http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3552938&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Rangers get a 21 year old reliever named Mark Hamburger.

Also DFA by the Rangers because of the move, dear friend Jason Ellison. I had no idea he was down there, considering the Rangers have such a glut of outfielders.

Random thought:  What headlines would you make for a newspaper for a game started by Strasburg and closed by Hamburger?  Extra points for puns.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080511&content_id=2681029&vkey=news_sea&fext=.jsp&c_id=sea

Assuming he can actually use it, this is probably a good thing, right?  Think JJ is teaching him the split, or would it be Stottlemeyer?

75 word Wikipedia fun fact:

A split-finger fastball or splitter is a pitch in baseball and a variant of the straight fastball. It is named after the technique of putting the index and middle finger on different sides of the ball, or "splitting" them. When thrown hard, it appears to be a fastball to the batter, but suddenly "drops off the table" towards home plate—that is, it suddenly moves down, towards the batter's knees.  It is thrown today by many pitchers, including Roger Clemens, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling, Dan Haren, and Rich Harden, a reflection of its popularity amongst power pitchers.

So I was watching the later innings of last night's game against the Rockies (avoiding homework), and I saw some weird stuff going on in the Padres dugout in the middle of the 18th inning.

via i67.photobucket.com

via i67.photobucket.com

I should tell you that I am a Mariners fan, and don't follow the Padres all that much, so it's entirely possible that this is some kind of inside thing in the Padres clubhouse.  That being said, what is the deal with the ram's head?  Where did it come from?  What is it's story?  The announcer said (I think, it was late) that it was left over from Linebrink's time.  Is this something that the Padres do when they have long games in an effort to jinx the other team?

I hope someone out there can answer this burning question, since it's weirding me out a little.

 [Note by jbox, 04/18/08 12:52 PM PDT ]

The Rams head is from Linebrink's locker.  This is a photo I took a few years ago. Not sure why they needed to tape the head up though.

I want to go see the King Awesome bobblehead night game versus the Nationals in early June.  I've never been to a bobblehead night before, so I have a couple questions.

1)  How fast do tickets sell for those games.  I prefer sitting in the CF area (lower deck).

2)  How early is it advised to get to the game so I can get one of those bobbleheads?

The Mariners and the Nats are my two favorite teams, so this would be a great opportunity for me to see a game.

Hat tip for Gaslamp Ball, who posted about this first.

A math professor used a method called Chernoff Faces to make faces for baseball's managers based on how they use things like defensive subsitutions/platooning/baserunning and so forth.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/science/01prof.html?ex=1364702400&en=c8f70d006f87dbd9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Key is at the bottom, John McLaren is 2nd row, right-most face.

via assets.sbnation.com

Apparently those horns mean he uses a lot of pinch-runners, and small everything else means he rarely does any of the other things that were measured.

Linups from Baker's Blog:
Mariners at Giants

Mariners (7-8-1):

5 Yuniesky Betancourt SS
3 Jose Vidro 1B
28 Raul Ibanez LF
29 Adrian Beltre 3B
10 Greg Norton RF
2 Kenji Johjima C
50 Wladimir Balentien CF
4 Jose Lopez 2B
45 Erik Bedard LHP

Other Pitchers:
18 Ryan Rowland-Smith LHP
54 Sean Green RHP
59 Eric O'Flaherty LHP
74 Philip Barzilla LHP

San Francisco Giants (5-11-2):

28 Rajai Davis LF
5 Ray Durham 2B
2 Randy Winn RF
1 Bengie Molina C
33 Aaron Rowand CF
35 Rich Aurilia 3B
40 Dan Ortmeier 1B
29 Brian Bocock SS
75 Barry Zito LHP

Other Pitchers:

41 Brad Hennessey RHP
52 Bartolome Fortunato RHP
64 Merkin Valdez RHP
34 Steve Kline LHP

Barry Zito is wild in the first and gives Kenji his power pitch for a grand slam.  4-0 Mariners after 1/2 inning.  Bedard up next.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120485693123318577.html?mod=weekend_leisure_

The Wall Street Journal posted an article about how baseball clubs are increasingly listening to fans about possible baseball decisions.  Dave's open letter is mentioned as one of the examples.

They also mention an independent league team that allowed the fans to vote on batting order.  That sounds fairly entertaining. :)

At least since I started reading LL/USSM, it seems like every player that we start championing gets traded.  Doyle first, and now Jones/Sherrill/Mickolio.  It's a bit depressing to see every player whom the blogs are rooting for to be traded.  Just a weird observation.  Maybe we should root to free Richie Sexson or something.

Via Baseball Analysts, who love their charts: http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2008/01/payroll_efficie.php

The Mariners paid slightly more money for their wins than the median trend line.  I keep seeing stuff about how the Mariners are overpaying for their team, and I thought it was interesting that we're about average.  Of course, Detroit got the same number of wins for a bit less money, but at least we're not the Orioles (65 wins, $95 million).

Whatever happened to him?  Any chance he would be in the mix as being a possible 5th starter for 2008/9 or that we'll get to see him in spring training?  Playing in winter ball? I haven't heard anything about him since two seasons ago when we got him for Eddie.  He was always interesting to me, and I was hoping someone knew about him.

I've seen a couple of rumors about this over the last few days.  Short of Adam Jones or Ichiro, is there anyone in the Mariners organization who might land Lincecum?  Seems like it's what the Mariners are looking for.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7400932

2 and 5 are the only prime numbers that end in 2 or 5.