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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2011 15:49:42 GMT -5
[shadow=red,left,300]Seattle Mariners (80-68) @ Texas Rangers (80-69)[/shadow]
SEA: Luke French (4-2, 4.82 ERA) TEX: Matt Harrison (10-11, 4.60 ERA)
The Mariners and Rangers come into tonight's game separated by only a half game in the AL West. The teams have seven games left against each other on the schedule, making their performances down the stretch critically important. It's not a stretch to say whichever team performs better against the other makes the playoffs, while the other misses out.
Each team comes in playing good baseball. Texas is 27-15 since August 5th, while Seattle hasn't lost a series since early August. That Texas is still in the race is a major surprise. The franchise gutted its roster by trading away Neftali Feliz and Tyler Matzek, two young pillars of a rotation.
While the new staff has nowhere near the stuff of those two, the rotation has been young and performed well. The senior member of the group, Matt Harrison, goes tonight. He's won double digit games each of the past four seasons, and pitched well in the postseason last year.
Injuries have also gutted the Rangers. Julio Borbon just recently returned from a second significant injury, but Chad Rosenba, the rookie who had carried the team through much of the summer, strained his oblique and is down for the season. He joins Elvis Andrus and Carl Crawford among the injured players on the Rangers' roster.
The Rangers will take on Luke French as the Mariners go with a four-man rotation. French has only started seven games in the Majors, so he'll be a question mark against Texas. He wasn't lighting up Triple-A either, with an ERA close to six, making his inclusion to the rotation a questionable one.
Seattle's bullpen has also been battered, with Jonathan Papelbon and David Aardsma done for the season. Yovani Gallardo has successfully transitioned into the closer's spot with 12 saves in 12 attempts, but Greg smith and Edward Mujica have not performed well and are now setup relievers.
The Mariners have the best offense in the American League and may have to win a shootout. Brett Wallace, Ryan Braun, Bryan Anderson, and Marc Krauss have been exceptionally productive in the middle of the order for Seattle. Can they hit enough to offset their mediocre pitching though?
Questions for the GM's. For Sam East, You have Luke French starting significant games in September. Why?
Going with a four man staff is an interesting strategy. With no days off down the stretch, can the strategy work?
Brett Wallace has nearly 100 RBI's out of the number two and eight spots in the lineup. Why don't you give him a more prominent spot in the lineup?
For Randy Pickard, what was the mindset behind trading away most of your best players, some who were still young and on rookie contracts?
No more Chad Rosenba, how are you going to fill his spot?
You just picked up Carlos Quentin for the stretch drive. How are you going to utilize him going forward?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2011 16:37:51 GMT -5
You have Luke French starting significant games in September. Why?
With Gallardo moving to the closer spot, we really don't have any other viable options for the major league rotation.
I think even Luke will admit his performances at both major league and AAA levels haven't matched his ability so far in his career. But I was down in Tacoma a few weeks back and saw Luke pitch with more control than he's shown for us in the past - and given how poorly we were pitching in the majors I figured he deserved one more shot.
Is Luke going to be pitching in as many games as Felix, Ubaldo and Latos? No definitely not; but he's only failed to go six innings in one of his big league starts this year - and the way the offense is playing if our starting pitchers can give us even six reasonable innings we are confident we will win games.
Going with a four man staff is an interesting strategy. With no days off down the stretch, can the strategy work?
No it can't - both in terms of fatigued pitchers and injury risks a four man rotation isn't a sustainable tactic. I've been chopping and changing the rotation recently and we went with a four man rotation once or twice in the past month or two, but only when we had rest days on the schedule. With 14 days of continuous baseball coming up expect Tim Melville to come back into the rotation.
Brett Wallace has nearly 100 RBI's out of the number two and eight spots in the lineup. Why don't you give him a more prominent spot in the lineup?
There's a lot of ways I could answer this question.
First, up here in Seattle I have a reputation of continually changing batting line ups vs both right and left handed pitching. I wouldnt be surprised if Brett has batted at every spot in the line up at some stage this year. Generally he's been batting at #6 for us.
Second, I think you have to consider Brett's splits vs left and right handed pitching. He's struggled against the lefties this year (lowest avg, 2nd lowest ops in the regular line up vs LHP), and has dominated right handers at times.
But the main reason, I don't want to sound too arrogant about this, but just look at the players Brett has batting ahead of him.
We have five players likely to hit more than 100 RBIs this year playing half their games in a pitcher's ballpark. Krauss, Adrubal, Anderson, Braun, Jones and Wallace have had outstanding years, Bartlett's done a very nice job, and then Brett Keys comes along and gets 110 hits, 17 home runs and 20 stolen bases in half a years baseball! Wallace might be able to make a bigger contribution batting somewhere between the 3 and 5 spots, but who am I going to move down the line up? It's obviously a nice problem to have, but given the quality of this line up I think all the guys are just happy to be playing every day - no ones that concerned about where they get to bat.
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Post by RandyP on Jun 30, 2011 17:26:50 GMT -5
what was the mindset behind trading away most of your best players, some who were still young and on rookie contracts?
The front office started thinking about going a different direction ever since the lost of MVP 1B Albert Pujols, when we got him from the Cards we thought we had a team to give the Rays a run for the money in the playoffs. Our team had a bunch of top players that were still young, but very fragile, last year playoffs we was missing alot of key players because of this. So we made changes.
