MLBTR rocks...
11:58am: Kovacevic says Cedeno's the only player who will report to the Pirates. Clement will head to Triple A, the others to A ball.read more »MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo calls it a "pretty good haul" for the Pirates and Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus says it's the best deal the Pirates have made yet.
11:45am: Kovacevic says the Mariners acquire Wilson and Ian Snell for Clement, Ronny Cedeno, Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock.
Death, taxes, and ...
Erik Bedard came off the disabled list on July 7, went 0-1 with a 4.15 ERA in 17 innings spread over four starts while working on a limited pitch count, and landed back on the shelf Sunday. Shoulder problems are once again to blame, and the Mariners are calling the latest issue inflammation while hoping to get him back in a couple weeks.While the latest trip to the DL ruins whatever chance the Mariners had of dealing Bedard prior to Friday's deadline, the injury should make it easier for him to pass through waivers unclaimed after July 31. In other words, if he comes back in two weeks and looks healthy, Seattle may still have an opportunity to cash Bedard in before he hits free agency. He's continued to pitch well throughout the injuries.
Manager Don Wakamatsu just told us that Ryan Rowland-Smith will start Friday against the Indians at Safeco Field. He was scratched from his Tacoma start tonight and will instead throw a bullpen session.
Also, Garrett Olson is out of the rotation, as expected, but Wakamatsu said that he is not ready to announce who will start Sunday when Olson's turn comes up. The obvious candidates are Jason Vargas, Chris Jakubauskas and Brandon Morrow. Rowland-Smith, in his most recent start for Tacoma, struck out nine and didn't walk any against Las Vegas. Overall, he's 5-3 with a 4.31 ERA for the Rainiers.
"I think it's the progression as much as anything,'' Wakamatsu said of Rowland-Smith. "Just the fact the velocity was up (in his last start). There were different reports, good and bad. I wouldn't say bad, but the location on certain pitches could be better. The overall improvement...it's kind of what we talked about, him going down and getting ample work. We want to see how he'll fare up here."
Personally I thought the change of divisions would do the kid well, but when you suck, you suck, ya know. From here its all down hill. Pretty much the only place for him to go now, is a trip to the Padres. His career went south, that quick.
Don Wakamatsu made pretty clear what anyone watching the game already knew: that Garrett Olson will not remain in the rotation. Wakamatsu didn't flat out say it, but here are his post-game quotes on Olson. You decide:"It's what we talked about before, similar to his last start, a lot of it is not so much the stuff, but not being aggressive and attacking the hitters, and trying to be too perfect. I thought the walks, falling behind and having to give in, cost him. "It's unfortunate. He's a good kid, and he's worked his tail off. We're hoping to get him back out there at some point." Asked if he was wavering on letting Olson make his next start, Wakamatsu said, "Yeah, we're at a point right now, this start we were looking for some improvement, and it went the other way. He's proved to us he's effective out of the bullpen, so we'll look at that and make some adjustments as we go forward.''
That leaves the door open for both Jason Vargas and Ryan Rowland-Smith to re-join the rotation. Olson's turn comes up Sunday against the Indians at Safeco Field. Chris Jakubauskas is another option
Ichiro had a funny comment about his game-saving catch, in which he robbed Victor Martinez with a leaping catch at the wall, with Shin-Soo Choo on first, two outs, and the Mariners up 5-3 in the ninth.
"The only thing that was in my iind as soon the ball made contact with the bat was to catch it. Just like a dog chasing after a Frisbee."
I asked him if he was inspired by all the great catches Franklin Gutierrez has made this series. "More than me being inspired, the way I see it is, a truly good outfielder plays like that. That's what I think by watching him. He doesn't make any unnecessary diving plays. He makes hard plays look easy, not easy plays look hard. I don't know if I'm able to do that but that is my goal."
Would it have been a home run if he hadn't caught it? "I don't know, but I caught it, so that's all that matters.''
Right on cue, RRS has reverted to his old self, or at least something very close to it. Since July 4th he’s made 3 starts, totally 21.1 IP, 15 H, 4 ER, 20K and 1 BB. Not only are the results looking better, but his velocity has been surging back to his pre-2009 levels and his curve has recovered some of its bite.
