2018 Seattle Mariners regular season thread

[bevellisthedevil]

Yeah, I can't really get behind the way that the bottom of the 9th was handled. Hanniger and a pinch runner on first, no outs, Seager at the plate hitting .230 and you DON'T sac bunt to move the runners over and get rid of the double play groundball?

Awful management there IMO.

You also know Healy is coming up to the plate with zero speed. So almost anything hit in the infield is a double play. I understand why people don't want Seager bunting in that situation but if he would have squared up to bunt on the 0-1 count I think you would have had runners on 2nd and 3rd. Seager looked like he didn't even belong at the plate.

 

[JGfromtheNW]

Yeah, I can't really get behind the way that the bottom of the 9th was handled. Hanniger and a pinch runner on first, no outs, Seager at the plate hitting .230 and you DON'T sac bunt to move the runners over and get rid of the double play groundball?

Awful management there IMO.

You also know Healy is coming up to the plate with zero speed. So almost anything hit in the infield is a double play. I understand why people don't want Seager bunting in that situation but if he would have squared up to bunt on the 0-1 count I think you would have had runners on 2nd and 3rd. Seager looked like he didn't even belong at the plate.

Exactly. Seager looked about as uncomfortable at the plate there as Freitas looked the other day. This is all hindsight, but you gotta play small ball there and grind a run out to make it a new ball game.

Servais is kinda a wet blanket when it comes to in-game management. He's kinda like Pete in that he's an awesome coach in a lot of ways... but come game time he just freezes or mismanages situations. IMO he's not very good at managing pitchers/bullpen and terrible about playing situational small ball.

I don't mean to rag on the guy. I'll take 19 games above .500 any day of the week. It's just one of those situations where you're left desiring just a little bit more.

 

[Crizilla]

^that and also shows you how M's need better contact hitters moving forward. Zunino is not the guy and Seager isn't getting any younger. It's almost as if Romine or somebody else should have pinch hit sac bunted for Seager in that situation.

 

[Thepeelsessions]

^that and also shows you how M's need better contact hitters moving forward. Zunino is not the guy and Seager isn't getting any younger. It's almost as if Romine or somebody else should have pinch hit sac bunted for Seager in that situation.

Yeah, Zunino is who he is. A very streaky power hitter. He'll have a few runs like he did last June here and there, but it's fools gold. Seager is the most anti clutch player I can remember. He kills any momentum when it's a prime opportunity or last chance situation. There's some intriguing infield prospects, especially in high A Modesto right now. Hopefully they can keep it up and earn a good look from Dipoto. Seager should be traded. Addition by subtraction.

Tough loss, but they were in it until the end. 19 over .500 is outstanding though. This series will be a good one.

 

[avengerboater]

Seager and Zunino are kinda birds of a feather: they play awesome gold-glove defense, but can't hit for squat when the game's on the line. We're not gonna get rid of our best defensive catcher and best defensive 3rd baseman. Their defensive-runs-saved somewhat balances out their lack of hitting, but eventually it'll catch up to us at some point.

I feel bad that Felix pitched a gem and lost by 1 run. It seems like we're NEVER able to beat Price, for some gosh darn reason. I know he's good, but geez....how many years can he dominate us with every outing?

 

[Shanegotyou11]

Seager sucks at bunting. If you take him out and we do tie it, u put romine at 3rd who struggled yesterday at 3rd.

Seager cant hit this yr.

 

[KitsapGuy]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Softykjr/status/1007388085963784192[/tweet]

 

[Crizilla]

Lol the angels would be so dumb to do that

 

[therealjohncarlson]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Softykjr/status/1007388085963784192[/tweet]

Nice joke

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Teams just aren't bunting anymore, stats show it. Teams value outs more than ever. It's just the new way of baseball. I would have bunted there, but I understand the reasoning not to. SABR stats show that bunting doesn't help you. Also not a given Seager would have gotten the bunt down. When is the last time he has bunted in a game? Not to mention against a guy as great as Kimbrell.

Great game, the difference might have been Haniger dropping that catch which allowed the Sox to score their first run. I know it wasn't an error, but he's got to catch that.

Hopefully Paxton can tie the series up tonight.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I had the same argument. I'd rather they don't let a guy who is barely batting .200 swing away there. Lay down a bunt, which they wouldn't expect from him, and now you have the WINNING run at 2nd base/tying run at 3rd.
He has more K's than hits this year. I see both sides, but he sat there and let TWO perfect pitches go by him. It accomplished nothing for him to sit there with the bat on his shoulders. Next batter hits in to an easy double play.

