First they can't buy a baserunner, then they jump out to a lead, then they blow the lead and fall behind on a two-run wild pitch, and then finally lose it on a 12th-inning walk-off homer. The M's are inventing new, more disappointing ways to lose every night.

Here's a snapshot of where the Mariners rank in the American League in the major offensive statistics:

Runs: 202, 13th
Average: .262, 12th
Slugging: .381, 13th
On-Base Pct.: .325, 12th
OPS: .705, 13th
Hits: 451, 11th
Walks: 145, 10th
Home Runs: 26, 14th
RBI: 188, 13th

None of this comes as a surprise, of course. Trying to at least grasp at the straws of optimism in the absence of the Optimist, I decided to scrounge the many statistics made available by ESPN to find categories in which the M's place in the top five, and found exactly two:

Sacrifices: 14, 3rd
Intentional Walks: 14, 1st

Where the Mariners really excel is in bunting runners over to set the table for their few-and-far-between "ept" hitters (making up a word here; think "not inept" but without going so far as to say "apt") and then having those ept hitters predictably intentionally walked.

In "You Gotta Have Wa" by Robert Whiting, a great read about American baseball players in the Japanese Leagues, Whiting gives an anecdote about a particularly frustrating strategy employed by one American slugger's Japanese manager. Every time his team's leadoff man reached base, the manager would put the bunt on for the two hitter, moving the leadoff man to second. The American slugger was the team's third hitter and only power threat and was consistently walked, bringing up the contact-hitting fourth hitter.

Melvin's bunting-before-my-best-hitters strategy hurts the offense in two ways: it burns outs needlessly and sacrifices the best hitters' ABs. Swing away, Bob. Swing away.

A winning streak! Flying chickens in a barnyard! It had to happen at some point this year. A look at the 2004 Seattle Mariners "winning streaks":

Dates, streak:

April 17 through 20, 4 games
May 2 and 4, 2 games
May 6 and 7, 2 games
May 23 to present, 3 games so far

AND THAT'S ALL.

Just for comparison, let's look at the only .500 ballclub in the majors, the New York Mets:

Dates, streak:

April 11 and 12, 2 games
May 2 through 6, 4 games
May 12 through 14, 3 games
May 16 and 18, 2 games
May 21 through 25, 4 games

You may have noticed that my right sidebar now appears at the bottom of the page, after all the text. This will be fixed tonight when I get home from my laboratory.

SA and CSPAN leaders have been updated. You'd expect to see several Mariners on both lists, but at this point the only one you'll see is Dick Aurilia.

It's been requested that I tell my favorite Mike Cameron story. It's not exactly in line with the current Mariners discussion, but in this dismal 2004 season, we could use the levity.

It was late summer '01. The Mariners and Mike Cameron were having the seasons of their lives. My buddy Ed and I arrived three hours early to the game to watch the M's warm up, take batting practice, and most importantly eat our Subway.

As was his custom, Cammy was carrying his bat everywhere he went on the field. He'd run his warmup sprints with bat in tow. He'd take practice cuts in the middle of the outfield. Wherever he was, he was swinging a bat.

The crowd was still sparse, with just about a dozen or so fans occupying each section of seats. As can be expected, every time a Mariner picked a baseball off the Safeco Field grass, nearby fans groveled for a souvenir. A group of particularly loud fans in the center field bleachers (the best bargain in the park) were asking for a ball to be thrown their way, since there was no way anyone was going to hit one that far away from the plate. These guys were louder and louder with each ball, and finally got Cammy to bite.

Since he already had a bat handy, Cammy decided that the most convenient way to deliver the precious souvenir was to hit a lazy fly ball in the fans' direction. He wasn't too far away, standing about 50 feet or so beyond second base on the center field side. He flipped the ball in the air and took a firm-but-not-too-hard uppercut swing.

The problem was, he topped it.

Instead of the lazy fly ball he wanted, Cammy sent a screaming line drive into section 104, where the only fan was an unsuspecting old lady reading her program oblivious to what was happening on the field.

Quoth Ed and I, "Oh, $H!T!"

The ball was headed right for the old lady!

