyback on some of these tangents, though)

I have to admit that when I looked up the starters and saw "J. Weaver", I had a momentary lapse of "Oh crap," and then I realized that it was okay, because it was the other Weaver, and he was starting for the other team.

I'm heading up to Third Place Books to heckle DMZ's book signing event which starts at the same time as the game, so hopefully Jeff's power will be back on by then so he can entertain you all in the game thread. Well, or not, since I hear some important hockey game is happening tonight. On Felix Day. The nerve!

LET'S GO MARINERS!!

Here's the deal:

1. Tuesday night you can get View Reserved upper deck seats for $10 instead of the normal $18
   
2. EnglishMariner is in town and he claims that none of us Seattleites can understand his accent
   
3. FELIX IS PITCHING AGAIN

Anyway, I propose that we somehow all get together for this game.  I think what would probably make the most sense would be to just pick an area of View Reserved that we'll be sitting in -- somewhere that's unlikely to be all that crowded -- and have people buy $10 tickets and just come find us somewhere specific in the stands.  That way even if people have tickets already, you could still come hang out for an inning or so too.

EDIT: GET TICKETS IN SECTION 320, ROW 15 OR SO. WE'LL FIND A WAY TO SIT TOGETHER ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, EVEN IF IT REQUIRES MOVING OVER A SECTION OR BACK A FEW ROWS.

That had to be one of the craziest games ever.  Baek gave up a touchdown, Igawa was worse, and neither one factored in the decision. Even Richie finally caved in and actually joined the party and got a hit!

(13-11 is, by the way, the team's W/L record now, not the score of today's game. The score was 15-11. Just to be clear.)

Jeff is still out drinking or whatever, so here's your reaction thread until he can get back and give you a standard Win Expectancy chart.

Colter Bean is not, infact, shaped like a bean.  Unless, perhaps, you mean a lima bean.

Discuss.

Jeff's note: Dammit, I haven't been drinking. Our campus internet died a few hours ago and only just now got fixed. Of course, if this is anything like the last couple days, it's only temporary. Go college!

I'm the Von Hayes Fan Club, currently tied for 74th place out of 1328.  Though that won't stay, I'm sure.

How about the rest of you?

Man, I'm regretting not taking Jeff Weaver.

I find it pretty strange that the team called "Punto! Punto! Punto!" lacks, well, Punto.

And Scott Podsednik has a score of 0, much to well, almost everyone's chagrin.

Mariners blogizens don't seem to enjoy picture threads as much as AN folks do, and let's face it, A's players are cuter than Mariners players, so I figured I'd drop in here and share some of the pictures I took of your green and gold guys at Opening Day today at Safeco.

Seriously, I was almost worried the game would go on 0-0 forever for a while there.  Felix really was just on fire though, and Danny Haren had that one bad inning, and that was really it.  I like that Jay Marshall guy though -- sidearm/submarine lefties are so rare!  Seeing Travis Buck's debut was pretty exciting too.  He seems to fit in with the team just fine, hairstyle-wise at least.

I'm sure y'all will go on to win the rest of the Mariners-A's games, unless we somehow manage to dispel the Cupcakes Curse tomorrow.  I guess we'll see.

Anyway!

Continue reading this post »

Hopefully this link will work, as it was just sent out in the Mariners email.

I guess Paul was right about how many takes it got George Sherrill to say "Huh?" in a way that didn't completely make JJ Putz start laughing and ruin the take.

Also... "Sometimes 5... sometimes 8.  Huh?  OOPS!"

http://click.mlb.com/ct/click?q=3b-XhxVINdHJvNJL2uFPZugjpFJX8FR

In all seriousness, these are almost funnier than the commercials themselves!

I promised that I'd sneak a front page game thread up here today so that we could all root for the Mariners and lend them a little bit of extra karma to beat down the Colorado Rockies.

Wonderfully, the starting pitching matchup is the Mariners' Jeff Weaver vs. the Rockies' Jeff Francis. Elsewhere, you can see the matchup of Lookout Landing's Jeff Sullivan vs. USS Mariner's Jeff Shaw.

Starting lineup posted to the Seattle Times blog reads as follows:

Adrian Beltre has a sore shoulder, which is why Willie's at third today.  Baek, O'Flaherty, Sherrill, and Reitsma are scheduled to pitch for the Mariners as well, and Putz has tightness in his right elbow so he won't be out there.

I'm guessing that the Gameday app for this will be here, but won't know for sure until the game actually starts.

Last time I posted a front-page game thread was the only time the Mariners won a preseason game.  Can they do it again?  Who knows.  At the very least, getting beaten by the Rockies would be marginally less embarrassing than getting beaten by the Royals.

LET'S GO MARINERS!

Horacio Ramirez is scheduled to start against Jamey Wright and the Rangers today at 3:05pm MLB time (or 12:05pm Seattle time).

Also, you can follow it on the Gameday Java app here.