No more Chad Rosenba, how are you going to fill his spot?
This was a big lost for the Rangers, new comer Edgar Lara will need to pick it
You just picked up Carlos Quentin for the stretch drive. How are you going to utilize him going forward?
Carlos Quentin with Rosenba out, will see some time at DH, but this might be just wish full thinking
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Post by RandyP on Jun 30, 2011 20:56:16 GMT -5
After watching(real thing) SP Harrison getting rocked tonight by the Astros tonight, the Rangers have moved SP Harrison to the bullpen, I'm very supersittion....sorry Erick
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2011 20:58:56 GMT -5
After watching(real thing) SP Harrison getting rocked tonight by the Astros tonight, the Rangers have moved SP Harrison to the bullpen, I'm very supersittion....sorry Erick HAHAHAHAHAHA! That's funny!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2011 1:50:28 GMT -5
Postgame Wrap
Rangers 5 - Mariners 3
The Seattle Mariners turned to the depths of their rotation to deliver the opener of their series against the Texas Rangers. Unsurprisingly, the Rangers beat Luke French back to the depths of which he came.
Texas battered French for five runs on eight hits, knocking him out of the third inning on the way to a 5-3 win.
Edgar Lara stepped up with a three run home run in the first inning filling in for Chad Rosenba. Lara singled in the third, followed by singles from Bryce Brentz and Mitch Hillgos, leading to a fourth run. A Tyler Harrigan ground out led to a fifth run and knocked French from the game.
Seattle's bullpen was fine from there, going 5.1 scoreless innings, but the damage was done.
The Mariners, meanwhile, wasted opportunities against Chad James. James retired the first five batters he saw, striking out four of them. However he gave up 10 base runners from the second inning onward.
Seattle coudn't capitalize though. Brett Wallace grounded out with the bases full in the second, while the heart of the order squandered a two-on, nobody out situation in the third.
Wallace atoned for his earlier inability to push a run across by smashing a long two-run home run in the fourth, but one-out doubles were squandered in the fifth and sixth.
Seattle put the tying runs on base in the ninth with nobody out, but Kerry Wood struck out Ryan Braun and induced a double play by Anderson to end the game.
Questions for the GM's. For Sam East, French got bombed. What do you plan to do with him down the stretch?
You put Wallace down in the nine-spot. He hit a home run, but also failed to get a run in with two outs and the bases full. Are you happy or disappointed with his performance?
Bryan Anderson had a very disappointing day. How does it feel as a manager when one of your most reliable players performs as poorly as he does?
For Randy Pickard, you pushed the right button with Edgar Lara. What caused you to put him in the lineup over somebody else.
You didn't start Julio Borbon. Any reason why?
How was your team able to deal with Anderson as effectively as it did?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2011 13:31:39 GMT -5
French got bombed. What do you plan to do with him down the stretch?
Luke had a rough day but he'll be pitching in his fair share of games down the stretch. That's all I have to say about his performance.
You put Wallace down in the nine-spot. He hit a home run, but also failed to get a run in with two outs and the bases full. Are you happy or disappointed with his performance?
Is that a serious question? Brett hit a ball out of the park, and sure he left some men on base later in the game. If he hit a home run every game, you think I'll be happy with his year?
Bryan Anderson had a very disappointing day. How does it feel as a manager when one of your most reliable players performs as poorly as he does?
Again, everyone has an off day every now and again. The Rangers are a good team, with good pitching - I give credit to their performance rather than feel bad about ours.
Bryan's our MVP this year, and he'll still be our MVP if he goes 0 for 35 down the stretch.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2011 13:34:55 GMT -5
French got bombed. What do you plan to do with him down the stretch?Luke had a rough day but he'll be pitching in his fair share of games down the stretch. That's all I have to say about his performance. You put Wallace down in the nine-spot. He hit a home run, but also failed to get a run in with two outs and the bases full. Are you happy or disappointed with his performance?Is that a serious question? Brett hit a ball out of the park, and sure he left some men on base later in the game. If he hit a home run every game, you think I'll be happy with his year? Bryan Anderson had a very disappointing day. How does it feel as a manager when one of your most reliable players performs as poorly as he does?Again, everyone has an off day every now and again. The Rangers are a good team, with good pitching - I give credit to their performance rather than feel bad about ours. Bryan's our MVP this year, and he'll still be our MVP if he goes 0 for 35 down the stretch. My team has hit its share of solo home runs and has collectively failed with runners on base. What I'd give to trade some of those solo shots for a crisp single with runners on second and third
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2011 13:51:13 GMT -5
For example, I'm hitting .225 with the bases loaded. Against real teams (teams not named the Padres), that number drops lower, to .209. I'll trade a solo home run for a base hit with the bases loaded. Going 1-4 with a home run but leaving the bases full? That's only an average day in my book!
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Post by RandyP on Jul 1, 2011 16:52:24 GMT -5
You pushed the right button with Edgar Lara. What caused you to put him in the lineup over somebody else.
OF Edgar Lara played ok since I called him up to the big leagues, he has alittle pop sometimes, so I gave me a chance to replace Rosenba
You didn't start Julio Borbon. Any reason why?
Well thats a good question, Borbon played 3 of the 6 games, without getting hurt....It's like this, you drop a piece of glass on the floor and it breaks
How was your team able to deal with Anderson as effectively as it did?
On C Anderson, he is a great player and he will get his, he a good one, one of the best in the game
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