By Blaidd Drwg
So much interesting stuff from last night’s game, so here we go:
— Last night’s true WTF moment occurred before the first pitch. The home plate ump, Ed Rapuano, who I have no great love for because of his horribly inconsistent strike zone, did something that made me want to go down to the field and ask him what was he doing – he intentionally erased the inner lines of the batters boxes (the one closest to the plate). Being a former umpire who actually enforced the rule of hitters being too close to the plate, this actually made me sick and angry. It seems that Rapuano truly has no interest in enforcing the rules of the game.
— Low and behold, the Mariners actually had an extra base hit in the game, 3 of them in fact, and 2 of them resulted in all of the runs they scored. The importance of hitting for power made obvious. As I keep saying, getting on base is great, but you need the occasional extra base hit to break an inning open.
— The flip side was the 9th inning for the M’s. Fernando Rodney could not get the ball over the plate, proceeding to walk the bases loaded. The M’s managed to not get the ball out of the infield and thus failed to score.
Two critical decisions were made in this inning, one by Wakamatsu and one by Scioscia, that I question.
— Wak – with no one out and Ichiro on first in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th inning why the heck would you sacrifice Ichiro to second? You have a guy who tends to not swing at bad pitches (Figgins) up, you have your best base stealer on first, a catcher who is not terribly good defensively (Budde) and a pitcher who has control issues (Rodney). To me, you let Figgins work the count or you send Ichiro instead of trading the out for moving the runner. I hate the sacrifice to move a runner to 2nd base when you have the top of you lineup up, especially in a tie game. If Ichiro is successful, you then try the sac and move him to 3rd with 1 out. Figgins is your #2 hitter for a reason, don’t waste the out.
— Scioscia – why not bring in Fuentes in the bottom of the 9th instead of Rodney. You had L-S-L hitters coming up and you have one Lefty in the pen. Seems to me to be the better call, but despite the ugly inning, it did work out with Rodney.
— The Mariners drew 9 walks in the game (which was nice to see) but left 12 runners on base, including 9 in the last 5 innings. This team will continue to lose games if they keep doing that.
— As much as it pains me to say this, why the heck is Sweeney hitting against a RH pitcher with the bases loaded, 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th? You have 2 LH bats you can use in this situation – Griffey and Saunders. Why not use them?
— This team has now lost 12 out of their last 14 and is now 5.5 back of Texas. At what point does Z realize something needs to be done?
On a belated note – Congratulations to Ryan Budde of the Angels on his first MLB HR Friday night. I love seeing milestones for 31-year-old backup catchers!
FlatbreadGarden 