I know Spring Training doesn't really count, but so far this 0-6 record -- with FIVE of the six games being lost by one run -- is getting a little too freaky.  They've scored 18 runs and given up 25.  That suggests they should have won at LEAST one game...

So I figure, let's have a front-page game thread again and see if we can lend some karma to the team.  First person to say "Whatever, M's still lose" is going to get a Player A bobblehead shoved up their nose.

LET'S GO MARINERS!

Okay, against my better judgment I just moved around  commitments this weekend and now I have Saturday free until around 3pm, so I'm going to Fan Fest so I can see this "Newer Thinner Felix" with my own two eyes (and camera lens).

Is anyone else planning to go?  We can coordinate asking annoying questions of the administration and all!

Rowand avoids arbitration; Dobbs claimed off waivers

I guess Dobby The Bench Elf can't pass through waivers with former Gryffindor GM Pat Gillick looming on the horizon looking for decent players for Hufflepuff's minor league Quidditch team.  Funny how that works.

Last week, the Mariners announced that Dave Sims and Mike Blowers would be joining the Mariners broadcasting team in 2007.

We've been informed that tonight, on the Hot Stove League show on KOMO from 7-9pm, Dave Sims will be one of the guests, along with Sean Green, Jake Woods, Larry Stone from the Times, and former Mariner/coach John Moses.  Though given the weather, who knows if Green and Woods will make it up from Wenatchee or wherever the Mariners Caravan is today.

As part of the weekly Mariners trivia contest, the prize is going to be 4 tickets and parking to Fan Fest, and a gift certificate to either the Greenlake Bar and Grill or the Eastlake Bar and Grill.

I figured if people might be stuck at home listening to the radio tonight, this could be a good chance to heckle the new announcer and win some fabulous prizes.  Or something.

Feel free to turn this into a "game thread" about the snow (not JT Snow), or the salary arbitration games various teams are playing, or Lyle Overbay, or whatever.

I got this from a guy on the japanesebaseball forums, and trust me when I say it is the funniest Sports Illustrated interview I've ever read in my entire life.  I don't know if Igawa was trying to be funny, or if things got cut in translation, or what, but damn.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/franz_lidz/01/04/igawa.qa/

If only he wasn't on the Yankees, I'd totally try to get a "Dappe #29" jersey made.  Man.

The Mariners have info on their website now about Fan Fest 2007 and the Mariners Caravan 2007.

I have to admit that Fan Fest really doesn't look all that exciting yet.  I mean, the scheduled players as of yet are Felix, Betancourt, and JJ Putz.  Whee!  Though, to be fair, I'm not sure everyone who actually appeared last year was listed beforehand; guys like Norm Charlton and Mike Blowers and Dave Valle also gave Q&A sessions and chatted with people, for example, and even Mike Hargrove was wandering around at one point.  (Another thing Hargrove and Bavasi have in common are that they're both left-handed and are pretty nice if you stop and ask them to sign something, if you're wondering.)  Hopefully a couple more players will be there, or it's going to be a lot of long boring Q&A sessions with Bavasi and Lincoln.

Anyway, Fan Fest is January 27th and 28th, from 10am to 4pm, at Safeco Field.  Adults are $10, kids ages 6-14 are $5 and kids under 5 years old are free.  If you want to get a specific player's autograph, you should probably show up at least an hour before the gates open in order to get an autograph voucher.  I have no idea if we'll pull together a blog contingent for it this year or not; feel free to use this thread for planning such a thing.

In case you are nowhere near Seattle, but are within the Mariners geographical market, they also have the wonderful Mariners Winter Caravan, coming soon to a place near you!

I thought the opening stop at IKEA last year was actually pretty fun, and they had Jamie Moyer as well as Sherrill and Putz, and Jamie's just great with fans and is really funny to see when he's dressed in street clothes.  But this year, there's no kickoff event like that, and the closest they seem to be getting to Seattle is either the Alderwood Mall team store, or the UPS Fieldhouse down in Tacoma, both towards the end of the tour.

They spend about half of their time sessions in elementary schools and the Mariners Care get-well sessions, and about half the time in public autograph sessions. (The public sessions are free and they even usually give out little Safeco schedule posters to get signed.)  For the full details on these locations, see the official page.  The public ones are:

Week 1: Jones and Morse
Jan 9, 4:30-6pm : Olympia, Mariners Team Store: Adam Jones, Mike Morse, Rick Rizzs, the Moose
Jan 12, 4-5:30pm : Longview, Lower Columbia College: Adam Jones, Mike Morse, the Moose

Week 2: The Green Woods
Jan 16, 4:15-5:45pm : Wenatchee, Wenatchee Valley College Gym: Sean Green, Jake Woods, the Moose
Jan 17, 4:30-6pm : Pasco, Columbia Basin College Gym: Sean Green, Jake Woods, the Moose
Jan 18, 4-5:30pm : Walla Walla, Whitman College Sherwood Center: Sean Green, Jake Woods, the Moose
Jan 19, 4:15-5:45pm : Spokane, Spokane Falls Community College: Sean Green, Jake Woods, Dave Valle, the Moose