All we heard was the SMACK! of baseball striking plastic seat.

The ball ricocheted off the seat immediately to the lady's left and back on to the outfield below. The unwitting old lady looked up from her program, looked to her left, and saw about fifty people staring at her with dropped jaws and expressions of complete shock. Not realizing just how close she came to disaster, our old lady looked back down at her program and didn't look up again until just before gametime.

Today is a historic day in the madcap adventure that is my life. For today, a very special person will be coming over to my apartment a bit before dinnertime to do something very special for me.

Today at 3 PM, the cable guy will install basic cable in my apartment. I can watch the M's again, and South Park, Chapelle, and all those other goodies as well. Glorious!

Randy Johnson was perfect today.

SA leaders have been updated, and CSPAN leaders have been added. Look for them on the left sidebar.

For the umpteenth time since Blogger redesigned itself, I had a double-post. Here's the pattern: I post something, check out what it looks like on my site (it's only posted once, so all is well so far), I post something else later, and the previous post appears twice. Does anyone know why this is happening, or what I can do to prevent it? Email me if you do, please.

I was just thumbing through my copy of the 1991 "Bill Mazeroski's baseball" pre-season annual (bought way back when because of the "Mariners Prodigy Ken Griffey Jr." cover photo), and came across this headline:

ARBITERS OR ANTAGONISTS?
Players and Management Are Fed Up With Confrontational Umpires

In light of yesterday's Chris Guccioni episode, it goes to show that some things never change.

Thanks to a recent post on Cub Reporter, I now know that Greg Maddux has a very very very good chance to reach 3000 strikeouts for his career. That would put Maddux, the model of a finesse pitcher before Jamie Moyer started doing his thing, 13th on the all-time list. He's at 2800 now, so barring injury, he should get there by the end of next year. Good luck to Maddux, the only Brave I've ever liked.

EDIT, 3:09 PM -- I should have phrased that last sentence better. Something like "only Brave I've liked since 1991 or so." Hank Aaron is one of my all-time favorites, and his autobiography "I Had A Hammer" is one of my favorite baseball books, to boot.

Great performance today from Pineiro. 5 hits in eight innings, and what should be to nobody's surprise, he took the loss, 2-1. Nine hits for the M's, and one run, on a Spiezio solo homer, to show for it. This is starting to get old. The really scary thing, though, is that it seems like not only the fans, but the players too, are getting used to losing. They need to make a move, or get into a brawl or something. Anything to shake things up a bit.

Melvin left Pineiro in for 120 pitches today, working all eight innings. In my opinion, there was no advantage to be gained leaving Joel in that long. First of all, the M's were behind in the late innings, so Joel wasn't in the position of protecting his own lead. If they were ahead, I could see (but maybe not agree with) the rationale of allowing Joel to win it himself, with the boost in Joel's confidence being worth the tradeoff of wearing him out for his next outing. Second, there's an off day tomorrow. While the bullpen had to work hard yesterday, everyone gets a day off tomorrow, so there's less need to conserve anyone's arm. Finally, Pineiro's been terrible so far this year. Why not take a fine seven inning performance to the bank and not risk a potential blowup in the eighth? Luckily, Joel came through in the eighth, but if he didn't, he'd be set even further back from returning to his nasty old self.

It was such a tough loss today. Right now they're not playing like a terrible ballclub. There getting hits, though mostly singles, and eventually they're going to string together a few and score some runs. Hopefully sooner than later.

Note: Shannon Drayer just said on the radio that the only relievers available today were Hasegawa and Myers. I'd go with Shiggy in the eighth, in that case.

Guccioni was just terrible today. Good for Melvin for getting tossed. It had to happen. I hope they have Questec installed in the Bronx so Guccioni can get torn up in his next review.

What I think needs to change is how umps are judged. If a hitter like Raul Ibanez can't see a pitch within about an inch or so, he's not going to have any idea what a strike is and be horrible. But if an umpire misses, say, the outside corner consistently, that's just what his strike zone is and he's considered a good umpire. When Jamie Moyer lives on the corners but doesn't get the call and has to come down the middle, that's the umpire's fault, not Moyer's.

