Tag Archives: Sam Haggerty

The Mariners Stopped The Bleeding With A Series Win Over The Angels

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That 10-game road trip felt like a month, didn’t it? It’s a good thing literally all the good players on the Angels are hurt. But, even then … couldn’t get the sweep.

Monday’s 8-5 loss was as irritating as every other loss we’ve had recently. We took a 3-0 lead in the first, gave it all back by the fourth. The game remained tied at 3-3 until the ninth, when the Mariners had a chance to walk it off. Three straight sharp singles loaded the bases with nobody out and Kelenic coming to the plate. He promptly struck out. Dylan Moore grounded into a fielder’s choice with the infield pulled in. Then, Canzone rolled over to first base to send it to extras.

The Angels hit a 2-run bomb in the top of the 10th to take a lead, but miraculously, Julio tied it with a 2-run bomb of his own in the bottom half. But, then the wheels came off in the 11th, as the Angels added three more to put it out of reach. We ended 3/12 with RISP, and left with more questions than answers from a bullpen that’s been repeatedly failing us in the later innings. I don’t know what the analytics say, but anecdotally, this group has been ass in the highest-leverage situations (unlike in previous years, when maybe we were luckier than we should’ve been). More and more, I think we’re going to point to the loss of Paul Sewald as the reason why this team fails to go all the way. Canzone sure hasn’t done much, and Rojas has once again cooled off considerably after a hot streak.

Turning things around, the Mariners executed a much-needed 8-0 victory on Tuesday. Bryan Woo looked outstanding (5.2 innings of 4-hit ball with 8 strikeouts), and we managed to close it out with Eduard Bazardo eating up 2.1 innings, and Dominic Leone finishing the ninth. THIS is the role those two were meant to fill; unfortunately, games haven’t been this out-of-reach lately to utilize them properly.

We had great games from Julio and J.P., as well as much-needed sparks from Suarez, France, and Moore. There hasn’t been a lot of production of late from the bottom of our order. Guys like Haggerty, Ford, Canzone, Rojas, Caballero, and O’Keefe have all been balls for the better part of a month and a half. It would be nice if we can get a blistering streak out of someone like Moore to fill that void. Also, it was nice to see Luis Torrens return and hit a rather meaningless double late in the game. O’Keefe is NOT a Major Leaguer, and Tom Murphy isn’t coming back anytime soon (if ever). We can’t afford to play Cal literally every single game the rest of the way.

On Wednesday, we got back to basics with some good ol’ fashioned Mariners baseball, in a 3-2 victory where Castillo pitched another Quality Start (6 innings, 2 runs, 3 hits, 3 walks, 8 strikeouts), and the bullpen was nails from there (Topa, Brash, and Munoz locking it down). All of the scoring was completed by the end of the fifth inning, so it really was a lot of pressure pitching down the stretch. Good to see, after so much shakiness lately.

That caps off the Angels for 2023. We went 8-5, which is pretty appropriate. We’re 8-2 against the Astros, and 9-1 against Oakland, so let’s hope we can keep beating those teams. For what it’s worth, we’re 1-5 against Texas, making the seven times we see them in the last 10 games vitally important. Can we go 6-1 against them? Seems unlikely, but will be necessary if we hope to win the A.L. West.

We have this weekend series with the Dodgers coming up, before we close out against the remaining divisional opponents. We are 81-65, a half-game behind the Rangers (in the loss column), with them playing in Toronto today. We’re 1.5 games behind the Astros for the division (one in the loss column, two in the win column), and they’re off today as well.

We are currently one full game ahead of Toronto for the third wild card. The Blue Jays have lost three straight against the Rangers in this series, which is honestly pretty good for us, because they were on a massive hot streak before that (albeit, against a lot of the same bad teams we played in August). Toronto has 6 against the Yankees, 3 against the Red Sox (both have fallen WAY out of playoff contention), and 6 against the mighty Rays. We will be rooting heavily for the Rays over the next couple weeks.

So, that’s it. There are three teams all within a game and a half of one another for two wild card spots, and there are three teams all within a game and a half of the A.L. West. Win the west, earn a first round BYE, and you’re able to set your rotation and rest your overworked bullpen. Win the second wild card, and you “earn” a series against either the Rays or Orioles in their home stadium. Win the third wild card, and you get the privilege of facing the lowly Twins (who are currently 7.5 games up on the Guardians).

This is very stressful! I sure hope the Mariners do well!

I should point out – since it’s been a while where this has been a topic of conversation – that the Mariners have improved their record in 1-run games to 23-25. That is a mighty jump from where it was pre-August! We are, however, 6-13 in extra innings games, which has been an absurd drain on our emotions. Wouldn’t mind seeing that go in the positive direction asap.

Also, Paul Sewald Update: after a bad blown save early, he’s been pretty great. He had 8 consecutive scoreless appearances before his next blown save. He’s since gone 5 for 5 in save appearances in September. Right now, the Diamondbacks are tied for the third wild card spot (with two more teams right on their heels).

This Is Not A Drill: The Mariners Swept The Astros In Houston

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Well, then I guess there’s only one thing left to do …

I can’t even begin to tell you how unlikely all of this is. We’re now 14 games over .500; remember the All Star Break? We were one game over .500, and needed to go 45-28 to get to 90 wins. Remember the next week after the All Star Break? Remember how we lost a series at home against the lowly Tigers, and were in the midst of breaking even against the Twins? Remember how – at that point – we’d dipped down to one game below .500? It’s insane to think of how this season has turned around in such a short period of time.

Now, all we need to do is go 21-17 to get to 90 wins. Not that 90 wins are any sort of guarantee. Might take 93-95 wins this year, with the way things are going in the American League. Regardless, as of this weekend, we are in the third wild card spot by half a game. Time will tell if this is our emotional high-water mark on the season, or if we’ll power through to the finish. But it’s been a lot more fun to watch this team over the last month.