Week 3: How's Your Elbow?
Jan 23, 4:15-5:45pm : Mount Vernon, Skagit Valley College Pavilion: JJ Putz, Mark Lowe, the Moose
Jan 25, 4:30-6pm : Lynnwood, Alderwood Mariners Team Store: JJ Putz, Mark Lowe, John McLaren, Rick Rizzs, the Moose
Jan 26, 4:15-5:45pm : Tacoma, Univ. of Puget Sound Memorial Fieldhouse: JJ Putz, Mark Lowe, John McLaren, Rick Rizzs, the Moose

I would vaguely consider trying to go up to the Lynnwood one, except that with normal working hours and rush hour traffic, it's fairly impossible for me to get there by 6pm.  I took off a few hours early from work to go to the IKEA one last year, and PositivePaul went down to the Olympia one (and had quite an adventure meeting George Sherrill).  If anyone ends up going to some of these, you should totally share your stories (and harrass Rick Rizzs about his facial hair)!

Happy New Year, everyone!

You know, it occurs to me that this is the third year I've written and posted a year end song parody about the Mariners on December 31 (2004 / 2005), and each year the song gets a little more depressing, just like the team!  Wheee!

I might feel bad later and rewrite the ending to be happier, but don't count on it.  Also, I believe either Trent or Steve will be along with an actual year-end-review / why-next-year-might-not-suck post soon.

 
Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2006 Seattle Mariners
To the tune of "Wild Wild West" by the Escape Club
New lyrics by Deanna "Marinerd" Rubin

Forty men with big dreams playing on the same team
Morse, Reed, Meche, Dobbs, all with the same jobs
Kenji's in the dugout waiting for the third out
Carl's up at home plate, driving people crazy

Diss my team, but I don't care
I love the teal in the shirts they wear
Down at the field that we love best,
Starting with the Angels
Playing in the AL West
The AL West

Richie is a big chump, Beltre's in the same slump,
Sherrill's got the left waves, Putz's getting big saves
Ninety-seven strikeouts Felix has so far
Got to vote 'em in, vote 'em in,
Jose's on the All-Star

Diss my team, but I don't care
I love these guys when they're on a tear
Games with the league that we love best
Sweeping out the Giants,
Beating up the NL West
The NL West

Now put your trades on the line and send your players down
You can call 'em up, call 'em up, waive 'em out of town
Ed to the Red, Choo to the Tribe
I don't care since we get to see Doyle tonight

Diss my team, but I don't care
Of how they suck, I am quite aware
Watching this streak has me depressed
Heading back to Oakland
Losing to the AL West
The AL West

Heading out to center, Ichiro's the mentor
Watching Willie Boom-Boom, striking out like Bret Boone
Give me give me Mark Lowe
Give me give me Fruto
Give me Jones, give me Green
Give me time to vent my spleen

This team sucks, and I don't care
I've lost all hope from this bad, bad year
They traded the guys that we liked best
I'm moving back to Philly,
Fed up with the AL West
The AL West

Did everyone else just get the Mariners "Hallowarmth on Halloween!" email?  This is just priceless -- even I can't make up stuff like this:

STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR TONIGHT?  THE MARINERS MAIL STAFF OFFERS UP SOME LAST-MINUTE IDEAS.

1. Wear light green pants and a brown sweatshirt.  Have your friend tape a green piece of cardboard to his/her torso with a yellow "405" written on it.  Stick together.  When anyone gets close to your friend, advise them of their immediate proximity to him/her.  After all, that's what a warning track does, right?  Right.
2. Dress in head-to-toe orange.  Fill your pockets with dry ice for a smoke effect, and go as a J.J. Putz fastball.  If you pass any Major League hitters, they may swing and miss at you just out of habit.  Just an FYI.
3. Put on your Ichiro jersey, grab a bat and a stack of your old vinyl records.  Announce your entrance by tugging your sleeve. Then use the bat to break a record...  'cause that's what Ichiro does. Don't forget to clean up afterwards.  Ichiro prefers that you not litter.

Sign Jeff Sullivan to a contract for $1.2 million liters of coffee.  Option Trent and Devin to wherever the hell they are now.

Renew the contracts of DMZ and Dave Cameron.  Sign Jason Barker to a new contract with incentives for how often he talks.  Release Jeff Shaw to pursue opportunities in Okinawa.

Trade Jerry, Bretticus, and a commenter to be named later to Athletics Nation for jlaff, monkeyball, and salb918.

Renew the contracts of Goose, Graham, jtopps, Phildopip, rljaws, kva15, ppl4life, etc.  Demote Scruffy Lefty to single-A Halos Heaven.

Sign Gomez to a minor-league blogging contract, assign him to work with Conor Glassey.