 

[sutz]

I had the same argument. I'd rather they don't let a guy who is barely batting .200 swing away there. Lay down a bunt, which they wouldn't expect from him, and now you have the WINNING run at 2nd base/tying run at 3rd.
He has more K's than hits this year. I see both sides, but he sat there and let TWO perfect pitches go by him. It accomplished nothing for him to sit there with the bat on his shoulders. Next batter hits in to an easy double play.

Yeah, this. Nothing annoys me more than a guy staring at a called 3rd strike. I guess he did "check swing" at it. But, still. :34853_doh:

Whatever happened to protecting the plate with 2 strikes? How could he not foul that off. I'm usually patient with Seagar's slow starts, but this year is the wrong year to do that.

 

[JGfromtheNW]

Bunting and playing small ball aren't the hotness in the MLB right now, but there are situations in games like last night where you have runners at 1st and 2nd and no outs in the bottom of the 9th... you need to scrape one run in any way possible and prevent a game ending double play. If Seager pops out or strikes/fouls out trying to lay down a bunt, at least you can say they tried to do the right thing -- and nothing really changes as far as results go.

If Seager isn't capable of bunting, you need to bring in Romine or another player to pinch hit and lay a bunt down. If you don't have a player that can come in and do that, IMO that's a huge hole on your roster. I'd like to see a team who has a real winning culture, and by that I mean one that's going to fight tooth and nail to their last out and play smart baseball, or they're going to step on your throat when they've got the lead. Sitting on our laurels and just letting our players swing away is pretty poor management in these types of situations.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

And if he lays down a successful bunt, now you have the WINNING run on 2nd. I just wanted them to play to win, not just to tie. Then if they pitch out of it, you tip your cap. And their pitching was damn good anyway.
Also, he had thrown 10 straight balls. You gotta' know as a batter than he's gonna' throw fastballs.

 

[Crizilla]

Pretty sure Ms are first in the league in sac bunts. Seager can't bunt (I don't know why) but he can't. Runners on 1st and 2nd no out you HAVE to at least move the runners over. Baseball 101. Servais dun goofed again.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I guess I look at it a little different. He's been playing baseball his entire life. I think they all should be able to lay down a bunt.

 

[therealjohncarlson]

Pretty sure Ms are first in the league in sac bunts. Seager can't bunt (I don't know why) but he can't. Runners on 1st and 2nd no out you HAVE to at least move the runners over. Baseball 101. Servais dun goofed again.

Why “can’t” he bunt though? Perhaps because he’s slow and it will never beat one out so he think it’s a waste of time to really learn even though there could be times it could help the team? Seems to me it’s a bit of a selfish mentality. Something about Seager has always rubbed me the wrong way, even when he was pretty good. I think this kind of is a microcosm of that

 

[SoulfishHawk]

With that shift, it would be gravy for him to lay down a bunt imo

 

[Shanegotyou11]

Pretty sure Ms are first in the league in sac bunts. Seager can't bunt (I don't know why) but he can't. Runners on 1st and 2nd no out you HAVE to at least move the runners over. Baseball 101. Servais dun goofed again.

Why “can’t” he bunt though? Perhaps because he’s slow and it will never beat one out so he think it’s a waste of time to really learn even though there could be times it could help the team? Seems to me it’s a bit of a selfish mentality. Something about Seager has always rubbed me the wrong way, even when he was pretty good. I think this kind of is a microcosm of that[/quote

Everytime he bunts, he fouls it off. He needs to work on that and beating the shift.

 

[sutz]

With that shift, it would be gravy for him to lay down a bunt imo

I remember seeing him try once or twice, but like was said, he sucks at it.

The modern game is all about stats and homers. It seems like not many players are interested in the team aspect. M's players talk about it in interviews, "moving the chain" they call it. But when push comes to shove, they get over agressive and swing for the fences, and strike out looking bad. Oh well.

Until hitters start laying down bunts and going with the pitch to the opposite field, the shift will continue, and I hate the switch. I know the numbers support it, but only because too many hitters are trying to pull the ball for power instead of getting safe hits and advancing runners. So many times it seems that they're getting safe hits on us right through spots where a player would be in a normal set.