It was especially fun to watch the Mariners this weekend, because fuck the Astros! As you know from my post on Friday, I didn’t have high hopes. It just seemed like our bullpen was taxed, our starters were iffy, and we were in their home (where we’ve rarely done well). I don’t think this weekend could’ve gone more perfectly.

On Friday, we just barely scraped by with a 2-0 victory. Bryce Miller had his good stuff going in this one, completing 6.1 innings, giving up only 2 hits and 1 walk, while striking out 2. Justin Topa – who was pretty fresh – bridged that gap to the ninth inning, where Andres Munoz (also pretty fresh) nailed down the save.

Offensively, this was the Julio Rodriguez Show. It’s been his show for the last week, and really since the All Star Break. He went 4/5 in this one with a solo homer in the third. Mike Ford had the other solo homer in the sixth off of J.P. France, who was otherwise very good.

On Saturday, Julio went 4/6 with 2 runs scored en route to a 10-3 Mariners victory over Framber Valdez (who went 5 innings, giving up 6 runs). It was largely a team effort in this one, as Teoscar Hernandez had a big game (3/5 with 2 RBI and a run), as did Dylan Moore (2 home runs, 3 RBI), Ty France (2 hits, 2 runs), Sam Haggerty (2 hits, including a homer), and Jose Caballero (1 hit, 1 walk, 1 run, and 1 fight instigated by the Astros battery, who just hate him).

Logan Gilbert gave us 6 innings of competent pitching in this one, giving up 2 runs on 8 hits and a walk, with 3 strikeouts. Thankfully, we kept adding on runs throughout, so we got away with our back-of-the-bullpen arms to finish this one. That ended up being pretty fortuitous, considering what happened on Sunday.

It looks like Emerson Hancock’s season might be done. He left the game after 2 innings with a right shoulder strain. He had a lat strain in 2022 that delayed the start of that season, so I would say this is pretty concerning. For him, anyway. The Mariners were all set to bring back Bryan Woo from the IL in this upcoming series in Chicago. Now, the intention was to go to a 6-man rotation for a spell, and that appears to be in jeopardy. But, maybe the time off was all Woo needed to at least get us to the finish line. Either that, or maybe we sprinkle in a spot start or two out of one of our AAA starters. It’s already almost September, so it’s not like the guys have a ton of starts remaining.

Anyway, on Sunday, the M’s had built up a 6-0 lead heading into the bottom of the third, when our bullpen was forced to take over. Unfortunately, that bullpen gave us quite a scare right off the bat. Tayler Saucedo had zilch, getting no outs, giving up 5 runs on 4 hits and a HBP. Of course, two of those runs came around to score by his successor, but that’s still his fault.

The rest of the bullpen was pretty much nails! Thorton ate up 1.2 innings (including getting us out of that Saucedo scrape with a lead intact), Brash went 1.1 innings, Campbell went 1 inning (giving up the Astros’ sixth run, after we’d already gotten our seventh), and Topa, Munoz, and Speier locked it down from there, keeping the score where it was, 7-6. As it happened, I was at Wild Waves, following along on my phone. I saw that Munoz did the 8th inning – taking out the top of the order – and was sure he’d be in there for the 2-inning save. Instead, Speier of all people got the job done, starting with Destroyer Of All Things Mariner Yordan Alvarez and striking him out. I’m glad Y.A. was relatively cool in this series; it’s nice not to see him homer against us literally every single day.

Julio doubled in the first in this one, before coming around to score. Otherwise, he was quiet, but if he’s not the Player of the Week, there’s some shenanigans going on. Canzone was 4/5 with a RBI and a run, Moore was also 4/5 with a RBI. Rojas had 2 hits and 2 runs; Suarez had a 2-run homer; and even Brian O’Keefe had a 2-run double (though he’s still yet to finish a game he’s started, with Cal pinch hitting late both times).

The Mariners got all the way to be within a half game of the Astros (tied in the loss column). On top of that, we have officially taken the season series against them! So, bring on the tiebreaker! Again, we’ll see if this is our high-water mark or not. We have three more against the White Sox starting tonight, before we get to go back home for what – ON PAPER – looks like the cheesiest of all homestands (3 vs. the Royals, 3 vs. the A’s), but we saw what happened the last time we faced the Royals. Off-days are starting to get scarce, but we rustled up a well-deserved one this Thursday.

On the plus side, we finally get J.P. Crawford back from his concussion. On the downside, we’ll see how long it takes him to get back in the groove.

The Mariners Wrapped Up A Limp, Syphilitic Trade Deadline By Trading For A DFA’d Reliever

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Meanwhile, the Astros re-acquired Justin Verlander, and pretty much everyone in the playoff race got better than the Seattle Mariners.

I don’t even know what to say. I’m flabbergasted. I can’t comprehend what it is the Mariners are doing. For anyone wondering, here’s the total breakdown:

  • Kolten Wong (2B) DFA’d by Mariners after being unable to find a trade partner
  • Eduard Bazardo (RP) acquired from Baltimore after being DFA’d, for minor leaguer Logan Rinehart; he’ll start out in Tacoma for now
  • PTBNL or Cash acquired from San Francisco for A.J. Pollock and minor league nobody Mark Mathias (and also cash)
  • Josh Rojas (UTIL), Dominic Canzone (OF), and Ryan Bliss (INF) acquired from Arizona for Paul Sewald
  • Trent Thornton (RP) acquired from Toronto after being DFA’d, for minor leaguer Mason McCoy

Thornton joined the club last night, along with Rojas and Canzone. Wong and Pollock being given the ax were the easiest moves of the week and the team gets no credit for moving on. Rojas is a player on the decline at this point, and platooning him with Caballero seems like a nightmare. It also seems like Dylan Moore had been playing extremely well of late, and I wonder where he’s been after his 2-homer game.

