The 2016 Seattle Mariners (Official season edition)

[kearly]

Welp, so much for my fingernails.

I thought for sure we were going to lose this one, especially when he tomahawked that ball into play down the line. Most third basemen aren't making that play.

Screw the Angels btw. They are playing the Mariners WAY too competitively this year.

 

[kearly]

Including tonight, Diaz's Babip is a ridiculously high .406. He's been incredibly unlucky with balls hit into play, which makes his current string of saves that much more incredible.

You'd think that Diaz's BABIP would be pretty low, given that hitters only rarely hit him hard. Not only that, but they are essentially doing "guess swings" on him and just hoping for contact. Not exactly a recipe for high BABIP. So we can almost certainly look forward to this trend reversing.

BTW, Mike Blowers is quietly the smartest voice in Seattle sports broadcasting. Humble and assured of himself and almost never wrong. He's like the Scottemojo of baseball analysis. His commentary about hitters cheating on fastballs was perfectly timed just before the Angels swung and missed on like five "cheat" swings in a row. I probably wouldn't watch nearly as many Mariners games if not for the quality of his commentary.

 

[kearly]

Also, props to Diaz for keeping his cool. He gave up three seeing-eye groundball hits on three bad swings, and had to face the heart of the order. He also was struggling with his location pretty badly. It had all the makings of a trainwreck blown save, and yet Diaz was far more stoic the whole time than Servais was.

And speaking of Servais, props to him for being aggressive with his bullpen tonight.

 

[Maulbert]

Not really news per se, but MLB officially approved the sale of the Mariners from Nintendo of America to First Avenue Entertainment.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...ajority-stake-mariners-john-stanton-led-group

 

[Thepeelsessions]

Nick Vincent...SMH

 

[Hawker]

Nothing good about our current Vincent + Nuno combo.

 

[Thepeelsessions]

Nothing good about our current Vincent + Nuno combo.

Nuno isn't the problem

 

[Hawker]

If Vincent takes top honors for worst pitcher on the staff, Nuno would be #2 on that list.

 

[kearly]

It's kinda scary thinking about how close the Mariners just came to getting swept in 4 games by an Angels team riding a 10 game losing streak.

Right now the Mariners are winning close games but they aren't actually playing great baseball. When they play bad teams they need to beat them up, not squeak by.

Also, they seriously just need to walk Pujols every time they see him in a key at bat. He's single-handedly beaten the Mariners three times this year.

 

[kearly]

Vincent was a dominant reliever in three of his four Padres seasons. He's been the only guy in the entire bullpen with a track record of consistently good pitching to draw from. So I don't blame Servais at all for holding Vincent in high regard and trusting him in some high leverage situations. Unfortunately, Vincent unraveled during this past series and is now on pace to have just an average 2016 season.

Nuno has a 145 ERA+. He's pitching well for the season.

I was fine with trading Miley, but the Montgomery trade looks worse by the minute. Would have sure been nice if Seattle had ripped off that hot streak a couple weeks earlier to keep Dipoto from entering sell mode.

 

[Thepeelsessions]

If Vincent takes top honors for worst pitcher on the staff, Nuno would be #2 on that list.

Hmmm. Karns, Cishek, Aro, Rollins, Storen (He's been better lately, but I'd still take Nuno). You're telling me that those guys are pitching better than Nuno? The only guy pitching better than Nuno right now is Tom. Caminero hasn't been here that long and it's crashing back down to earth, and Diaz is the closer, so you can't really compare the two.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

I think we need to try for 4-2 on this home-stand. The Brewers are awful and the Yanks are over-achieving. 3-3 or worst will be really disappointing. We need to take advantage of the soft schedule while it lasts. Tonight we get a kid making his MLB debut.

On a side note, Miley is getting lit up again for Baltimore. Why they traded for him, I have no idea.

 

[Crizilla]

The AL East will beat up on each other quite a bit the last month or so of the season. If the M's get to 88 wins, i think they have a shot. The 7 games against Texas and 6 against Houston will most likely decide their fate. Those 2 teams have beaten up the M's recently. Will need to play better in the division moving forward. Even the Angels have given us a tough time this year.

 

[kearly]

Wade Miley is finally doing his part to help Seattle make the playoffs.

The Brewers defense was AMAZINGLY bad tonight. They had 3 errors officially, and they had 3 other botched plays that didn't count as errors but were just as bad.

 

[Sports Hernia]

WTF was that O'malley???????
Turned a routine fly ball into a 2 runs for the Brewers with a horrible misread and route on a ball.
SMDH!!!

 

[Sports Hernia]

They just found the perfect role for Cishek.

Mop-up man.

You don't come into the game unless your team is up or down by 6 runs. :2thumbs:

 

[kearly]

Cishek sure looked good with the pressure off him.

The Mariners are now just 1 game back of second wildcard.

Texas got smoked too. Six games back.

 

[sutz]

Cishek sure looked good with the pressure off him.

The Mariners are now just 1 game back of second wildcard.

Texas got smoked too. Six games back.

Yep 10 games over .500 now. That's running about an 86 win pace with lots of time on the clock and some big games coming up. Nice to be playing meaningful ball in late August for a change.

 

[Crizilla]

angels just getting hammered by the yanks. they are the rams of the al west this season. always plays seattle tough but lays eggs elsewhere

baltimore is free falling yay

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Paxton expected to start Thursday.

Iwakuma is getting an extra day of rest, so Tuesday's starter is up in the air. Call up Walker? Start Martin again?

Oh, and lets get the sweep today! Looks like Tigers will lose to Boston. Texas currently down 3 to Tampa. Baltimore vs Hou is delayed for now.

I love this time of the year for baseball. Baseball just has such a relaxed feel for the first few months of the season, but once mid August comes around the games start to feel like NFL games, each game being very meaningful.