After running spell check on this post, it was recommended that I replace "Guccioni" with "zucchini."

Lately Blogger has been double-posting a lot of my entries on this fine blog. Does anyone know how to avoid this?

Wow, what a week for Chris and gambling. It's like the Matrix, and I'm Neo. If anyone out there has played no limit Texas Hold 'Em, you know what I'm talking about. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, to borrow a line from Kenny Rogers (the country singer, not the pitcher). I'm a couple hundred ahead the last two weeks, and I just want more!

So, does anyone out there play cards? What I'd like to propose is a game of no-limit Texas Hold 'Em among the Blogosphere. We'll buy in for fifty bucks or so. Is anybody game?

The M's loaded the bags with one out in the eighth, yet still couldn't eke out a single run. The pitch that Ibanez grounded weakly to third was so far outside that Dave Niehaus was surprised it was even swung at. It was something like "Outside, no, wait, Ibanez grounded it to third!" A walk ties the game, and Rauuuuuul's flailing at a pitch that's a foot outside. Quoth Charlie Brown, "Arrrrrghhhhh!"

From this week's Onion:

Top Child Punishments, By State

No moose for a week (MT)
Allowance not adjusted for inflation (DC)
An hour in closet with Roy Acuff's bones (TN)
Sent to public school (NY)
Written out of Daddy's pilot (CA)
Must stay in state until 18 (ID)
Toe shot off (KY)

Even when I just go across the border to Moscow, I have this overwhelming urgency to get back to Washington as soon as possible. I can't describe it; it just is.

When I turned on the radio today, the first sentence I heard out of Rick Rizzs was "Franklin has pitched very well, but the Mariners have not been able to string anything together offensively." Well, duhhhhh.

In the few games that I've been fortunate enough to watch on TV (poor college student me has no cable, so no FSNW), I can't discern any observable strategy to Ibanez's AB's this year. Case in point: Edgar just bombed, we're down by one with nobody out in the ninth, and Joe Nathan takes the ball to face Rauuuuuuuul. I say to my buddy Kevin (neighbor with the good fortune to have cable): "First pitch fastball, right down broadway, and Raul looks at it for strike one." Nathan reaches back and fires a first pitch fastball down the midle for strike one. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with trying to work the count to get your pitch, but that one was RIGHT IN IBANEZ'S WHEELHOUSE, and he just watched it. Take a friggin' hack, buddy! After Nathan got strike one, he was able to just nibble for strikes two and three, and Ibanez was dead as disco. I'm not going to read too much into one pitch, but when I can call what's going to happen, things are going south.

Dave Valle, describing the ball that Matt LeCroy hit off Freddy's leg, just barely stopped himslef from saying "hit the shit out of it," then followed that by saying "right butt-cheek" on the air.

A question has been posed of the Blogosphere, and while it's not really my style to comment on what the other blogs are saying, I want to put in my two cents on this one.

David at USS mariner asks the question:

Regardless of how much better you could expect some players to perform, does anyone see any kind of acquisition enabling this team to play like a 104 win team for the next four and a half months?

Yeah, I do.

Let's get a real center fielder again. Carlos Beltran. How many extra bases have been taken this year already on Randy Winn's weak arm? How many balls in the gap have been just out of either Winn's or Ibanez's reach? The biggest change in the M's performance this season over last (besides veterans hitting below expectations) has been the huge jump in balls in play falling for hits. If the M's get themselves a great center fielder again, I think we'll see that number fall back down where it belongs. Let's look at the two pitchers struggling the most:

Pitcher	IP	K	Outs In Play	H	HR	Hits In Play	AVG on Balls In Play
Joel Pineiro	41.1	29	95	61	8	53	.358
Shigetoshi Hasegawa	15.1	10	36	18	0	18	.333

.358 and .333 are really above last year's numbers. I don't know exactly how much is due to downgrading center field, but it's pretty clear that a lot is. Sure, Rich Aurilia is killing us too, but there really isn't a great shortstop available right now. Adding Beltran (for Winn or Ibanez and some minor league talent?) would improve the pitching and defense greatly, and if you consider the expected improvement in Boone's, Edgar's, Ichiro's, Aurilia's, etc. offensive performance, they could be as good enough to contend in the west.