Replacing Sewald with these nothing relievers seems like a total slap in the face. It’s discouraging to say the least that the majority of the young guys we’ve called up so far this season have been kind of disasterous, but the bullpen REALLY doesn’t feel like the strength it’s been the last couple years.

Not for nothing, but this would’ve been a prime opportunity to re-acquire Kendall Graveman. I’m just saying.

What you’re really telling me with this trade deadline is it all boils down to one guy: Canzone. The relievers are meaningless, but also probably bad. The utility guy is a utility guy, who probably isn’t any better than Moore or Haggerty (or Wong for that matter). The minor leaguer won’t be ready for a year or two, if ever. So, we’re banking this whole trade deadline on Canzone, a guy just breaking into the Major Leagues, who is a coin flip at best. Sure, he’s hit at every minor league level, but that means nothing, especially once you get called up to play in Seattle. See: Abraham Toro.

If we were going to shoot our wad on one guy, why didn’t we just trade Paul Sewald for one guy? One ESTABLISHED guy who could actually make an impact immediately and down the line?

Also, what does this mean for next year? Are you telling me the Mariners are going to give Teoscar a qualifying offer? We’re going to bring him back? Then what? Is he going to DH? What if Canzone – by the grace of all that is holy – actually pans out? It’s him and Kelenic and Julio? I guess that’s a good problem to have, but if he doesn’t pan out, then we’re absolutely no better than we were this time last week. In fact, we’re considerably worse. Because I have to believe there’s a better than good chance that Teoscar walks after this season, to try to re-establish his value in a more hitter-friendly environment. We get a whatever draft pick for giving him the qualifying offer, and that’s it, huh? That’s better than whoever we could’ve gotten in a trade right now?

The other thing you’re telling me is that you’re passing the blame fully on the players. I understand they get a share of the blame. They have to. Too many of our “core” guys have underperformed at the same time. But, the organization is totally passing the buck on their role in this whole mess. Bringing in Wong and Pollock and La Stella and Hernandez. Every offseason move last year was a FUCKING DISASTER! None of those guys panned out. All but one were actively worse than a replacement-level player, and Teoscar certainly wasn’t the kind of middle-of-the-order hitter we desperately needed.

So, what did we do? Traded for a bunch of replacement-level players. Great.

The dirty little secret here is the Mariners are doing the same thing they did LAST time Shohei Ohtani was up for bids: they’re clearing the decks financially, in order to get beaten by some other team that’s going to blow him away with an insane offer. Then, once we’ve lost that race, we’re going to have no one else we’re able to aquire to fill that giant void.

What a fucking shitshow. That’s the Mariners for ya. We got who we got and we’re going to die with what they’re not giving us at the plate. Fun.

The Mariners Had To Cut Chris Flexen

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He was a great pitcher to root for, until all of a sudden he wasn’t.

It’s rare to get a 100% success rate out of a free agent. Sometimes they come in and suck right away. Sometimes their sucking comes on randomly, and without warning. And sometimes they’re better than you could’ve possibly hoped for, only to trail off at the very end before quietly being DFA’d so you can call up a reliever from the IL.

My point is, there’s only one Nelson Cruz, but that’s not who I’m writing about today.

Chris Flexen was a steal for the Mariners. We plucked him from relative obscurity – as he played ball in 2020 in the KBO – after a ragged start to his Major League career with the Mets. He’d finally figured out how to put it all together, and we were on it enough to sign him to a 2-year contract with an option for a third. Even though it wasn’t a ton of money, I think a lot of us were confused why this nobody was getting such a guarantee. But, he quickly put those questions to bed, as he was one of our best and steadiest starters in 2021.

His 2022 wasn’t quite as good, but the results were still mostly there. He played about 2/3 of the year in the rotation before we traded for Luis Castillo and there was an undeniable numbers crunch in the rotation. It came down to either Flexen or Marco, with Flexen going to the bullpen as a long man. Fortunately for us, the Mariners were good enough that he wasn’t needed a whole lot during the final couple months.

Flexen proved useful enough as a reliever to keep around for 2023 as insurance. Of course, we were on the hook for a massive pay increase – based on his performance the previous two seasons – but it felt nice having that kind of insurance. Someone with starting experience who we could stash in the bullpen. It seemed all the more lucky to have him once Robbie Ray went on the IL after his first start, as there was no way the M’s were going to have the same kind of rotational injury luck as they did in 2022.

But, there’s no other way to describe it: Flexen has been terrible this season. He took a loss in every one of his four starts before Bryce Miller was called up to replace him. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that he wasn’t any better in relief. He had a string of five scoreless outings after going back into the bullpen, but then followed that up with seven appearances where he gave up at least one run, with the last five seeing him giving up multiple runs.

Flexen had sub-4 ERAs his first two years here, but in 2023 that jumped to 7.71. He kinda looks done, but maybe he just needs a change of scenery.

There’s a tendency to see something like this as a microcosm for the Mariners’ season. Was he just lucky the last two years, and now he’s seeing that luck swing the other way? Was he good the last two years, and now he’s trash? That’s the big question, isn’t it? On the very same day that Flexen was let go, the Mariners suffered one of their worst, most inexcusable losses of the season. One thing doesn’t correlate to the other, necessarily, though it was Trevor Gott who got the call up to replace Flexen (who also took the L in this 11th inning defeat). But, Gott shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. We should’ve won it in the 10th when we had the bases loaded with nobody out and our 3-4-5 hitters coming to the plate.

