1B) Eric Hinske:  We need a power lefty bat, and somebody who know’s the value of working the count and getting on base.   I’d like to say there’s somebody within the system we could promote to first, but there’s just not.  Hinske’s had a resurgent year in Tampa Bay, and I think he’d be a better pick up than a lot of people think.

2B) Lopez: He may not be that good with the glove, and he doesn’t walk much, but he is a good hitter, and there’s really not much out there that’s better than him anyways.

3B) Beltre: I’m a fan, I don’t care what anybody says about him. The guy can pick it, and when he makes contact he usually hits the crap out of the ball.

SS) Rafael Furcal:  He’s very good defensively, which we need, he knows how to take a pitch, and he’d be much better than Yuniesky. I’m just sick of that guy, Betancourt is not a good SS and he’s more of a detriment to this team than a compliment. I doubt Furcal will come cheap, but there’s a chance he will because of the injuries he’s had the past few years.

C) Jeff Clement:  He deserves a full year as the starter, and after seeing Johjima fall off the face of the earth, he’s pretty much the only option we’ve got.

LF) Pat Burrell: He’s really good, and his power is so good it doesn’t matter how big our park is.  I doubt he’d want to come here, and he’d cost a ton, but he’s the type of hitter we need in the middle of this lineup.

CF) Reed/Bloomquist:  Might as well, they’re both good out there defensively, have a little speed and know how to get on base, and if they suck there’s always a guy like Endy Chavez we could sign for insurance.

RF) Ichiro: ‘Nuff said.

DH) Ibanez:  Cuz he’s awful in the outfield, but he can still hit. Plus I’m sure we can resign him for pretty cheap.

That would give us a lineup of

1) Ichiro

2) Furcal

3) Burrell

4) Ibanez

5) Beltre

6) Hinske

7) Lopez

8) Clement

9) Reed/Bloomquist 

As for the rotation

1) Felix

2) Bedard

3) Silva

4) Rowland-Smith

5) Dickey

A lot of people may think that we need to have Morrow in the rotation, but I’d rather have him in the bullpen, because that will allow us to make it a seven inning game. (That is if JJ gets his **** together)

Bullpen

Long Man: Miguel Batista

Cesar Jimenez

Mark Lowe

Josh Fields

Sean Green

Brandon Morrow

JJ Putz

 

Atleast one good thing came from this season.   Now just get rid of McLaren and 75% of the roster and there might be a shot at turning this thing around in the next few years.

This team is so bad it makes me wanna puke.    And what’s everybody’s answer?   Point the finger at someone else.   It’s gettin Reeeeeally ugly in Seattle here folks.   This may very well be the worst run organization in professional sports.

It’s a sad day when I just don’t care to watch Mariner games anymore, but this team has found a way for that to come to fruition.   I hate this team, I hate the idiots running it, and I hate the dissapointment they so frequently set me up for.   I’m just glad they got it out of the way early this year so I can spend the time I would’ve spent watching ball games on doing something more constructive.   The only thing I hope happens the rest of they year is for the Mariners to continue to play this bad so we can get an entire overhaul of the front office and management, because this organization has no idea how to put a baseball team together since Pat Gillick left.   Oh yeah, and we can maybe get the top pick in the ’09 draft!! (fingers crossed)  Whatever, I’m contemplating changing allegiances if Bill Bavasi keeps his job, I’ve heard rumblings of the Tampa Rays maybe relocating to Portland if they can’t get a new ballpark in Florida.   That’d be cool, then maybe the Pacific Northwest might have a baseball team with some talent.   Go Rays!

I know Balentien and Clement didn’t do too well today, but Paul Byrd is a very intelligent pitcher and he played on Balentien and Clement trying to be a little too over anxious and trying to impress people today.   Wlad is gonna have a few games like this throughout the year, and he clearly has a hard time recognizing sliders, but if he gets in a hitters count and can get hittable fastballs he’s not gonna miss many of them.  And that homer off of Cliff Lee yesterday is all the proof I need of his awesome power.   It’s just one game, and unfortunately they’re gonna have to face another really good pitcher tomorrow in Chien-Ming Wang, but we’ll see what these guys have got in this series against the Yanks.   Should be a good game.  I just hope this offense gets clicking, I don’t think the mariners have had double digit runs in like 3 weeks and it’s gettin a little old. 