You're sitting in right field. The M's are in the field, and the hitter belts one your way. You catch it (bare-handed, of course) on the fly flawlessly and hold it high in the air for all to admire. Within seconds, the chant begins. "THROW-IT-BACK! THROW-IT-BACK! THROW-IT-BACK!" What do you do? If you give in to the pressure and throw it back into the outfield, the ballgirl retrieves the ball and hands it to the snot-nosed punk rich kid in the front row who already has probably a bucketload in his closet at home in Mercer Island or Medina (not that there's anything wrong with MI, Leah). You could keep the ball for yourself, but that's not cool, either. The way I see it, there are two respectable courses of action.

Take a shot at the hitter.
This only can be done if you field the ball cleanly (as any fan worth his beer should) and are sitting near the aisle. Catch it clean, get to the aisle, and try to get him as he comes around second. It's about 250 feet or so, but if you have an arm, put some air under it and give it a shot. Or, you could...

Give it to a kid.
And not the rich punk kid, either. When you get to the game, look around your section and pick out your kid in advance so you can quickly make the transfer to the lucky kid when the time comes. If you get little Billy the ball right away, you should nip the "Throw It Back" chant in the bud.

Corollary: What The Punk Rich Kid Should Do If He Gets The Ball
I'd love to see the ballgirl give the home run ball to a kid in the first row, and see that kid throw the ball right back on to the field. Then the ballgirl chases it down and give it to another kid, who throws it back on to the field again. I'd love to see how many times they could make the ballgirl go get the ball before she just gives up.

This "throw it back" thing has gone too far in Seattle, and most other ballparks not named Wrigley. Let's come up with our own thing for once.

Thanks to everyone that emailed suggestions for fixing the tables in my May 3 post. I must have had three or four different suggestions within a couple of hours. Also, it was pointed out to me that I had Junior's name attached to McGwire's stats. That was also fixed.

Finals are nearly over, so you can look forward to the frequent posting you, the reader, have come to expect very soon. Until then, happy Cinco de Mayo!

Just a quickie about tonight's game:

I watched tonight's game from the 11th inning on from Shaker's, and something caught my attention that bears mention. Did anyone else notice that after Randy Winn scored the winning run in the bottom of the sixteenth, Winn looked like he expected the dugout to erupt onto the field to greet him, and when he saw that no one was going to mob him and slap his helmet, he just kinda walked slowly off the field disappointed?

The 2004 Mariners look like they have given up. They just won on a questionable call on a close play at the plate, and no one was excited about it. It's gonna be a long year.

What a hectic last couple of weeks. Finals are this week, so academic commitments have been piling up lately. In addition to a newly busy, uh, social calendar, Sox-1918 hasn't had the same level of attention that it has in the past. I haven't even listened to a M's game in a week or so.

A few weeks ago, someone in the blogosphere (I was thinking it was Jeff, but I couldn't find it in his archives, so maybe it was someone else) in passing mentioned the Hall of Fame Monitor scores on Baseball Reference and Albert Belle's score of 134.5. A score of over 100 means "likely Hall-of-Famer," so statistically, this means Belle should be a lock. The author of the post expressed surprise at this. A long-running argument of Pete's and mine is Belle's HOF worthiness, so I wanted to comment, even if it is a little bit late.

From the years 1992-1999, Albert Belle was one of the best few hitters in baseball. The players of comparable offensive value over that time period fall into three categories:

First-Ballot HOF'ers:

Barry Bonds
Year	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1992	34	103	.311	.456	.624	1.080
1993	46	123	.336	.458	.677	1.136
1994	37	81	.312	.426	.647	1.073
1995	33	104	.294	.431	.577	1.009
1996	42	129	.308	.461	.615	1.076
1997	40	101	.291	.446	.585	1.031
1998	37	122	.303	.438	.609	1.047
1999	34	83	.262	.389	.617	1.006