Sure, Flexen has had a crappy 2023 season. But, so has Julio. So has Suarez. So has Cal and Ty and Teoscar. So has Wong and Pollock and Murphy. So has Moore and Haggerty. So has Brash and Sewald (who have 7 blown saves between them, including one apiece last night). The numbers might look good for the bullpen, but they haven’t gotten the job done either.

This is a collective face-plant. If this was a video game, we would’ve reset the season ages ago and started over. But, this is real life, and we’re stuck with what we’ve got. At least Flexen gets to leave. He does get to start over. Hopefully it goes better for him at his next stop.

Is Mike Ford A Thing?

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Clearly, the Mariners are in need of a stable bat. Someone in the realm of a Carlos Santana from last year, at a minimum. Ideally, someone better, who’s signed through at least 2024. But, that could take up to a month or more to get done by the trade deadline. What about in the interim?

Well, the M’s need to find an internal option, don’t they? I’m specifically talking about DH here, because for better or for worse, they’re pretty much set everywhere else. No outfield openings, Caballero has sort of taken hold of the second base spot (with Dylan Moore’s return sprinkled in). But, it’s that DH spot that we’ve entirely ignored that needs the most pruning.

A.J. Pollock is a waste of space. Tommy La Stella is gone (good riddance). Cooper Hummel and Sam Haggerty were sent down to Tacoma to make adjustments. Dylan Moore is hitless in three games so far, and I’m not really banking on ANYTHING out of him in what has been a lost injury season so far. Kolten Wong is only here until Moore shows he can hit; after that, as soon as this team needs to make a roster change, Wong should be the first to go. And less really does seem to be more when it comes to DH’ing Tom Murphy.

But, Mike Ford, he’s kind of interesting to me.

Could he be a Carlos Santana type? He’s 30 years old, soon to be 31. He’s had numerous cups of coffee in the Majors since 2019, but no more than 50 games, and he’s never been as good as he was that first year with the Yankees (when he hit 12 bombs while batting .259). This is actually his third stint with the Mariners’ organization and in that time he’s always kinda been this Quad-A hitter. Someone who mashes in AAA, but has yet to figure it out in the bigs.

He started out in Tacoma this year and hit .302/.427/.605, with 13 homers and 11 doubles. Maybe more importantly, he had only 30 strikeouts against 34 walks. Now, either he’s the most Quad-A hitter who’s ever lived (playing in the PCL, that’s entirely possible), or maybe – JUST MAYBE – he’s figured things out. Maybe he’s got his swing right. Maybe he’s figured out his approach at the plate.

When Ford has been at his best professionally, he’s walked more than he’s struck out. He makes good swing decisions and doesn’t chase out of the zone. And, of course, he’s got a free and easy power swing from the left side of the plate, that’s perfect for platooning.

I want to point out that I was mulling this topic of blog-versation over before last night’s 2-homer explosion. Granted, before last night, he had yet to really do much of anything, and indeed he has 6 strikeouts against 1 walk, so if last night didn’t happen, I’d say the tone of this post would be much less optimistic. But, now we know what he’s capable of. He has a multi-homer game in him. Those also weren’t his only two homers; he now has 4 of them in his 8 appearances so far.

This turnaround – if we want to call it that – isn’t totally out of left field. He had it built into his contract that if the Mariners didn’t call him up by June, he could opt out of the deal and become a free agent. Clearly, the Mariners had a need for a hitter, and part of me wants to ask, “What the fuck took so long?!” These things happen all the time. This doesn’t mean that Mike Ford is the next Edgar Martinez or anything. But, sometimes these Quad-A guys pop for a year or two in the Majors. Maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s development, maybe it’s just total randomness. But, it happens, and maybe this is Mike Ford’s year to excel.

This feels like a situation where Ford just takes over the DH role, platooning with Dylan Moore or A.J. Pollock whenever there’s a lefty on the mound. Not that Pollock has done a God damn thing against lefties (supposedly his strength; I fucking told you that shit wasn’t gonna fly in Seattle), but maybe once Pollock settles into that reserve role permanently, he’ll relax and hits will start falling (I get the feeling he’s pressing, still trying to be a starting presence on this team).

The sample is still too small to really believe in Ford; but what else are you gonna do for the next month and change? I don’t think – even if he plays well – that it’ll prevent us from looking for a bat by the trade deadline. But, it sure would be nice to have Ford as an option just in case things don’t work out, or for the inevitable Ty France IL stint because he’s been hit by one too many pitches.

I’m rooting for him. I always root for these Quad-A guys. They’re so close to their ultimate dream – success in the Major Leagues – and so often they fall flat on their faces. Fingers crossed – for all of our sakes – that Mike Ford is the exception.

Biggest Disappointments (So Far) Of The 2023 Mariners

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Yesterday, I got into some of the bright spots. Today, it’s time to shine a light on the pits of despair.

As always, there’s a lot of blame to go around when a team is as mediocre as the Mariners. To put things in perspective, as of the moment of this writing, the M’s are 10-1 against Oakland, Colorado, and St. Louis (three of the worst, or at least most-underperforming, teams on our schedule to date). Against everyone else, we’re 14-23.

But, I don’t want this post to be 300 pages long. So, we’re not going to get into the bottom part of the order too much. Frankly, I never expected much out of La Stella or Pollock or even Wong; they all felt like poor fits to me, and I was never going to be surprised that they sucked. It also isn’t terribly shocking that Haggerty has been bad at the plate, or that Murphy got off to a slow start, or that Trammell & Hummel are more Quad-A guys than actual Major Leaguers. If you went into this season banking on one or more of these guys to be catalysts to our success, you were always bound to be disappointed.