It’s still a mystery to me why RRS was looking so broken for so long, but the important thing is that he’s rebounded from whatever was holding him back and looks ready to secure a spot in the Seattle Mariners rotation
I loved this one ..
The Mariner players' first half performances, as things that can happen to you in the car.
- Erik Bedard: the air conditioner keeps shutting off every few minutes, and while it always manages to fix itself, you wish it would just turn on and stay on because it's a hundred degrees outside and you don't want to roll down the window.
- Adrian Beltre: you use the same six-hour permit on your dashboard to park downtown four nights in a row. On the fifth night, you get caught and your car is towed.
- Yuniesky Betancourt: the cop that pulled you over for texting while driving hands you the ticket then punches you in the face for being such a sad little fairy.
- Russell Branyan: drive-in movie with the prom queen who didn't win because of her intellect. And the movie is Braveheart or something.
- Felix Hernandez: reaching for some change to pay for your drive-through coffee, you open up the container you keep under the seat and find $200 in cash that you got from an ATM, stored away, and forgot about.
- Brandon Morrow: on a six-hour nighttime drive through the plains to meet up with friends at the cabin in the morning, the car's GPS breaks and you lose all sense of direction.
- Carlos Silva: you're driving around a lonely stretch of highway when your car starts to smell funny, and it breaks down just as you're crossing the train tracks, and then the railroad barriers sound off and lower themselves, and then your doors jam and won't open, and OH MY GOD THERE'S A COBRA IN THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT
- Jason Vargas: In-n-Out accidentally gives you an extra double-double free of charge.
- Jarrod Washburn: getting an oil change and buying new tires improves your car's performance by a couple mpg.
Jarrod Washburn and Nick Blackburn emerge from Fantasy oblivion to earn a rotation spot in roughly half of the leagues on this site. Washburn and Blackburn aren't just notable for their successes on the actual and virtual diamonds, but for achieving them without any significant change to their skill profiles. Both are sporting ERAs below 3.10 and below-average WHIPs despite the fact that neither misses a lot of bats. Owners are feelin' the 'burns, because the pair have improved their respective skill sets just enough to help with ERA, WHIP and wins. And a little bit of good luck hasn't hurt their stats much either. Washburn's WHIP would be nowhere near the neighborhood of 1.09 without a big assist from a .249 BABIP. Blackburn's 3.58 ERC tells us that someone with his skill ratios would have normally given up about seven more earned runs than he has by now. While both pitchers should continue to perform well enough to stay on mixed league rosters (though not necessarily on the active roster), both are practically locks to regress towards their more typical stats in the second half
You can't get rid of him now. At worst, you take the two picks when he signs elsewhere ..
Now, with the trade deadline less than three weeks away, and the Mariners a mere four games behind the Angels, they are still stuck with the difficult question of what to do with Erik Bedard? Love him or leave him? Trade him or keep him?"Keep him," Wakamatsu said.
A month ago, it seemed certain the Mariners would deal lefty starters Bedard and Jarrod Washburn. This season, after all, was about the future, not the present. But how do they deal them when Washburn is one of the hottest pitchers in the game; Bedard, finally, feels healthy; and the team is winning more games than anybody in baseball figured it could win?
The season is alive. Felix Hernandez is a Cy Young candidate, and with Washburn and a healthy Bedard, the Mariners have one of the strongest rotations in baseball.
"The Dolphin"? Even "Flipper" sounds better than "the Dolphin". Why not just call it what it is, a nasty curve.
Well, I guess the secret's out. That's right, one of the major weapons in Jarrod Washburn's arsenal tonight, besides his outfielders, was something catcher Rob Johnson calls a "Dolphin'' curveball. Washburn used to call it "The Flipper'' but hey, it works both way since it involves swimming mammals and their body parts. The idea is that the slow, looping pitch literally "flips'' out of his hand, sort of like dolphins that leap from the sea.read more »"I tried to get through the whole lineup the first time through without using the "Dolphin'','' he said. "And I was able to do that, I didn't use it. The second time through, I started mixing in the slow breaking ball a little more and just mixing up pitches a little more.''