Mark McGwire
Year	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1992	42	104	.268	.385	.585	.970
1993	9	24	.333	.467	.726	1.193
1994	9	25	.252	.413	.474	.887
1995	39	90	.274	.441	.685	1.125
1996	52	113	.312	.467	.730	1.198
1997	58	123	.274	.393	.646	1.039
1998	70	147	.299	.470	.752	1.222
1999	65	147	.278	.424	.697	1.120

Ken Griffey Jr.
Year	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1992	27	103	.308	.361	.535	.896
1993	45	109	.309	.408	.617	1.025
1994	40	90	.323	.402	.674	1.076
1995	17	42	.258	.379	.481	.860
1996	49	140	.303	.392	.628	1.020
1997	56	147	.304	.382	.646	1.028
1998	56	146	.284	.365	.611	.977
1999	48	134	.285	.384	.576	.960

Mike Piazza
Year	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1992	42	104	.268	.385	.585	.970
1993	9	24	.333	.467	.726	1.193
1994	9	25	.252	.413	.474	.887
1995	39	90	.274	.441	.685	1.125
1996	52	113	.312	.467	.730	1.198
1997	58	123	.274	.393	.646	1.039
1998	70	147	.299	.470	.752	1.222
1999	65	147	.278	.424	.697	1.120

No one (at least no one that matters) would argue against the HOF candidacy of any of the above men. Just look at those numbers (and Piazza's a catcher!). Griffey and Bonds are two of the best outfielders ever, McGwire one of the greatest sluggers, and Piazza is probably the best hitting catcher ever.

Next category:

The Argument Could Certainly Be Made:

Edgar Martinez
Year	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1992	18	73	.343	.404	.544	.948
1993	4	13	.237	.366	.378	.744
1994	13	51	.285	.387	.482	.869
1995	29	113	.356	.479	.628	1.107
1996	26	103	.327	.464	.595	1.059
1997	28	108	.330	.456	.554	1.009
1998	29	102	.322	.429	.565	.993
1999	24	86	.337	.447	.554	1.001

Frank Thomas
Year	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1992	24	115	.323	.439	.536	.975
1993	41	128	.317	.426	.607	1.033
1994	38	101	.353	.487	.729	1.217
1995	40	111	.308	.454	.606	1.061
1996	40	134	.349	.459	.626	1.085
1997	35	125	.347	.456	.611	1.067
1998	29	109	.265	.381	.480	.861
1999	15	77	.305	.414	.471	.885

We've heard the case for Edgar, and Thomas's follows a similar line of logic. I'd vote for both, but that's just me.

And now the final category (at least in terms of the voters' perception), with only one entry:

Stupid Jerk-Heads That Had No Business Playing This Game In The First Place:

Albert Belle
Year	HR	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
1992	34	112	.260	.320	.477	.797
1993	38	129	.290	.370	.552	.922
1994	36	101	.357	.438	.714	1.152
1995	50	126	.317	.401	.690	1.091
1996	48	148	.311	.410	.623	1.033
1997	30	116	.274	.332	.491	.823
1998	49	152	.328	.399	.655	1.055
1999	37	117	.297	.400	.541	.941

The only difference between Belle and the others is his rep. If he wasn't such a gaping asshole, we'd all be really sad that his career was cut short and be forecasting what his career numbers would have been with a couple more years of big league service. Speaking simply as a Mariners fan, I hid my eyes when Belle came up in his prime. Especially if Jeff Nelson was on the hill. Belle hit in the neighborhood of 8 thousand jacks against Nellie, travelling an average distance of 893.83 feet.

Albert Belle seemed to hate everybody equally -- teammates, umpires, opponents, fans, hot dog vendors, etc. Kind of like the drill sargeant in Full Metal Jacket. His anger seemed to fuel his fire, though. The only other player I can think of that played better with a chip on his shoulder was probably Jackie Robinson. Granted, Jackie's motivation was a wee bit more noble. The question that bears asking is: How much does attitude matter? For every voter, the answer is a little different. For me, if I had a vote, I'd leave Albert Belle on the outside looking in.

EDIT 10:46 AM -- Sorry about all that space between the tables. No idea why that happens, or how to fix it.

EDIT 12:14 PM, 5/5/04 -- Thanks for all the suggestions on repairing my tables. Much appreciated to all who responded so quickly.