What’s more concerning has been our studs, who have been decidedly unstudly. We’re never going to go anywhere if these guys don’t pick it up.

With so many other storylines going on, Julio Rodriguez was kind of sliding under the radar for a while. But, he’s been pretty far from what we had come to expect from him. Somewhere in between the dregs of last April and the rest of the season, but a helluva lot closer to the poor end of that spectrum. I don’t think it was out of line for people to already have notions of MVPs dancing in their heads, so an OPS under .700 this far into May is fairly discouraging. I don’t think anyone believes this is who he’s going to be the rest of the year, but he can snap out of this funk anytime now, as far as I’m concerned.

Teoscar gets a lot of the flak, and sort of gets lumped in with the other shitty newcomers, but I don’t think he’s unsalvageable. I also don’t think he’s necessarily been anything other than what we should have expected. Maybe he’s a little light in the extra-base hits, maybe he’s striking out a bit more than normal. But, he was always a guy who struck out a lot. He was always Boom Or Bust. I think where the disconnect lays – and I’m as guilty of it as anyone – is projecting him to be some sort of Home Run King or something upon arriving here. We saw a guy with a lot of talent, a guy entering a contract year, and a guy with enough power to overcome the challenges of playing half his games in Marine Layer, U.S.A. But, I think this is just who he is. He’s not going to become the next Nelson Cruz in a Mariners uniform. He’s going to muddle his way through this season, and take the biggest deal he can get with another team next year. I do expect he’ll pick it up a little bit at some point, but I also don’t think he’s going to be a huge guy for us.

I think I’m officially starting to sour on the Ty France experience. I certainly, 100% don’t want to see him reach a second contract with the Mariners. We’re talking about a guy who, sure, when he’s healthy, he’s probably my favorite type of hitter on this team. But, part of that quality that makes him so rootable also tends to get him hurt. He crowds the plate and takes an inordinate number of pitches off his body. Last year, he went on the IL while playing in the field, and when he returned he was pretty much worthless for the rest of the season. It turned out – obviously – that he was playing in a considerable amount of pain. And, at least for him, he can’t seem to perform when he’s trying to fight through nagging injuries. Already this year, we’ve seen him go in the tank; is he already dealing with injuries and we’re not even two full months in yet? I just wish Evan White wasn’t also so injury prone (with MUCH more devastating conditions), because I was really hoping to see what he could do before his contract starts getting expensive. Either way, Ty’s home run power seems to be dwindling, and he’s not even really putting up an impressive batting average. I think it’s a long, slow decline from here on out.

Eugenio Suarez is quite off of his power pace from last year, and while I don’t think this is bound to continue forever – he tends to hit them in bunches – it’s yet another major reason why the M’s have had so much trouble scoring runs this year. Last year at this time, he had 9 homers and 9 doubles; this year it’s 5 and 5. Just boil it down to that. Everything else being pretty much equal, you have to imagine the additional RBI of just equalling what he did last year (adding 4 more doubles and 4 more homers to his current total) might be worth a small handful of games by themselves, considering what our record is in 1-run games.

It’s easy to shit on Marco Gonzales – I do it all the time! If you put him in perspective, I’ll admit you could do a lot worse for a #5 starter. But, we’re 9 starts in and I would argue he didn’t give us a chance to win 3 of them based on his performance. He’s reached 6 innings (and no further) 4 times, in spite of extremely reasonable pitch counts in all of his starts. That shows me a guy who can, at times, be effective, but even then he can’t be trusted. We’re trying to squeeze as much as we can out of this dried sponge, and then getting him the hell off the mound.

I would say Matt Brash isn’t exactly the force of nature we were promised by pretty much everyone this offseason. The stuff is still there, but he’s disturbingly hittable for a guy we’ve been trying to shoehorn into high leverage spots. It makes me wonder if he’s ever going to figure it out. I was still holding out some hope that he’d one day return to a starting role, but if he can’t even master a single inning, how would we be able to trust him with 6+?

Finally, let’s dump on Chris Flexen. On the one hand, maybe we should be praising him; for, if he hadn’t stunk so hard in his limited duty as a 6th starter – following Ray’s injury – we wouldn’t have gotten to see Bryce Miller this early. But, his entire package – even as a reliever – has been appalling. He’s in a contract year, he had been pretty reliable as a back-of-the-rotation starter until this season, and there was every reason to believe we might trade him at the deadline for a prospect, or as part of a package to bring in a hitter to help us for the stretch run. Instead, his value is pretty much nothing, and we’d be trading him just to get him off our roster. I would say that maybe there’s hope he can rebuild his reputation in the bullpen, but we don’t have very many opportunities to make use of a long reliever with the rotation arms we have now. And he’s not a leverage reliever in the slightest; you can pretty much only use him in blowouts. Sure, he’s had five consecutive scoreless outings (8 total innings) since his ERA hit its zenith of 8.86, but it’s taken him a little over 3 weeks just to accrue those outings. He’s a last resort, and he’s going to have to be near-perfect from now until the end of July to have any value at all.

More Mariners Inconsistency Cost Them The Red Sox Series

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We’re, what, a little over a month and a half into the season? This Mariners team isn’t fun to watch.

It’s not JUST that they’re losing more games than they’re winning, though I don’t know if anyone expected us to be 21-22 and mired in fourth place in the A.L. West. It’s how we’re losing. It’s having a +19 run differential and being a good 3 wins off the pace you should be at. It’s being 4-11 in one-run games. It’s – once again – having a losing record at home, and a losing record against all the teams you’re projected to be competing with for a playoff spot (Cleveland, Texas, Toronto, and now Boston). It’s being saddled with the struggles of Julio Rodriguez, Teoscar Hernandez, Matt Brash, Marco Gonzales, and Luis Castillo of late; to say nothing of the bottom of the roster players like Kolten Wong, A.J. Pollock, and Sam Haggerty.