   One thing we should be tweakin about is what the F is up with J.J.   It used to be that JJ would enter the game, and the game was over.   No question about it.   Now he’s already blown 3 saves this season, and that’s one more than he blew all of last year.   He didn’t look sharp today at all, his fastball was topping out at 92 and he couldn’t locate it for crap.   JJ used to throw 95+ on the black with ease.   His splitter is still sick, but somethin’s up with the heater.   I’m starting to think he might’ve come off the DL a bit too early because he wanted to help this team too much.   We need a healthy JJ for this team to do well this year, and he’s one of the most important players on this team.  When you’re a team that can’t score many runs and the games you do win are gonna be close, you need to have a dominant closer.   Look at Arizona with Valverde last year.  I hope he’s just a little rusty and needs some time to get back in a groove, but we can’t be having these 9th inning meltdowns anymore if we wanna win this year.  If you’re hurt JJ, take a break man, we’d rather have you healthy out there than not 100% and costing us wins.

Can we give up on this crap now?  I said before this season even started that we need Balentien and Clement in this lineup, and now it’s one month in to the season and it’s even more evident than before.   You’re a complete idiot Bill Bavasi, your team can’t score runs and you’ve made terrible decisions regarding the personnel of this team.   Call up your 2 most talented Minor leaguers and put them in this freakin lineup before it’s too late.   The experiment is over, Wilkerson sucks, Vidro sucks, and Sexson still sucks.   Our offense is awful and there’s two guys ready to make it not.   What the hell is the problem with this organization?   If you’re serious about winning this year then field the most talented offense you can.   Doesn’t take a genius.   I’m sick of watching our starters pitch great games, yet they don’t get a win cuz outr offense can score only a couple of runs to support them.  It’s just plain idiotic and ridiculous to keep sticking with these guys and expecting them to turn things around.

See what happens when you put the most talented players in the most important situations?   Ryan Rowland-Smith faces 5 batters to close the game out and retires them all in order.   He looked dominant out there and proved that he needs to be on the mound in high-leverage situations.  Once Morrow and Putz get back I think our pen will be in very good shape.   Bedard pitched OK today, not dominant or anything, but he also didn’t really get batted around at all.  The only hard hit ball was the homer to Riggleman and the rest were just bloopers and balls that found holes, not to mention that if Beltre would’ve just gone to first instead of making that error at second then I think his line would’ve been a lot different.   That being said, Bedard could’ve located his fastball a little better, but regardless of the 5 runs, he did pitch well enough to get his first win as a Mariner, so that’s really all that matters.    Oh yeah, and Richie didn’t look completely incompetent at the plate today…. Brad Wilkerson however on the two run single looked like he was completely surprised to even make contact with that ball.   Seriously, look at the replay.   Well, lets keep it goin with Wash tomorrow. Goodnight.

Ok, I’m of the mindset that a manager doesn’t really make that much of a difference to a team, but when they make god awful decisions two days in a row that lead to their teams losing and keep running out the same crappy lineup that has yet to score more than 5 runs this season, then my opinion starts to change.   John McLaren is a god awful manager who I personally hate right now.   If I saw him walking the street I’d punch him in his stupid squinty face.   As for yesterday, I don’t give a crap what Felix said in the 8th inning, he was cruising and he could’ve finished that game off.   Of course he wasn’t 100%, starting pitchers start off the game at 100% and gradually are less and less 100% as the game goes on, but as long as they are still getting hitters out and aren’t visibly fatigued, then you LEAVE THEM IN THERE!!!!!   Instead you decide to run out a guy who threw 30 pitches the night before and got roughed up just because he throws the baseball left handed and coincidentally so do the guys with the bat in their hands.   And if you buy in to this line of thinking, then why not bring in the lefty Ryan Rowland-Smith who in my opinion has the best stuff in that bullpen at the moment and has only been in ONE freakin game this year!!!!   Instead that squinty A$$CLOWN brings in O’Flaherty who promptly gives up a double and a walk, en route to losing the freakin game in the ninth.

