Monday, April 26, 2004
Maybe not too soon to tell...
The Mariners are making my job as the Mariner Optimist very challenging indeed.
What an abysmal weekend of baseball. Pineiro and Franklin stunk, our outfield defense was horrible (though our infield defense has been solid - way to go Speeze!) and our offense seems to only be comfortable when we are down by 3 or more runs. Freddy's great effort on Saturday goes wasted, again, and had him cursing out Melvin from the bench. And we are swept by the Rangers for the first time since 19 freakin 98.
"Its still early" doesn't cut it anymore. Now the question is, "what can we do to fix this train wreck?" Mix up the outfield? Fire Melvin? Cut Jarvis? Trade for a big bat? I just don't feel like any of that will help if Ichiro gets struck out with a runner on third, one out in the 8th inning of a 0-0 game. But then, we need to do freakin SOMETHING.
The Rangers announcers were just plain giddy all weekend. They couldn't believe that it was April and they were still in contention. They kept saying - "remember how the last three years, we were always ten games behind the Mariners by the end of April?" And they even referred to the boost a team gets by losing A-Rod as a contributing factor to their current run. Congrats to the Rangers, whose offense will be fun to watch for a while.
I have very little optimistic or constructive to say at this point. Heck, I can't even enjoy Yankee fans booing Derek Jeter while getting swept by the Red Sox. Okay, maybe I can enjoy that a little.
Maybe getting the hell out of the AL West for awhile will help, though we are facing three of the top offenses in the AL in Baltimore, Detroit and Minnesota. Did I just write that? Is that true. I feel like I've slipped into some sort of horrible alternate universe where the M's suck and the Tigers don't.
We can't get much worse than we've looked the past 5 games, can we?
Don't answer that.
Today's picks:
Marlins (Pavano) -129 over Rockies (Elarton)
Expos (Hernandez) +150 over Padres (Peavy)
Money to date: $269 (picking dog/favorite = +574/-305, 14-15, 11-9) - Got good pitching from Seo & Eaton, but not the wins. Wilson won again, but Duckworth did not stink like I thought he would.
What an abysmal weekend of baseball. Pineiro and Franklin stunk, our outfield defense was horrible (though our infield defense has been solid - way to go Speeze!) and our offense seems to only be comfortable when we are down by 3 or more runs. Freddy's great effort on Saturday goes wasted, again, and had him cursing out Melvin from the bench. And we are swept by the Rangers for the first time since 19 freakin 98.
"Its still early" doesn't cut it anymore. Now the question is, "what can we do to fix this train wreck?" Mix up the outfield? Fire Melvin? Cut Jarvis? Trade for a big bat? I just don't feel like any of that will help if Ichiro gets struck out with a runner on third, one out in the 8th inning of a 0-0 game. But then, we need to do freakin SOMETHING.
The Rangers announcers were just plain giddy all weekend. They couldn't believe that it was April and they were still in contention. They kept saying - "remember how the last three years, we were always ten games behind the Mariners by the end of April?" And they even referred to the boost a team gets by losing A-Rod as a contributing factor to their current run. Congrats to the Rangers, whose offense will be fun to watch for a while.
I have very little optimistic or constructive to say at this point. Heck, I can't even enjoy Yankee fans booing Derek Jeter while getting swept by the Red Sox. Okay, maybe I can enjoy that a little.
Maybe getting the hell out of the AL West for awhile will help, though we are facing three of the top offenses in the AL in Baltimore, Detroit and Minnesota. Did I just write that? Is that true. I feel like I've slipped into some sort of horrible alternate universe where the M's suck and the Tigers don't.
We can't get much worse than we've looked the past 5 games, can we?
Don't answer that.
Today's picks:
Marlins (Pavano) -129 over Rockies (Elarton)
Expos (Hernandez) +150 over Padres (Peavy)
Money to date: $269 (picking dog/favorite = +574/-305, 14-15, 11-9) - Got good pitching from Seo & Eaton, but not the wins. Wilson won again, but Duckworth did not stink like I thought he would.