What’s worse, there isn’t one overwhelming reason why we’re as mediocre as we are. Nor is there an easy fix.

The annoying thing about this Red Sox series is that it got off to such a phenomenal start. A 10-1 victory on Monday, punctuated by Cal Raleigh becoming the first catcher to ever hit homers from both sides of the plate in the same game in Fenway Park. This game was everything this team is capable of; unfortunately, they used up all their mojo in this one contest. Multi-hit games by France, Kelenic, Suarez, Hernandez, Pollock, and the aforementioned Raleigh. George Kirby pitching into the 7th inning, giving up just the 1 run. Awesome bullpen work, competent fielding, the whole package.

Then, we turned around and lost the second game 9-4. Luis Castillo had his fifth consecutive dogshit outing (and the 4th time in 5 games where he failed to go beyond five innings). 7 runs, 5 earned, a whopping 3 homers. We were down 4-0 after one inning; in effect, he gave us no shot to win the game. That’s not what an ace does. That’s not ace material. That’s positively Flexen-ian!

And, to add insult to injury, we lost the rubber match 12-3. Marco couldn’t get out of the second inning; finishing with a ridiculous line of 1.2 IP, 8 hits, 8 runs, 2 walks, and 1 strikeout. What are you supposed to do with that? Sure, the M’s blew a ton of chances offensively (2/15 with runners in scoring position), but you can’t expect a team to outscore 12 runs!

That’s not the Mariners baseball I’ve come to appreciate in recent years. I know all anyone ever talks about is run differential, but this team has a negative thousand fun differential, and whether it’s sustainable or not, I’d rather have the team with the negative run differential that’s winning more games than its losing, than the other way around.

So, yeah, cool road trip bros. Now we go to Atlanta to play the red-hot Braves. I can’t wait for the sucking that’s in store this weekend.

The Mariners Blew It Against The Cubs

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It’s hard for me to tell if this is a Same Old Mariners situation, or if this is the final death rattle of those Same Old Mariners, where natural instincts kick in – and the M’s play like those Same Old Mariners for a very short while – before mercifully passing and morphing into a new and exciting team for a generation to come.

Either way, this all tracks for what we’ve come to expect from this organization. What was the one fear we all had? As soon as the expectations to win became REAL, the clock would strike midnight, the team would turn back into a pumpkin, and we’d be left holding the tattered rags of a once-beautiful dress, sitting in mud next to a dog and a couple of mice.

If you want to put a positive spin on it, then you’re probably expecting this team to perform up to snuff in late-May or early-June. And, if that’s the case, it’s easy to make the argument that this series would’ve been a Mariners sweep if we’d only played it then. But, it was played now, and instead of winning all three, we went 1-2.

To be fair, we probably didn’t have any business winning the first game. Luis Castillo was fine, but had one bad inning and left with the team losing 2-1 after six innings. Then again, we also had no business letting Drew Smyly dominate us through five innings (which easily would’ve been seven or eight, if his arm was stretched out enough).

I’ll tell you this much, the bottom of this lineup is REALLY starting to piss me off. The only reason A.J. Pollock was brought here in the first place is to be a right-handed platoon partner for Jarred Kelenic, who is supposed to mash left-handed pitching! He has exactly one good game under his belt so far, but otherwise Scott Servais can’t wait to get him out of any game he starts. In this one, as soon as Smyly left, all the usual left-handed bats were inserted into the lineup to try to kickstart some offense. Wong in for Haggerty (Wong hasn’t been any great shakes at all, but had a couple of singles in this one), Cal in for Tom Murphy (who has a whopping one hit on the season), and most importantly, Kelenic in for Pollock.

We have all these platoon opportunities, but they’re all shit. We have this deep bench of rotating DH candidates, but it’s almost exclusively WASTED on them, rather than giving other guys rest days from the field. What the hell are we doing here?! Why is Cooper Hummel a DH? What kind of a sick joke is that, perpetuated by the team who employed the greatest designated hitter of all time?!

If this was the only year we were trotting out baseball’s worst DH, I might let it go. But, we’ve been ABYSMAL at filling that spot ever since Edgar retired, and it’s a God damned embarrassment.

What’s decidedly NOT embarrassing is the way Kelenic is playing. He yanked a solo homer in the top of the 9th to tie it at 2-2, leading me to wonder if things were going to turn around here. Instead, Matt Brash came in to pitch the 10th (after we failed to score our own ghost runner), botched a pick-off move, and allowed the game-winning RBI single to blow another one.

Still waiting for that dominating relief pitcher we were all promised.

The game on Tuesday got off to a fabulous start, with the Mariners jumping out to a 7-0 lead and chasing their starter in the second inning. Unfortunately, this was Chris Flexen’s turn in the rotation, and it wasn’t exactly his best performance. He got chased in the bottom of the third (giving up 8 runs in 2.1 innings) and the rout was on from there. How a game that featured the M’s being up by 7 runs at one point, turned into a rout for the OTHER team, is something that only the Mariners could achieve. 14-9 defeat, I shit you not.

Diego Castillo looks officially broken, which is great. Perfect timing with Brash’s struggles and Munoz being on the IL. We got some mop-up relief from Jose Rodriguez (3 innings, 3 runs), who was just called up before this game and promptly sent back down afterward. Tough luck, but at least he gets a mention in my blog.

At least the offense came to play. On a normal day, 9 runs is plenty, so that’s not nothing. France, Suarez, Cal, and J.P. all had good games. But, Kelenic gets a special shout-out for hitting a homer in back-to-back games (more on him in a bit).