Renew PositivePaul's contract as a lefty on-occasion blogger (LOOB).  Promote marc w.  Sell pdb's contract to the Arsenal.

Trade David J. Corcoran to Kansas City for the Royals Review guy; sign Royals Review guy to an extension for a season ticket in left field behind Ibanez and a big blue posterboard "U".

Option IceX to Detectovision.

Sell Deanna's contract to Japan.

It's grand baseball weather in Detroit right now.  Forecasts say it's supposed to go down to around 35 degrees tonight with a chance of snow.  Freezio (Player A)-o!

mlb.com's got some articles making a big deal about this being Jeff Weaver's big return to play against the team that drafted him and all.  Sure, he managed to escape Detroit before the epic 2003 season, but on the other hand, he was part of the trade that brought them Jeremy Bonderman, so it can't be all bad, right?

Then again, they also have an article titled "Gambler tries to deal Cards bad hand", which is wrong on so many levels.

The Cardinals put out a lineup without So Taguchi or Chris Duncan in it, with Player A as the DH and Preston Wilson out in left field, therefore the odds are in favor of a Tigers win today.  Unless, of course, Taguchi comes in to pinch-hit a dramatic home run in the late innings, in which case all bets are off.

LET'S GO PUJOLS!

I don't know whether Jeff actually intended to post one of these, nor whether anyone actually intends to watch this game, but just in case, here you go.  Get it?  Justin Case?

Justin Verlander vs. Anthony Reyes. Chris Duncan is batting second for St. Louis, and Yadier Molina and So Taguchi are in the lineup, therefore the Tigers are doomed. Sean Casey is the Tigers' DH, too, while Carlos Guillen plays first base. Huh?

LET'S GO FIGHTERS!

Pop quiz: Every game Ichiro started in 2000 for the Orix BlueWave, he was playing right field and batting cleanup.  True or false?

If you answered "false", you might want to read my latest blog entry, where I wrote a Perl script to parse a Japanese site I'd found with all the NPB starting lineups back to 1981, and got detailed year-by-year data on Ichiro and Johjima's places in their respective starting lineups.

The main interesting results are that Ichiro hasn't started in centerfield regularly since 1996, and that Johjima's never batted higher than 3rd (and hasn't batted 3rd or 4th particularly often either, 38 and 35 starts out of 1072), and 80% of his starts were batting 5th or 6th.

Unfortunately, I still haven't found a place that has box scores going back far enough for Ichiro to validate exactly how many innings he played at each outfield position.. but I think it's pretty interesting that he actually hasn't been a leadoff-batting centerfielder in TEN years.  I have a feeling that's not the general perception people have these days.

This is a lot more of a Marinerds entry than a Lookout Landing entry, but I did promise I'd try to post something to entertain everyone tonight, and this is what's on my mind.

I went to the Phillies' site to check out the video of Aaron Rowand and Chase Utley colliding off of a John Mabry pop-up to shallow center.  (It's pretty scary, actually.)  I looked at the match-up for tomorrow's game, and saw a familiar face, but in an unfamiliar place -- Jamie Moyer's starting for the Phillies against the Cubs tomorrow.

Maybe I shouldn't call it an unfamiliar place, as Jamie originally came up through the Cubs organization, and grew up in Philadelphia anyway. The Phillies have a nice article on Moyer and his ties to both organizations.  The last line of the article, where Jamie talks about having been at the post-WS parade in 1980, is probably the most chilling line for me.  The day the Phillies won the World Series is one of my earliest memories both in life and in baseball, and my family went to the parade as well.  I remember sitting on my dad's shoulders so I could see what was going on.  It was crazy, it was loud, and it was the sort of thing I'd really like to experience once more in my lifetime, provided I can actually stop putting a curse on the local baseball teams when I move to a new city.  Anyway, the point is, when I was growing up, every left-handed kid in Pennsylvania wanted to be like Steve Carlton, even me -- never mind that I'm a girl -- and I suddenly feel like I can see into Jamie Moyer's soul and understand how he feels going forth as both a Phillies pitcher and getting a start in Wrigley Field, coming full circle.  And I really wish him nothing but the best.

On that note, let me crank up my best Casey Kasem imitation a second.  I've had a song request come in from tom2000, so before we resume the Mariners Count^H^H^H^H^HSmackdown, this is a long-distance dedication to Jamie Moyer.

This song was originally something I made up to be silly in a game thread on USSM, after a pretty good Mariners-Indians game on April 24, 2005.  This game tied Jamie with Randy Johnson on the all-time Mariners wins list.  It was pretty cool.

"This Old Man"

This old man, he fanned one
Victor got full count and swung
With a knick-nack, catcher-smack,
Throw the ball to Boone
This old man makes batters swoon.

This old man, struck out two
Casey at the bat would do
With a knick-nack, catcher-smack,
Throw the ball to Boone
This old man makes batters swoon.

This old man, got K three
Inning end for ol' Ronnie
With a knick-nack, catcher-smack,
Throw the ball to Boone
This old man makes batters swoon.

