Yuniesky Betancourt drew his first walk of the season with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning Monday night. Betancourt represented the winning run in a one-run ballgame, Texas leading 6-5, with the tying run in Franklin Gutierrez standing on second base.
That brought the Mariners leading man, Ichiro Suzuki, to home plate. No other person we’d rather have at the dish, right? Wrong.
After Texas Rangers’ closer Frank Francisco issued a five-pitch base on balls to the Mariners shortstop, struggling mightily to locate the strike zone, Ichiro should have taken a pitch, maybe two. It’s common knowledge in the baseball world that in that situation, a hitter, no matter how great, gives himself the red light.
Maybe this is where our cultures clash, but what Ichiro did was selfish and flat wrong. The best thing for the team at that point would have been for Ichiro to at least let the first pitch go by, and force Francisco to regain composure in a shaky situation.
Read more…
How do we feel about Miguel Batista’s budding mutton chops?
Me, I’m up in the air about the whole thing. From a cosmetic standpoint, those flourishing sideburns are absolutely awesome, the epitome of facial hair greatness. From a performance standpoint, those landing strips of hirsutitude may just have to go. It seems that the more those things grow, the shakier Miguel’s outings become.
Let’s examine the evidence.
Batista started the year with three straight outings in which he held opponents scoreless, netting a win in the process. Since those three outings, Batista has allowed four runs (not that bad, all things considered) over 11 innings of work. The bad part comes in the way Batista has been taxing himself through innings, often putting baserunners on (seven walks in those past 11 innings), before finding his way out of trouble.
Read more…
Will he or won't he turn things around?
They’re winning when nobody thought they would. Not the analysts, not the numbers guys, not the fans, not even the most optimistic of Kool-Aid drinkers. The Mariners are defying the odds by winning ballgame after ballgame, and in the process maintaining an iron-clad grip on first place in the American League West.
If they’re going to make a run at the playoffs and keep on winning throughout the summer, they’re going to need to tweak a few things along the way. We’ve come up with three big areas of concern that need to be addressed by the Seattle brass if this team intends to continue the ride all season long.
1. Consistent starting pitching, one-through-five. Right now, the Mariners have three consistent starting pitchers in the forms of Felix Hernandez, Erik Bedard, and Jarrod Washburn. They also have two very inconsistent slots in that five-man rotation in the forms of Carlos Silva, and the fifth-starter tandem of Chris Jakubauskas and the currently injured Ryan Rowland-Smith.
Read more…
Conversation