Series Thread: M's @ Reds May 20-22

[Podunkparte]

Sweep! Even spotted them 3

 

[Anointed One]

Man, Rangers keep on winning as well... Still 1.5 up on them though... Gotta make our home stand count!

 

[Anointed One]

What I love about this team is that we're never out of a game it seems... We continue to chip away at a lead or we continue to add on to our lead throughout the entire game instead of relying on just one big inning like we did last year... This is fun baseball...

 

[JMR]

Agreed... They've relied on the HR a lot this year... With the June schedule coming up, they'll definitely need to be more productive with RISP...

Mariners have hit more HRs off lefties than any other team the last couple years. Power hitting is just part of this team's make-up. To me that's only a problem if you can't score runs when the long ball isn't there. So far I think we've been pretty unsuccessful "manufacturing runs" but at least today we put up 5 w/o going yard.

 

[gohusk]

Looks like a team that learned from all of their mistakes last season. They've had two opportunities to implode (1-5 homestand to open it and getting sweeped by the angels) and bounced back great. It's not even June yet but I'm optimistic at this point. Looks like the playoff drought is going to end and I think they can stack up against anybody. Walker needs to pull his head out of his ass and just throw his stuff though. He's thinking way too much out there. He's not going to be a guy like Felix so there's no point in trying to turn him into that.

 

[Tech_God]

This is fun baseball...

 

[Anointed One]

Mariners have hit more HRs off lefties than any other team the last couple years. Power hitting is just part of this team's make-up. To me that's only a problem if you can't score runs when the long ball isn't there. So far I think we've been pretty unsuccessful "manufacturing runs" but at least today we put up 5 w/o going yard.

I agree with your premise but when you're a club that relies on the HR for run support for the most part, it usually will end up costing you down the road... We're 3rd in HR's and 23rd in MLB in hits & OBP... The hits will need to improve against the better teams in the league... June will be a great measuring stick at where this team really is in comparison to the better teams in the league... The run production we're getting now is great via the HR but is it sustainable? Who knows...

Don't get me wrong... This is a fun season so far and one I don't want to take for granted... I'm just a bit concerned if we don't improve in the RISP category... Today was a pleasant surprise with the way we manufactured our runs but it was at the expense of lousy pitching... We'll need to do that more often against the better teams if we're going to win this division...

 

[NWinAZ]

Seattle Mariners Retweeted
Gary Hill ‏@GaryHillJr 3h3 hours ago


Mariners Bullpen in the sweep of the Reds: 9 IP 2 H 0 R 0 BB 8 K Sensational

 

[dude82]

Lee isn't a rookie though, not really. Yes it's his first year in MLB, but he has a body of work as well that IMO should not be discounted. He has been a solid slugger for years in Korea and Japan, but one that has always hit for a good average too. I've been impressed with Lee so far this year, he's hitting well not being able to play every day and has added so much more to this team than Lind has with less playing time. I am going to agree with the people saying that Lee should play more, until production demands otherwise. Would Lee keep up his production as an everyday player? I don't know, but I personally wouldn't mind seeing if he can.

He's faced and will continue to face an entirely different league of pitchers now that he's in the majors, so for all intents and purposes, even if he had great numbers in the Korean and Japanese Leagues, he's a rookie. Again, I'm not suggesting that they give Lind a long leash for the whole season, but against Major League right handers, he has a multi-season history of hitting well; whereas Lee has a six week history of hitting well and his sample size against righties is even smaller than that. That's why Servais is going to continue to view Lind as the better option against righties. Lee will continue to get at-bats against lefty starters and will likely continue to increase his sample size against righties as well, but it's not going to be a significant increase. Not just yet anyway.

 

[NWinAZ]

He's faced and will continue to face an entirely different league of pitchers now that he's in the majors, so for all intents and purposes, even if he had great numbers in the Korean and Japanese Leagues, he's a rookie. Again, I'm not suggesting that they give Lind a long leash for the whole season, but against Major League right handers, he has a multi-season history of hitting well; whereas Lee has a six week history of hitting well and his sample size against righties is even smaller than that. That's why Servais is going to continue to view Lind as the better option against righties. Lee will continue to get at-bats against lefty starters and will likely continue to increase his sample size against righties as well, but it's not going to be a significant increase. Not just yet anyway.

I posted this before but I will post it again.

Lind 2015 2nd half: .256/.339/.389 and 2016 to date: .227/.252/.336

Point being, recent history is more important barometer than what he did in his overall career as a 32 year old. Just my opinion.

 

[unlvmariners]

Seattle Mariners Retweeted
View attachment 120596 Gary Hill ‏@GaryHillJr 3h3 hours ago


Mariners Bullpen in the sweep of the Reds: 9 IP 2 H 0 R 0 BB 8 K Sensational

That is really awesome. Above and beyond what is expected

 

[dude82]

I posted this before but I will post it again.

Lind 2015 2nd half: .256/.339/.389 and 2016 to date: .227/.252/.336

Point being, recent history is more important barometer than what he did in his overall career as a 32 year old. Just my opinion.