This old man, inning four
Made a double play, no score!
With a knick-nack, batter-smack,
Throw the ball to Boone
Sexson's tag killed that platoon.

This old man, inning five,
Ludwick K'ed, still shutout jive,
With that knick-nack, catcher-smack,
Throw the ball to Boone
This old man is no buffoon.

This old man, inning seven
Blake again in strikeout heaven
Well, the next pitch was a glitch
Homered Aaron Boone
Their only run all afternoon.

This old man, he pitched eight
And he got his fourth win straight
He's a no-balk, never-walk,
Jamie, way to go!
Just four more 'till two-oh-oh!

Yeah.  That was a good day.

On that note, I'm going to Safeco tomorrow (Tuesday, technically today, I suppose) for the Yankees game.  It should be interesting to see whether they've ripped down the big Moyer banner up by the entrance at 1st and Royal Brougham, or painted over him on the player picture wall, or... you know, there's no way they can get rid of all the Moyer stuff around the stadium.  It's just impossible.

I don't know what'll be weirder; having Jamie gone, or having to see Bobby Abreu as a Yankee. It'll be weird seeing a shaven Sal Fasano and a mulletless Craig Wilson, too, and having Ron Villone and Mike Myers coming out of the Yankees pen, and... oh, who am I kidding, it's always weird seeing anyone in a Yankees uniform except Derek Jeter, who was probably born with pinstripes. At least I can look forward to Thursday and watching the rerun of the episode of Mr. Hargrove's Neighborhood where King Felix the 34th takes on Mr. McUgly, with Owl-X and Derek Striped Tiger prowling the infield of the land of Make-Believe-The-Mariners-Don't-Suck.

Jeff should be back in town and taking over the responsibility of entertaining you all for the game thread, I think, unless he actually did commit suicide after Sunday's game, or got arrested for assaulting a major-league manager, or something like that.  I'll still be commenting around the threads here, of course, and as always can be found at Marinerds, talking about all sorts of random baseball crap (and of course, writing songs and posting pictures and pimping books and whatnot).  I'm heading off to Japan again for a few weeks in September (actually, I leave in ten days -- yikes!), and will probably be blogging about it as I find time to sit down in net cafes there.  It'll be nice to be in a country where I can wear my Nippon Ham Fighters jersey without people snickering at the name -- but bad to be in a country where everyone sees a Fighters jersey and assumes I'm a Shinjo fan.  Ah well, you take the bad with the good, I suppose.

I'd make some comment about what I expect out of tomorrow's game, except the Mariners' current front page basically has it as "Karstens vs. TBA". I suppose Baek hasn't been officially called up yet, so they can't put him on the page. Though, I think it's supposed to be Meche's turn in the rotation anyway, so this is a little odd. Oh well. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Same story as yesterday.  Fangraphs is my friend.

Biggest Contribution: Jake Woods, 18.6%
Biggest Suckfest: J.J. Putz, -55.3%
Most Important At Bat: The one where KSTW put "Doyle" instead of Snelling on the recap bar
Most Important Pitch: Chone Figgins's single
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): -16.1%
Total Contribution by Position Players: -33.9%

(What the hell is she talking about?)

Rather than sitting home and watch the Mariners lose today, I drove up to Vancouver BC to catch up with a friend who's leaving the area on Tuesday.  So instead, I got to listen to the Mariners lose on the radio.  I figured I'd just listen while I drove up until I lost the signal, but get this: I never lost the signal.  140 miles from home and I could still hear the Mariners sucking over the air.

Jake Woods turned in one hell of a performance today.  Chris Snelling is showing everyone what an on-base machine he can be.  Also, apparently, the TV broadcast listed him as Doyle in their score recaps, which is pretty funny.

J.J.Putz had a meltdown of epic proportions, and the Mariners lost their 20th straight divisional game.  Fortunately, at least if they lose to the Yankees on Tuesday, it'll just be their 12th straight normal loss, not adding to the other streak.

I've already lost too much sleep this weekend on this stuff, so we'll call it a "You Write The Recap" night, and I'll write something else tomorrow during the off-day to keep you all entertained.

Roster moves: Baek and Green up, Lowe to DL. So says USSM.

I'm still burnt out from last night's baseball transgressions, so all I can say is that I hope this game doesn't suck too much.

Let's, like, go, Mariners. Stop sucking. Now. Please.

This afternoon, I received a text message from Jeff, which said, simply, "Now you understand my agony".  And if it wasn't evident enough from my "contributions" to tonight's "game" thread, I certainly do.

By the way, this is actually the real Win Expectancy chart for the game.  I used the data from Fangraphs.   I realize that Jeff does slightly different things when generating his, so I'm sure the "real" one he does will look slightly different, but this should at least give you all the general gist of how the game went.  At least we had a period of the game where the Win Expectancy was over 50%, for the first time in several days.  Small steps.  Small steps.