   Then comes today where AGAIN McLaren goes to the obviously tired O’Flaherty in the 8th over Rowland-Smith and O’Flaherty gives up a run which was actually quite predictable, because the second I saw him coming out of the pen I said to myself “Why the hell is he going to O’Flaherty again? He’s gonna give up a run like he has the last 3 times he pitched and we’re gonna lose this freakin game.”  Well he predictably followed suit by giving up a bomb to Aubrey Huff and losing the game for us.   I mean what the hell, did Rowland-Smith sleep with his wife or somethin?   It makes no freakin sense, and he has proven to be a complete idiot who is incapable of being a good Major League manager.   I don’t care if the Mariners go on a 20 game winning streak, I think McLaren is a complete ****** who doesn’t know what the F he’s doing out there.    And sure, it’d help if this offense wasn’t so anemic and we could score some runs, but he’s also the guy who decided who makes and doesn’t make the club and running out this crappy lineup with the god awful Brad Wilkerson in it isn’t helping either.    I mean Jesus, I thought Wilkerson was gonna be bad, but this is just ridiculous.  I’d honestly rather have a pitcher at the plate right now, he just looks terrible at the plate and that’s being nice.   Then you’ve got all these people saying “Wilkerson sucks, we should start Mike Morse in right”  Well I’ve got news for you people, we’ve got a guy just chillin’ in the minor leagues who’s way better than both those hacks.   His name is WLADIMIR BALENTIEN!!!!  But we have a retard manager who loves to “stick with his veterans” that won’t allow the obviously more talented player to be in the big leagues.   These things are all really bothering me, and they are all things I predicted would happen before the season even started.   There comes a time when you need to realise that you need to put the most talented players on the field in the most important situations instead of sticking with your “Veterans”  and “Matchups”.   It’s just ridiculous.   Field the most talented team possible and put your most talented players in the most high-leverage situations.   But he won’t, because he thinks he’s too damn smart and he knows what he’s doing, well guess what Mac it ain’t working, and your team with the “Playoffs or bust” Mantra just got swept in a four game series by a team in rebuilding mode that also happens to be one of the worst teams in baseball.   Keep it up ya freakin genius, and see if you have a job in a couple of months.  

Well after hearing some pretty bad Mariner related news to start the day off, the conclusion of this day left me feelin a bit better.   Carlos Silva’s debut was much better than I expected and he looked in complete control the entire game.   I’ve gotta say, although I’m concerned with the hitting, the Mariners starters so far have been everything I expected and then some.   If they can keep up what they’ve been doing then this is going to be a very good year.   Silva never really got in to too much trouble, was locating his pitches and looked very good.   If he pitches like that all year then we’re gonna be in pretty good shape.   Now, as for the offense.   Can we give up on this having Richie bat cleanup experiment already?  I don’t see why if you have the exact same $hitty swing as you had last year and the same $hitty approach at the plate why you would expect for different results.   He just looks awful at the plate, and I don’t see that changing.   The same goes for Brad Wilkerson, I knew he would blow this year and so far he has done nothing to make me feel differently.   I just hope he keeps it up so we can see Wlad soon.  Well, it’s nice to go to sleep feeling good about the win tonight as opposed to last night when I barely got a wink.  Off day tomorrow, but the Rainiers start their season, so that’s somethin.   Next game Washburn vs. Loewen @3:30 pm on Friday.   Lets hope Adam Jones doesn’t go off on us, and I don’t wanna see Sherrill at all this series.  

I had a very bad feeling that Josh Hamilton would hit the bejezus out of JJ’s fastball if he caught a lot of the plate with it on the first pitch.   I remember sayin to myself “Throw him a splitter first pitch”.   Then I saw Jamie Burke put down the fastball sign, then I remember sayin to myself “Don’t give him anything he can pull”.   I proceeded to witness Jamie Burke set up on the outside corner, so as long as JJ hit his spot we’d be ok…. but we weren’t, he missed by about two feet and Hamilton pulled it and hit the hell out of it like I feared he would.   All that work for nothin.   I’ve got a bad feeling that this team is gonna have a hard time scoring runs this year due to their lack of power and the fact that Richie Sexson is still the same crappy hitter we all knew deep down he’d continue to be.   But the good news is that we apparently have the pitching to still keep us in games even though our offense is gonna blow.   That was a pretty ugly game though on both sides, hopefully tomorrow we see a little better defense from everyone involved, cuz that game was kinda embarrassing.   Silva and Jennings @ 7:05 pm.   Lets hope Jennings pitches as awful as he did last year.