They lost to the Mets, for one. Ariel Miranda struggled mightily early, then settled down to strike out a career high 10 batters over 6 innings, giving up the 4 runs. With the offense roaring back in the fifth inning, the Mariners even handed their bullpen a 1-run lead! But, it wasn’t to be. Scrabble had one job to do, and failed miserably as the left-handed hitter smashed a homer to right. Then, David Phelps proceeded to melt down in the very same inning, giving up the go-ahead two runs. We couldn’t get anything off of their bullpen, and that was that.
Perhaps even more damaging than the loss was the trade the Mariners made: Steve Cishek for Erasmo Ramirez. Yes, THAT Erasmo Ramirez. We traded him away to the Rays for Mike Montgomery a while back when he was out of options, and now he’s back. He’s been primarily a reliever for the Rays, though he’s spot-started his fair share of games. He’s been better as a reliever, but he’s still pretty much the same mediocre pitcher we sent away.
And now he’s being handed the keys to a starting rotation spot. Because Andrew Moore was just demoted back to Tacoma to make room.
Is Erasmo Ramirez better than Andrew Moore? Or Yovani Gallardo? Or Sam Gaviglio? Or any of these other shitty starters we’ve brought in? Absolutely not. So, let’s go ahead and dilute our bullpen to bring in another shitty starter! Oh, wait, I forgot, “trade from a position of STRENGTH”. Yeah fucking right. We have a tenuous hold over this bullpen at best, thanks to the starters always getting pulled prematurely; we need as many quality bullpen arms as we can get!
It sounds like this is the last of the deadline deals, and I can only call it an unmitigated disaster for the Seattle Mariners. Jerry Dipoto has done a lot of good in his short time here, but he really should be ashamed at what little he was able to accomplish in this very important season. Not getting a Sonny Gray, or another comparable starter to help us in the stretch run, is an absolute failure for this organization. And trading away Tyler O’Neill is going to be the icing on the cake when he starts tearing shit up in a few years.
Time to shift gears to football season, because there’s nothing to see here with this Mariners team.