Biggest Contribution: Ben Broussard, 42.6%
Biggest Suckfest: Jarrod Washburn, -27.0%
Most Important At Bat: Just about anything Ben Broussard did
Most Important Pitch: Just about any ball by K-Rod that got called a strike
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): -56.1%
Total Contribution by Position Players: +6.1%
Total Contribution by Umpires: 0xDEADBEEF

(What the hell is she talking about?)

Look, I'll tell you guys something.  I stopped at home briefly around 9pm, just in time to see the Angels get back ahead of the game 6-5, and to see that Jamie Moyer had been traded.  Went to dinner, came back home, getting pulled over by a cop on the way because my car registration expired, and I saw that the Mariners had briefly staged a comeback but still managed to lose, and then my housemate ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE GAME FROM THE TIVO so I couldn't even watch it anyway.

And you know what?  I'm perfectly happy with that.

I sat down and watched the last 8 innings of the Koshien tournament finals instead, which went 15 innings and ended in a tie. So it will be replayed tomorrow, meaning that pitching aces Yuuki Saitoh of Waseda Sojitsu (who's thrown something like 400 pitches in three days) and Masahiro Tanaka of Komadai Tomakomai (same, but four days) will probably have to go out there and pitch another nine innings or more, until their arms fall off. This was seriously one of the most gripping baseball games I've ever watched in my life, though, and totally brought me out of the bad mood the Mariners put me in. Both sides were simply amazing to watch, though I've already declared that I'm rooting for Komadai.

Anyway, I did mention before the Mariners game thread that Lackey's had a freakishly high ERA when facing the M's, and today was no different as he gave up 5 runs in 4.2 innings, with 12 hits, and that Broussard homer.  Washburn, on the other hand, ceased being freakishly good when facing his old team, and was saddled with yet another loss.

Mark Lowe's mystique is gone; he seems to have become human again, or at least had his earlier confidence shaken.  But when you're giving up home runs to scrappy midgets like Maicer Izturis -- who, in the grand tradition of midget Angel infielders (see Eckstein, David), averages about one home run per century -- that's a problem.

J.J. Putz has only pitched twice in the last ten days, mostly because your closer can't come out to protect a lead if your team can't get a lead to begin with.  I'm sure he was pretty bored and wanted to do something besides sitting there in the bullpen pondering why there are interstate highways in Hawaii, or why people sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame when they're already there, or whatever the hell closers think about when trying to keep their "closer's mentality" aura going.

I'll admit that I didn't actually see Chris Snelling's last at-bat of the day, and am mostly going on game thread eyewitnesses for my impression of what transpired, but if you look at the Gameday chart it's pretty obvious some of those balls they call strikes are fudged in where they show up on the square.  It's extraordinarily lame for the game to end that way, especially since we all know Snelling's pretty capable of beating the snot out of the ball when he's given a good pitch.

Neat things to see on the game play-by-play:

  Bottom 8th: LA Angels
  - I. Suzuki in center field
  - C. Snelling in right field

Ben Broussard had one hell of a game tonight.  Yeah, he's tapered off a little since joining the Mariners -- .222/.246/.519 in 18 games -- but that includes 5 home runs, and that .765 OPS is better than any of the regulars on the team not named Ichiro or Raul.  He's good and he mashes righties and he puts up with being on the Mariners.  What more can you ask from a guy?

Speaking of putting up with being on the Mariners, yes, sadly, the guy who I'm sure most of us thought would never get traded until the day he either died or retired, Jamie Moyer, has infact been traded to the Phillies.  I've been up and down about this all evening -- my Moyer #50 t-shirt is actually sitting on top of my scorecard book, where I put it last night after doing laundry, for when I go to Safeco next week.  I don't have the heart to move it.

For the large group of readers who don't know me from Marinerds, I've sort of got dual blogizenship between here and the Phlogosphere, because I grew up in Philadelphia going to Phillies games every Sunday for the first half of my life.  That experience helped me immeasurably in learning how to appreciate terrible baseball teams like our recent Mariners, but it's given me really weird perspectives in a lot of Phillies-related events this year, such as finding myself in Philly over Memorial Day weekend watching Arthur Rhodes pitch to Jeff Cirillo, who lined a single over David Bell.  But I digress.

I think it's pretty cool that Jamie's going to get to go play for the team he watched growing up.  I think it's neat that his parents will be able to watch him play again.  The Phillies and Mariners both get great "local boy" angles off of this trade, as the two A-ball pitchers we got are from Corvallis and Redmond.  Jamie gets to delude himself into thinking he's in a pennant chase again, but, much as I adore the Phillies -- and I really do -- I just don't see them making it to the Wild Card with so many holes on the team, even with the recent tear they've been on after the Abreu trade.  Whatever makes him happy, I guess.