We salvaged one in the Wednesday finale, 5-2. Logan Gilbert was dominant (6.2 innings, 1 run, 4 hits, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts, on 94 pitches), the bullpen did its job (Justin Topa looks like he’s maybe a breakout reclamation project we didn’t see coming), and the offense both jumped out to an early lead and played add-on late in the game.

Julio, France, and Suarez all did well, Teoscar hit his third homer of the year, and not to be out-done, Kelenic hit his third homer in three games. This one a whopping 482-foot shot to the upper deck in center field, which is the longest Mariners home run in the Statcast era, and the longest regular season home run at Wrigley Field in the Statcast era. Just a fucking BLAST!

That leaves Kelenic hitting .351/.415/.703. This is everything we ever imagined he’d be and then some! Of course, it’s a 2-week sample. But, I would argue he’s never had a 2-week sample at the Major League level like this. Hell, he might not have had a 2-week sample like this EVER. Also, this is at the beginning of the season, not at the very end when nothing matters. Up to this point, it’s been about his minor league success and his hot stretches in September (hoping they’d carry over into the next season). But, now he looks confident, his swing is on point, the power is shining through, and he looks like the best player on this team.

On a team that, mind you, has Julio Rodriguez.

Whether that holds for the rest of the season is anybody’s guess. But, this adjustment he’s made (or series of adjustments) looks legit. This looks like it’s set to stick. And if that’s the case, the rest of the league better watch out!

There’s a lot of talk on Twitter among fans saying they’ll take this Kelenic hot start over the Mariners having a hot start; I think that’s a pointless conversation.

What I’m more interested in is how long the Mariners stick to their plan to both platoon Kelenic, while keeping him in the bottom third of the lineup.

I don’t have a major issue keeping him where he is in the lineup; there’s still obvious run-producing opportunities down at the bottom, and his hotness will help turn the lineup over to Julio at the top again. But, my patience with Pollock and La Stella and Hummel and all these other scrubs is wearing thin. I’m about two weeks away from abandoning the platoon, and taking my chances with Kelenic against left-handed pitchers. Maybe he gets a day off every two weeks or something, if there’s a particularly nasty southpaw. But, otherwise, I’d rather have the young stud over the fucking washout nobodies.

Who knew we’d miss Carlos Santana so much?

God Damn These Mariners Have Been Annoying So Far!

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Suffice it to say, I’ve been on vacation for Spring Break the last week. It was, uhh, not warm.

Frozen Lake Is Frozen

So, yeah, I haven’t had to slog through these 4-6 Mariners like the rest of you. I went to the game on Opening Night, the M’s won a thrilling 3-0 game over the Guardians that just zipped by, then I took the next day off of work, then I flew out to Minnesota with my family for lots of indoor activities at an otherwise lovely timeshare.

But, I’ve also been there with you, at least following along on Twitter. And it hasn’t been pleasant! Every time I turn around, the Mariners are blowing leads, getting hurt, giving up huge chunks of runs, throwing the ball all over the field (except where it’s supposed to go), and otherwise struggling to consistently hit offensively (with a few exceptions).

I can’t even can absolutely begin to tell you what’s the most disappointing aspect of these 2023 Mariners through 10 games, and (all apologies for the recency bias) I’m leaning towards the bullpen.

Yesterday’s game was potentially HUGE, and it’s infuriating to me that we blew it. Just, in general, the difference between being 5-5 and 4-6 is everything. 5-5 is so much more palatable, after a 2-5 start (with series losses at home to both the Guardians and the fucking Angels). While 4-6 obviously isn’t the end of the world, that game was the nail in the coffin for our season series against Cleveland. Had we won, we would’ve been 4-3 against them on the year (and, as such, had the tiebreaker over them come playoff time). Instead, they’re the ones who are 4-3 over us, and will take that advantage with them through the rest of the season. Cleveland figures to be direct competition with us, either as divisional champs, or as wild card fodder. Now we have to beat their record by a game if we want to stay ahead of them in the seeding.

What the fuck happened to Matt Brash?! What was all this shit about him having the best slider in Major League history? Seems a little premature and totally outlandish, if you ask me. We were fucking all set up with a 2-run lead in the bottom of the 9th and he fucking gagged it away. We really need him to come through, as the bullpen has been regularly taxed in this early going, and now that we’re down Andres Munoz (one of a disturbing number of injuries to high profile pitchers already, not even two weeks into the season), Brash figures to get the lion’s share of high-leverage situations not going to Paul Sewald.

Frankly, ONE injury is too many. But, we lost Robbie Ray after his first start of the season (after he looked so effective in Spring Training), forcing our hand in starting Chris Flexen, who is … fine. Munoz’s arm was not responding after outings, which is concerning to say the least, given the way he throws. Then, I heard Evan White has another major injury that’s going to cost him the first half of this season (if we’re lucky, it won’t be the whole year; either way, it’s another huge setback to his development).

And, oh by the way, Matt Festa has stunk (and was demoted to Tacoma this week), Brash has two blown saves already, Penn Murfee has two losses on the year (in spite of his 0.00 ERA), Diego Castillo has been predictably ineffective, and we had to call up someone named J.B. Bukauskas, who is someone I’ve never heard of in my life.

You can’t really absolve the starters though, because other than Luis Castillo (who has been OUTSTANDING through two starts, so it’s probably time to jinx him as he takes the hill later today), they’ve been pretty rough. Certainly not the strength of this team that we were all counting on heading into this season. Of course, it’s too early to panic, but not too early to at least be a little concerned.

I’ll be honest, the offense as a whole is pretty much what I expected. We’ve scored 43 runs in 10 games, that feels pretty close to what this team is. .234/.299/.374 as a team; you kinda expect the on-base numbers to improve, and the power numbers to drastically improve, but for now it is what it is. France, Julio, Cal, and Suarez are all top-notch. Kelenic has been showing some excellent progress (also helped by the lack of a shift).

