(10-10)
In the long, long baseball season there’s always a game or two like this. A game where the scapegoats rise up and shove it in the face of all the haters. The Mariners won today in large part because Chone Figgins had three hits and Miguel Olivo caught a hanging slider on the barrel and hit his first home run. The Mariners bullpen gutted out four innings and the team hung on to sweep the chic preseason pennant pick on the road.
It’s a conundrum. On the one hand yay! victory! On the other boo doing so with players that most (including myself) don’t believe should be playing. Olivo’s home run was the worst. I don’t know anyone, in person or online who thinks Miguel Olivo “Everyday Catcher” is a good idea. But, as he reiterated today, Eric Wedge sure does. Olivo hitting a home run does nothing but reinforce his belief that Miguel Olivo is an everyday player. So, perpetually, fans are stuck cheering the battle victory but questioning the cost.
Personally I find these intellectual quandaries overblown. Miguel Olivo is going to play unless he completely craters. If he’s going to play as a fan I have nothing, NOTHING to lose by hoping he does well, save some Johjima-esque extension. Barring that scenario I’ve sat through enough victories with players I dislike and (more than) enough defeats with my favorite players in the lineup to know my heart doesn’t really care either way as long as victory is the final result. I’ll scream before the game about platoon-splits, track record, age, contract, etc. etc. but when the game gets going I’m pulling for a win, anyway it happens. So bully for you, crappy baseball players, today you carried the banner. When you play tomorrow do it again and again and again until you're not crappy anymore.
- Hector Noesi was somewhere closer to his “HAHA Yankees we totally screwed you” form than his “Right-handed Anthony Vazquez” one. Although far from unhittable he was able to work away from hitters in order to induce weak contact. He's still allowing flyballs like crazy and didn’t generate as many swinging strikes as we would like (only six) but on a day where the ball seemed to be jumping the only significant damage occurred when Miguel Cabrera took a pitch about 5 inches off the plate inside into the left field bullpen. It’s an improvement and we’ll have to just wait for another rotation spot and another data point to try and figure out what kind of a pitcher he’s going to be. Let’s hope a good one!
- Given another day to quiet down his hammy/get his shit together Justin Smoak had a game I’d like to see about 30-35 more times this year. He’s still struggling to be patient but in the first Rick Porcello floated up a change at the letters and, as he has done so infrequently Smoak punished it into the right field seats with what was in many ways the decisive blow of the game. I don’t know how much of Smoak’s struggles are mental or physical, his swing does look slow to my layman’s eye, but confidence is always better than no confidence. Some success today will hopefully provide a foundation for improvement. No player has greater potential to make this offense respectable than Smoak so here's hoping this is the beginning of a trend.
- It’s probably time we start getting real about this: Despite coming into the season with a lot of questions the Mariners bullpen may end up being a true strength of the team. They aren’t going to throw four shutout innings every game, like today, but the arms are there. With Delebar, Wilhelmsen and League all throwing mid-90’s from the right side, and Furbush looking every bit a left-handed killer in limited action a team that figures to have to win a lot of close games to be competitive looks well equipped to do so. Look for fewer home runs to leave the yard (18.6% FB/HR, highest in the AL) and fewer runners stranded (84.3% LOB, again highest in the AL) but as currently constructed Seattle's bullpen is potentially top five. If this season is going to be fun past early June it’ll probably have to be.
Off to Toronto tomorrow. I hope that someone asks Michael Saunders what there is to do in Canada and Saunders has to explain that he’s from like 2000 miles away and whoever asked the question (*Cough Smoak *Cough) doesn’t get it and it’s super awkward. Also watch this video of Saunders. So, so cute.
