Did I write that? Did I really write that I thought the Mariners would get this thing straightened out and start winning?
Oy! was I mistaken.
They’ve got a shortstop with less range than I have. They’ve got a third baseman who’s better equipped to play first. They’ve got a second baseman who’s injured. They’ve got a first baseman who got old fast. They’ve got a left fielder who can only get to the Gap if it has a sale. They’ve got a center fielder who looks eternally like a deer caught in the headlights.
Their designated hitter probably should have retired after last season, though many of us were glad to see him return.
Their manager’s best move on the last road trip was getting kicked out of the only game they won.
Their general manager recently called the offense inept and some fans ripped him for it. Which shows that they haven’t been paying attention.
As Casey Stengel once asked of his beleaguered Mets, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
At least the old Mets brought some comic relief to the field.
The M’s are just plain painful to watch.
I never thought I’d say that. But it’s true.
I got so used to watching recent M’s teams play the game so well, so efficiently, so cleanly, so joyfully that I guess I somehow thought this seamless style of play would continue even though there was a batch of new faces in the lineup.
As my first boss said, “Never assume anything.”
That’s what we did when Mike Cameron was patrolling the outfield. We assumed every fly ball that was hit to center, to right-center or to left-center was going to be caught. With Raul Ibanez in left and Randy Winn in center, we can’t make that assumption anymore. They just don’t have the range that Cameron had.
Cameron made difficult catches seem almost routine. Winn, however, can cause you to hold your breath on a routine fly until the ball is securely tucked in his glove.
Shortstp Rich Aurilia hasn’t made an error since the opening game, but Lord knows how many balls have skipped past him because of his limited range, balls that his predecessor Carlos Guillen would have gotten to.
Scott Spiezio isn’t any Jeff Cirillo as a gloveman at third, but then he hasn’t played there that much in recent years, so we can cut him some slack for the three errors he’s made.
But what’s up with Bret Boone? A Gold Glove second baseman, he’s also erred three times. It appears to me, at least, that he’s had some grounders elude him that in recent years he’d have collared, and you wonder how much his sore back has affected him, offensively as well as defensively.
The one infielder who’s as splendid as ever is first baseman John Olerud. But he seems to be doing a Cirillo on us: He can still field, but he can’t hit. He looks lost up there at the plate at times. This is how bad it’s gotten. He has two more strikeouts (19) than he does walks, this a man who in each of the past 12 years has had more walks than strikeouts.
Many of us assumed the offense would be improved, but if you’ve been holding your breath for that to happen, you’re no longer with us. The sextet of designated hitter Edgar Martinez, Olerud, Winn, Aurilia, Ibanez and Boone are batting a collective 241 points below their lifetime averages.
After taking a week off, a week in which I watched the M’s lose five of six games, I feel like I need to take another week’s vacation to recuperate. These guys really grind on you. Shoot, my back was even acting up by the end of the week.
Are they dead? Is there nothing to look forward to the rest of the season? Not with the current group, there isn’t.
Herald baseball writer Kirby Arnold asked readers in his Sunday column what they would do if they were running the team.
I’d attempt to trade Aurilia, Winn and pitcher Freddy Garcia for young prospects. Ramon Santiago would become the everyday shortstop. I’d bring speedster Jamal Strong up from Tacoma to play center. Right away, you tighten up the defense in two spots.
That would give the pitchers confidence that if the ball is hit, it’s going to be caught. Which, I don’t think they always believe right now.
Jolbert Cabrera would be somewhere in the lineup at least five days a week. I’d get Dave Hansen in there more often, too. I might let Olerud DH now and then, to give Martinez some rest.
The one guy I’d never take out of the lineup is catcher Dan Wilson. Well, almost never. He’s become indispensable with his bat (.319 average and 19 RBI, both team highs) as well as his glove. If it weren’t for him, the M’s would have been winless on last week’s road trip, and if it weren’t for manager Bob Melvin running interference when Wilson got into an argument with the home plate umpire, Danny Boy would have sat out the rest of the game in the clubhouse. As it was, he got six RBI, the M’s got the win and Melvin got ejected.
Some said it was the best job of managing Melvin’s done all year.
As for the rest of the season, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be much fun. But with a few moves here and there, with some youth inserted into the lineup, it could be a little more entertaining than it has been.
And anything would be better than the grind of the first six weeks.
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