But, on the flipside, we’re still waiting for Teoscar to get going. Kolten Wong has been a disaster. Indeed, all the newcomers – including Pollock, Hummel, and La Stella – have been atrocious so far. Combine that with getting nothing out of Murphy, Haggerty, or Moore (who’s still injured), and things could really be a lot better.

I think what’s most infuriating has been the defense. I don’t know if this is randomness or what, but there have been some serious breakdowns in the field, and that’s not helping matters in the slightest. Not with how the pitching has sucked, and how the hitting is just barely keeping its head above water.

I think what’s been most concerning has been our lack of success in the close games. We’re only 2-4 in games decided by 2 runs or less. That’s gotta change, and in a big way, if we want to contend for the division this year. The down-roster part of our bullpen needs to step it up in a big way. I’m including Brash in that, because until he proves over a lengthy period of time that he can hang, I can’t say I totally trust him in high-leverage situations.

I guess the good thing is, no one is running away with the A.L. West so far. We’re tied in record with Houston. The A’s are who we thought they were (2-7), and the Rangers and Angels are only 5-4 (hardly world beaters, as expected). It’s all still there for us, but we can’t go digging ourselves too big of a hole. We can’t come to depend on crazy-insane surges over the course of a season, like last year when we won 14 in a row and 22 out of 25. That doesn’t just happen every year.

But, also, we can’t freak out at every 4-6 stretch. Because this won’t be the only time this season where the Mariners play at a .400 level. It’s a long year. 152 more games to go.

Let’s go out tonight and get a W to start the new week off on a brighter note.

I Think We Have An Opening Day Roster For The Mariners!

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Nothing is official, of course. There could always be a last-minute transaction, or a surprise injury or something. But, barring anything crazy, I think we have a 26-man roster.

The Starting Pitchers

  • Luis Castillo
  • Robbie Ray
  • Logan Gilbert
  • Marco Gonzales
  • George Kirby

This all checks out, right down to the order. Teams love the righty-lefty-righty back and forth, and this is about as perfect as it gets. I know we all love George Kirby and see him as having really explosive potential in his second year in the bigs, but the team is smart to protect his arm a little bit. Hold him back, let him ease into the season, maybe skip a start here and there. If all goes according to plan, Kirby will still get some play in the post-season, with hopefully a still-fresh arm.

I’m excited to see what we’re able to get from this unit. The Mariners will go as far as their pitching takes them, so we’re going to need these guys to stay healthy and stay dominating. That’s going to be a tough proposition – considering how healthy they all were last year. Odds are against us that they stay healthy again. But, if they do? Watch out!

The Relief Pitchers

  • Andres Munoz
  • Paul Sewald
  • Matt Brash
  • Diego Castillo
  • Matt Festa
  • Trevor Gott
  • Penn Murfee
  • Chris Flexen

It’s hard to argue with the sheer arm talent of this group. I know, relievers are volatile. But, I find it really hard to believe that all or most of these guys will take steps back. Maybe one or two, but that’s fine because we also have a lot in reserve down in the minors. There’s no shortage of impact arms in this organization, who will all cycle through at one point or another.

I am interested in what Chris Flexen brings to the table. There was talk heading into Spring Training that the Mariners might go with a 6-man rotation. Maybe I misunderstood, and they were just talking about how we had 6 viable starters on our roster. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what his workload looks like. He didn’t play a ton after he lost his starting job last year. You would think in the early going, there will be more opportunities, as most starters aren’t in mid-season form yet. But, by the same token, you hope there aren’t more opportunities, because there’s a 50/50 chance that means we’re getting blown out. The less Flexen pitches, the more we’re using our high-leverage pitchers, which means the more we’re either winning or tied in a particular game.

The Starting Nine

  1. Kolten Wong (2B)
  2. Julio Rodriguez (CF)
  3. Teoscar Hernandez (RF)
  4. Ty France (1B)
  5. Eugenio Suarez (3B)
  6. Cal Raleigh (C)
  7. Tom Murphy (DH)
  8. Jarred Kelenic (LF)
  9. J.P. Crawford (SS)

For what it’s worth, that’s my official prediction for an Opening Day lineup. I feel relatively confident about the top six; I feel least confident about Tom Murphy. But, I’ll say this, he’s got tremendous power, he’s a veteran, and with the third catcher, this really doesn’t hurt us if someone goes down mid-game. In a game that figures to be low scoring, one big swing of the bat might make all the difference, and maybe that swing comes from Murph.

The Bench/Platoon Bats

  • A.J. Pollock (OF)
  • Sam Haggerty (UTIL)
  • Cooper Hummel (C/OF)
  • Tommy La Stella (INF/DH)

These guys have probably a month to figure out who belongs and who doesn’t, before Dylan Moore (hopefully) returns from the IL. I don’t think Pollock is going anywhere, he seems pretty entrenched as a platoon partner for Kelenic. I also don’t think Haggerty is going anywhere unless he is in an absolutely miserable slump; but odds are he won’t be playing much outside of late-inning pinch runner duty. La Stella seems like the favorite to be cut, but I also wonder how much he’s even going to play in the early going? He might get a DH start here and there, but I could also see this team playing Pollock at DH along with Murph (and the other starters we opt to give some rest).

If La Stella can get off to a hot start, though, maybe we hang onto him a bit in favor of sending Hummel down to Tacoma. Doubtful, but you never know.

Top to bottom, 1-26, this is a quality roster. With, encouragingly, lots in reserve to come up and help in a pinch. I can’t wait for tomorrow night!