The Cleveland Debacle

That's.....scary

So who would like something good to take from this series?  Yeah, me too.  Unfortunately, you're not going to get much.  And if you watched much of this series, or couldn't stomach it any more and chose to pick things up in the next series, go ahead and stop reading.  Three walk off wins by the Cleveland Indians in a four game series requires some ripping and tearing.  Maybe a postmortem, but I'll try to keep the cutting down to a minimum.

I did the series stats for this four game collapse of epic proportions and yeah, it's ugly.  I guess the upside is the home runs.  Although, as Dave Cameron pointed out in a tweet earlier Monday, the Mariners currently rank 6th in home runs and 25th in runs scored.  It's readily apparent why the Mariners still aren't scoring runs.  With that, continue, if you dare.

Seattle Plays New York, Win Series and Hearts of Disenfranchised Fans

Okay, so they probably didn't win the hearts of disenfranchised fans.  At least, most of them anyway.  They've won 5 series, split one and, as of Thursday night, taken second place from Oakland.  It's a 1/2 game lead in the middle of May and 7 back of the first place Rangers, but at this point, we'll take any little victory we can get.  The win today also brings the Mariners one game back of .500 on the season with a record of 20-21, so there's reason for at least a little hope and optimism.  For now.

Thanks to the blowout in the second game, the Mariners brought their overall average to .240 and .219 with RISP.  As a team, they're still under .400 slugging (.388) and in the bottom half of the 30 teams.  Since Fangraphs doesn't refresh immediately after games, I'm looking at rankings through yesterday and, as of games through Wednesday night, they were 22nd among 30 teams in slugging.  Can you imagine where they'd be without Mike Morse?  I shudder at the thought.  And now, the series stuff.

Brendan Ryan and Value

Earlier Wednesday evening, I read this article by Geoff Baker about the middle infield dilemma the Mariners have with their construction and how it may be keeping the younger players down in Triple-A for the moment.  I won't go about explaining it all, but put very simply, Robert Andino can play anywhere on the infield and Brendan Ryan can pick it like no other at shortstop.

I liked this article because it got me thinking.  I wasn't thinking about how wrong Baker might be or anything like that.  He makes a very valid point and there's no point in jumping on him for stating an unpopular opinion.  He is, indeed, right.  What got me thinking was Ryan's defense and that what you'd lose with his defense, one of Carlos Triunfel or Nick Franklin would have to make up for with the bat.  That's not an easy task, especially for a rookie that has gotten a cup of coffee at best with the big league club.  So I decided to take a look at the numbers and see what we can see about what Ryan brings to the table.  This is what I found, after a little explaining of what I'm talking about.  The answer might surprise you.

"The Justin" - Revision of a Poem

This is what happens when you have little sleep, what seems like a great idea and nothing but time on your hands.  I got the idea and kind of ran with it just to see where it goes.  If you like it, cool.  If you don't, cool.  I figured I worked on the damn thing, I might as well share it. 

A poem about the maiden the Score, the devil Justin whose only intelligible phrase is "NeverScore" and the person who meets said Justin at his sports bar door.  I didn't change a whole lot from the Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, but I did change a few things here and there.  I think it makes sense, but really, I'm too tired to care.  The first stanza before the jump to get a taste and you can decide whether or not you want to read the whole thing.

Once upon a season dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten scores, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my sports bar door. `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my sports bar door - Only this, and nothing more.'

Seattle Plays Oakland, Wins Another Series

It's strange seeing the Mariners win.  It was something a lot of people expected, experts included, but the Mariners came out of the gate scuffling on offense.  In some aspects, they still are, but now they're managing to score enough runs to win games.  Behind the excellent pitching of Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma and, to an extent, Joe Saunders, the offense is starting to hit.

Dustin Ackley has gotten his average up to .231, Justin Smoak brought his up to .237 and the top of the lineup has been doing what its been doing all year.  It's telling that seeing Ackley and Smoak get their averages above .230 is worthy of optimism.  Even with those two doing a little something, the strikeouts and double plays are getting a little ridiculous.  Heading into Monday, the Mariners are 2nd behind the Angels with 38 GIDP.  They're 6th in strikeouts with 309, with the Angels 10 behind the Mariners.  So a bright side: at least the Mariners haven't spent $365 million on 2 aging free agent hitters and are looking up from 4th place.