But dammit, I'm going to miss seeing Jamie Moyer playing catch with people in the stands during BP, or sitting around signing stuff and chatting with kids and all.  I'm going to miss the novelty of having the oldest and youngest players in the AL on our team.  It's sort of like when someone cuts down an old oak tree in front of your house.   You don't immediately think it's a gigantic change, and maybe you're even glad that it'll stop shedding leaves and junk onto your car.  But a few days later you're hunting for your keys in the sun and sure wish there was a tree there to give you shade, or you suddenly notice that you can look out your window and really notice the ugly burgundy color the people across the street painted their house.  And then you're like, Goddamnit, I wish the tree was still here instead of 3000 miles away serving up dingers to Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran, but it's too late, you're stuck with a stump and some seedlings that might grow into another nice big old tree someday.

On that note, Jake Woods takes the mound for the Mariners against Ervin Santana in a few hours.  If you see someone run out onto the field to strangle Mike Hargrove, and he looks suspiciously like Jeff, well, don't say I didn't warn you.

For the record, Jeff confirmed with me that this is all an exercise in him attempting to make the blogosphere smaller by breaking my spirit by forcing me to watch the Angels.

In yesterday's wrapup, I mentioned that John Lackey's had abnormally bad luck against the Mariners this year (splits), and Washburn's had abnormally good luck against the Angels (splits), so even though this may look like a matchup that favors the Angels, it may actually be skewed the other way.  Alternately, Lackey's bad luck and J-Rod's good luck may be about to run out.

At least Willie isn't in leadoff today. Heck, he's not even starting. That's a move in the right direction.

LET'S GO MARINERS!

I've come to an amazing conclusion.  When Jeff asked me to come in off the bench and pinch-blog a few games for him, he wasn't doing me a favor or trying to be nice.  He was actually trying to make me go insane SITTING HOME AND WATCHING THE ANGELS ARRRRGGGGHHHHH.

Biggest contribution: Raul Ibanez, +5.4%
Biggest Suckfest: Richie Sexson, -13.2%
Most Important At Bat: Sexson, Broussard, and Johjima in the top of the 7th
Most Important Pitch: Mike Napoli's home run
Total Contribution by hitters: -46.8%
Total Contribution by pitchers: -3.2%

(Actually, my graph isn't far off.)

You know, this was not only an incredibly annoying game to lose, especially with our best pitcher on the mound, but it was an incredibly BORING game to lose.  I was trying to think of some moments of the game that particularly captivated me, but I really couldn't come up with much.  Infact, I taped the game since I was spending so much time watching the Koshien quarterfinals instead (ganbare Komadai!), and my housemate got home and I watched most of the game over again with him, and we both agreed: that was a dead boring game.

Interesting things that happened:

• Beltre's homer-not-a-homer-stupid-fan-interference in the 9th
  
• Beltre's nice snag of a Vladdy Liner (tm)
  
• Willie Bloomquist batted leadoff against someone who was so capable of owning him that they might as well have shrinkwrapped him and put a "Clearance" tag on his head
• Mark Lowe's new haircut, apparently given to him by JJ Putz
  
• Chris Snelling started a game, AND did really well at the plate and in the field
  
• Eric O'Flaherty, who suffers afflictions of being both young and left-handed, was actually permitted to pitch one and a third innings

That's seriously about all I can think of.  Maybe I'm just blocking the game out of my head, or maybe it really was just that damn boring.

I have Jered Weaver on my fantasy team, so by the third time Bloomquist was up, I was cheering for him to strike him out. "Yeah! Go Willie! Nice strikeout! My fantasy team thanks you!" See, there's always silver lining.

The Beltre "ground rule double" in the 9th was pretty weird, but I guess we're used to stuff like that by now.  What was funniest to me was the part where they actually escorted the baseball-snagging guy out of the park, with his son following him, like "Dad, why do we have to go home early?"  "Shut up, kid, I got you a home run ball."  "But it wasn't a home run..."

On the other hand, in the Koshien high school tournament semi-finals, Komadai beat Chiben, and Waseda beat Kagoshima, so tomorrow we get to see if Saitoh and Tanaka can stand another consecutive day of throwing a few hundred pitches before their arms fall off.  Should be fun, by which I mean frightening.  Game starts at 9pm PDT, and we'll see if Komadai can tie a record by winning for their third consecutive year.

And speaking of records, Jered Weaver tied Whitey Ford for most wins at the start of a career by an AL Rookie by raising his record to 9-0 with tonight's win.  Whitey Ford won his first 9 decisions as a rookie in 1950, which is 56 years ago, and Jered Weaver wears number 56.  

The Mariners, on the other hand, set a more ignominious record by losing their 18th consecutive game to a division rival.  The record formerly belonged to the Detroit Tigers, through the 1996 and 1997 seasons.