Sure, but compared to someone who had no history of hitting against Major League pitching, he's gonna get the benefit of the doubt. If he's still putting up numbers like this by the end of June, maybe the M's will start to phase him out at first and use Dae-Ho more, but for right now it's known vs. unknown. Shark brought up a good point earlier too... it's hard to know how much of Lee's success is due to his just being a good hitter and how much of it stems from the league getting their first looks at him and not knowing the best way to get him out yet. He hasn't seen very many pitchers in the league twice yet because he's usually only in there a couple times a week either to start against a lefty or to pinch hit. Now, he seems to have made the right adjustments to offspeed pitches since Spring Training, so he's shown the ability to make adjustments when he needs to, but it'll be interesting to see how the league's pitchers adjust to him as the season goes on and how he, in turn, reacts to those adjustments.

 

[NWinAZ]

Sure, but compared to someone who had no history of hitting against Major League pitching, he's gonna get the benefit of the doubt. If he's still putting up numbers like this by the end of June, maybe the M's will start to phase him out at first and use Dae-Ho more, but for right now it's known vs. unknown. Shark brought up a good point earlier too... it's hard to know how much of Lee's success is due to his just being a good hitter and how much of it stems from the league getting their first looks at him and not knowing the best way to get him out yet. He hasn't seen very many pitchers in the league twice yet because he's usually only in there a couple times a week either to start against a lefty or to pinch hit. Now, he seems to have made the right adjustments to offspeed pitches since Spring Training, so he's shown the ability to make adjustments when he needs to, but it'll be interesting to see how the league's pitchers adjust to him as the season goes on and how he, in turn, reacts to those adjustments.

I agree with that, but doesn't mean it should be that way. If Lind has been struggling just this year with a new team, then yes. But it has been a longer stretch, but I know they won't make a change. I think it was cezero who said it earlier; (paraphrasing) no changes this early when they are winning.

 

[dude82]

Looks like a team that learned from all of their mistakes last season. They've had two opportunities to implode (1-5 homestand to open it and getting sweeped by the angels) and bounced back great. It's not even June yet but I'm optimistic at this point. Looks like the playoff drought is going to end and I think they can stack up against anybody. Walker needs to pull his head out of his ass and just throw his stuff though. He's thinking way too much out there. He's not going to be a guy like Felix so there's no point in trying to turn him into that.

As exciting as it was to watch him pitch for the first month or so of the season, it's easy to forget that this is only his second full season in the major leagues. He's still going to run into the same kinds of problems that young pitchers tend to run into from time to time. There will be days when he overthinks things, there will be days when he will stubbornly stick with a pitch that he doesn't quite have command of instead of going to his other pitches sooner. He'll get there, but we can't expect there not to be some growing pains with him at times, even when he's coming off of a good start or a good string of starts. I think he'll be fine.

 

[dude82]

I agree with that, but doesn't mean it should be that way. If Lind has been struggling just this year with a new team, then yes. But it has been a longer stretch, but I know they won't make a change. I think it was cezero who said it earlier; (paraphrasing) no changes this early when they are winning.

That's the other major reason why they haven't made a change yet and probably won't for a while, even if it seems obvious that a change is necessary. They've been winning despite his and several others' (including Aoki until very recently, Martin until very recently, Marte for the first couple weeks of the season and Seager until the beginning of May) lack of production and as long as that remains the case, they can afford to be more patient with him than they might otherwise be or than some fans would like them to be.

I'd also suggest that it's really easy to call for changes when things aren't working early in the season, because lack of production tends to stand out more at the beginning of the season than in the middle. If Lind had gotten off to a good start this year and was only just now starting to hit the way that he's actually been hitting so far this season, and everything else was the same, I don't know if we'd be having this conversation. In other words, if he started out hot and was hitting like this in June/July, we'd probably be writing it off as a slump instead of a problem big enough as to require a decrease in playing time. I think they'll give him at least a few more weeks and if they aren't seeing any progress by then, we could see Lee take the bulk of the playing time at first base.

The last thing I'll mention is that he went through a stretch of games where he was hitting the ball hard a lot and just not finding holes. If he'd managed to avoid a few more gloves during that stretch, he might have been able to pull out of his funk back then. Obviously that doesn't account for all of his struggles at the plate, but given how little it takes this time of year to go from terrible stats to decent stats, I thought it was worth mentioning that he's had some bad luck mixed in with his bad execution.

 

[JMR]

I agree with your premise but when you're a club that relies on the HR for run support for the most part, it usually will end up costing you down the road... We're 3rd in HR's and 23rd in MLB in hits & OBP... The hits will need to improve against the better teams in the league... June will be a great measuring stick at where this team really is in comparison to the better teams in the league... The run production we're getting now is great via the HR but is it sustainable? Who knows...

Don't get me wrong... This is a fun season so far and one I don't want to take for granted... I'm just a bit concerned if we don't improve in the RISP category... Today was a pleasant surprise with the way we manufactured our runs but it was at the expense of lousy pitching... We'll need to do that more often against the better teams if we're going to win this division...

Well, it stands to reason that it's harder to hit HRs against the better teams because typically the better teams have quality pitching. We are definitely benefitting from the long ball so far. Too early to tell if we are relying on it.