Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Win #1. Hopefully the first of many

I'm glad I went to bed when I did last night. I listened to the first few innings of last night's 10-8 win and checked out when it was 6-0. I figured if they were going to lose I didn't want to hear it anyway. But...holy Johjima!! And that bottom of the order produced a 5-run second. Looking good 7-9! (I'll refrain from mentioning our third baseman's performance at the plate.) Like Moyer the night before, Joel pitched decent enough I suppose. 97 pitches through 6 1/3 isn't too bad. I'm sure Lookout Landing or USSMariner will have a post about how he was really a lot worse than it seemed. Putz and Guardado sucked but right now let's take the win. And for the Mariners, they better hope it's the first of many. Here's why....

Thanks to USSMariner, we know that only 20,051 showed up for the game last night. The worst second-game attendance since Safeco opened. And that was following the worst opening night since 1995. I admit I've been impressed that the Mariners have been able to keep high attendance over the last two years. Seattle fans don't get much more fairweather (notice all the Seahawk fans coming out of the woodwork), and two 90-loss seasons are hard to deal with. But it looks like they've had enough. The dancing groundskeepers and Zombie Nation aren't going to keep those turnstiles....uh...turning (can't think of a better verb). The only way to get the Safe hoppin' again is to win some ballgames. I think this team can do that. I like Washburn against his old mates today.

.500! Woo!

5 comments:

  1. This is the advantage of being on the East Coast. We've got a three-hour head start on the rest of the M's blog-o-sphere.

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  2. I was going to do the game review when I got into work today of well. Here are my thoughts.

    I watched the whole thing and first off let me say that 20,000 fans looked generous. It was EMPTY in there.

    Anyway Joel didn’t just do ok, he was/looked vastly improved. He kept the ball on the ground and truly the only mistake he made was leaving a ball up to Garret Anderson, My boy mikey, and he crushed it. But immediately after that he got the next two hitters I believe on two more ground balls. It was funny on the replay you could see Joel laughing at himself with Kenji as Anderson’s ball left the yard. He knew he left it up as soon as he threw it. What was nice to see is that he didn’t let it get him rattled like it did last year.

    Speaking of Kenji.....Wow we saw a little bit of him at spring training, but watching him over the past two games has been a real treat. He is a general behind the plate. Calling good pitches and trying really good locations. And then there is his bat which so far he has shown power, 2 bombs to both right and left field, and excellent plate discipline. Kenji my friends is a stud!!

    Onto the bottom of the order, or the bulk of the young'ns. They look to be having fun. Betencourt is a delight to watch both at the plate and on the field. Lopez, who I consider a young'n but not in the bottom of the order really looks much more comfortable at the plate. Last year it seemed to me that he would swing wildly at bad pitches making him an easy out. This year he may still have tendencies to do that but so far he has been really good at getting the ball in play.

    Big richie, love the richie commercial by the way I dunno why it makes me laugh but it does, wok up from his off season yesterday to drive in 5 runs and collect two hits. He is off and running folks can we expect 40 this year???

    And Soriano vrs Vlad part II, again soriano wins. Man I want him to be a starter but he come in and just dominates the opposing team. Vlad is one of the premiere hitters in the game and soriano went right after him. Gotta love that.

    I am hoping that putz is just a bit rusty, remember last year he was very reliable out of the pen. So far this year though he has looked rattled and hit prone. I am hoping this will pass.

    Eddie Eddie Eddie. What was that?? He must also be rusty but man Eddie that was much closer than it needed to be.


    All in All this team I still say looks so much better than I had anticipated. They go out today and win and that’s series victory number one my friends. That’s all they have to do is win series!!

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  3. i thought the numbers on second night crowds were interesting. it seems like it look until safeco and 2001 for people to come out for more than the year after a big season. but, now that has certainly worn off. seems like if they had this fun-and-exciting-but-probably-not-quite-capable-of-90-wins team last year, they could have avoided losing people. but, trying to patch things up last year, rather than cashing-in and rebuilding (the cleveland model that travis proposed) may have cost them some fans that won't come back until they are good again.

    i'm pretty fired up about johjima. i doubt this much power will hold up for too long, but it sounds like he takes his job behind the plate seriously, and getting off to a good start should help him settle in quicker with the bat.

    let's hope that eddie can put together a couple of good months of closing, so that they can send him somewhere else for a prospect or two and let soriano close. i think he could be in the rivera, k-rod, lidge class given the chance.

    xm radio is the best ever! i was listening to rick rizz and dave niehaus and commercials for les schwab in my car on mass ave in dc!

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  4. My bad Travis you should take the late West Coast games anyway since you'll be seeing the whole thing.

    I love that Richie commercial too. I don't know what it is but every time they say "Big Richie" I crack up.

    That really was my biggest worry about Eddie last night. He could make outstanding trade bait come July to add a young arm or bat.

    I'm really loving this team. Can't wait to listen tonight. This is a big game indeed. It's like Sweet Lou always talked about-the most important thing is to win each series.

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  5. Anonymous7:07 AM

    ..and we DID win the Series form the vaunted ANgels of Anaheim,CAL,LA or whatever....if all games are like htese last 2 our collective hearts will be in our throts every game--can't we make it a little easier---but a win is a win--and the "kids" are doing well--Lopez making us forget Boone (I know we forgot a long time ago !)

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