Tomorrow night, J-Rod The Washburninator faces off against his former teammate John Lackey.  These days, Lackey's name probably ends up getting associated more with beating up Jason Kendall rather than with quietly being one of the best pitchers in the American League.  However, if you look at his splits, he's been TERRIBLE against the Mariners this year, at least in terms of fielding-dependent stats; a 9.77 ERA, with 25 hits in 15.2 innings.  His fielding-independent stats are mostly craptacular due to the 4 HR he gave up, but the 4 walks and 12 strikeouts aren't bad.  Washburn, on the other hand, has been reasonably good against the Angels no matter how you split it; a 3.38 ERA with 2 walks and 11 strikeouts in 18.2 innings pitched.  

So, tomorrow's game could be more interesting than it may seem on the surface.  Or, we could just be destined to lose again. At least today we only lost one game to the Angels, rather than two games to the Royals. On the other hand, I'm sure if it was possible to lose two games while only playing one, we would have found a way to do it.

A friend of mine just forwarded me this game preview, and I felt inclined to share it. What a great headline. I'm glad some mlb.com writers still have a sense of humor.

I have to admit that while I'll have the Angels-Mariners game up on the TV, I'll probably be paying a lot more attention to my laptop, where I'll be watching the first game of the semifinals of the Japanese high school baseball tournament at Koshien (which is broadcast over the net here; if the game's on there'll be a button that says "LIVE!").  South Hokkaido's Komadai Tomakomai high school is trying to make history by winning the tournament three years in a row, a feat which hasn't happened since Chukyo managed it in the early 1930's; opposing them is Chiben Wakayama, another powerhouse high school which was featured in the recent Kokoyakyu documentary which aired on KCTS in mid-July.  The game starts at 11am over there, which is 7pm PDT.  The other semi-final match of Kagoshima vs. Waseda is scheduled for 9:30pm.

I've never had the opportunity to watch live footage of the tournament before this year, and it's been amazing, and now I sort of understand why it gets almost as much, if not more, press coverage than pro baseball does in Japan.  There's just something so wonderfully pure about these games, seeing these players give it all of their heart and soul for the dream of bringing honor to their school.

Well, poetry aside, I'm rooting for Komadai to win.  I like rooting for history.  Maybe this is why I'm not particularly depressed about the Mariners' divisional losing streak.  It's HISTORY, I tell you!

HAPPY FELIX DAY!

LET'S GO MARINERS!  

I just realized that I don't know how to generate Win Expectancy charts, and Fangraphs doesn't have one up yet for today, and it wouldn't look like a game summary without one, so I just used yesterday's chart and added a new picture.  Do you think anyone will notice?

Biggest contribution: Richie Sexson?
Biggest Suckfest: Raul Ibanez?
Most Important At Bat: Orlando Cabrera's sac fly?
Most Important Pitch: Vladdy's double off Lowe?
Total Contribution by Bloomquist: 0%
Total Contribution by Snelling: 0%

(I blame Derek)

I have to admit that I decided to go out and run some errands once the Mariners were down 2-0, which is what I've done most other nights this week as well.  I set the VCR to tape the rest of the game, except I put in the wrong tape, and it ran out of space.  The tape cut out literally right after Vladimir Guerrero's huge RBI double.  As far as I can tell, I really didn't miss much after that anyway.  The only real downside of this is that I didn't get home in time to see Chris Snelling get an actual at-bat.

Anyway, because I have no actual data to go on, let me tell you why the above were my picks:

I picked Richie because he was 2-for-3 with a walk and he actually scored a run.  It was really a tossup between him and Johjima, since Johjima got the only real RBI on the team, and he scored the other run.  The argument against Johjima was that he looked pretty silly chucking that ball into centerfield off the Cabrera sac fly.  I feel bad for him, because in theory, it was actually great quick thinking to realize that he wasn't going to make the play at the plate and to go for the play at second, but in practice, I don't think he could have gotten it there in time, and Izturis probably should have ended up at third off the misthrow.

I picked Ibanez because every starter got a hit tonight except Raul and Willie.  The thing is, we don't really expect Willie to get a hit, but we do sort of expect it from Raul.  

Vlad's double off Lowe certainly seems like it knocked the Mariners' percentages of winning down a decent amount. Did any of you really think they had a chance in hell after that?

Rafael Soriano gets major style points for striking out the side in the 8th, and Jamie Moyer should probably get a decent amount of credit for staying out there as long as he did and keeping the Mariners in the game for most of it.  I was really hoping he'd get the win today just because 7-11 sounds a lot cooler than 6-12.  You know, Slurpees and stuff.

Mark Lowe now has an ERA above zero (1.02).  Poor guy.

It's been five hours and the Mariners' official website STILL has a headline up that says "Mariners reinstate outfielder Ian Snelling from 15-day disabled list".  Maybe that's why he wasn't starting tonight?  Hargrove yelled down, "Hey Ian!  Are you ready to play centerfield tonight?" and when he got no response, being as Chris probably doesn't answer to Ian, figured, "Damn, the kid's deaf.  Better put Willie out there."

Tomorrow night, King Felix faces off against Jered Weaver, who still has yet to be pinned with a loss this year.  Given the way the Mariners' offense has been lately, it's unlikely he'll get one this time either.