Seattle Mariners

Just when it seemed Josh Hamilton's dismal season couldn't get any worse, the Los Angeles Angels right fielder grounded into three double plays and struck out twice Tuesday night in a 3-2, 10-inning loss to the Seattle Mariners in Angel Stadium. Read more Josh Hamilton news

Tom Wilhelmsen cost Jeremy Bonderman the win, but not the Mariners. Wilhelmsen held it together long enough in the eighth and the ninth before leaving with two on and two out. Charlie Furbush finished that inning off by striking out Josh Hamilton. Then, Kendrys Morales finished his former team off in the 10th with a slicing line drive single off the glove of leaping shortstop Erick Aybar. That scored Kyle Seager from second after his two-out double off Garrett Richards and the Mariners went on to a 3-2 win. Yoervis Medina finished off the Angels 1-2-3 in the 10th for his first career save. Not a textbook way to win, but it counts as a win nontheless. Mariners manager Eric Wedge said Wilhelmsen will have to get used to pitching in situations he hasn't in a while. “You’ve got to use your guys in your bullpen and Tommy’s a guy we’ve got to use, even though he’s in a different role,’’ Wedge said. “Otherwise, he can’t be here. So, that was the situation tonight.’’ Wedge wanted Medina to close and wasnot going to use him earlier. He'd sent Oliver Perez out in the seventh because of a bunch of switch-hitters and possibly lefty Josh Hamilton due up. Left-hander Furbush has been used a lot lately and was only available to face a batter or two. That left a choice between Danny Farquhar or Wilhelmsen and Wedge went with the latter. Then, when Wilhelmsen blew the save, Wedge still needed somebody to work the tie game in the non-save situation ninth. So, he stuck with Wilhelmsen. “There were a couple of guys we wanted to try to stay away from and Tommy (Wilhelmsen) is the guy to go to right there,’’ Wedge said, referring mainly to Carter Capps in the "stay away" part. “It’s a fresh inning. We had to send him out there for the next inning too because of what ended up happening.’’ Josh Hamilton is now just 2-for-12 with six strikeouts lifetime against Furbush, who came at him with nothing but breaking balls for that ninth-inning strikeout with two on and two out. “I was definitely giving him a heavy dose of breaking balls,’’ Furbush said. “It’s just something that in the past has worked for me against him. I decided to go with my best pitch there and see how it turned out.’’ Justin Smoak had a good night swinging the bat and hitting some balls hard, including that homer off Joe Blanton on the first pitch he saw coming off the DL. “Raul had gone deep right there, so I was sitting dead-red first pitch,’’ said Smoak, who figured Blanton would try to land a fastball for an early strike. “I got a fastball and put a pretty good swing on it.’’ Smoak said his timing at the plate was not an issue. “I felt great,’’ Smoak said. “I felt like I hit three balls hard. So, it’s one of those things where you’ve just got to keep putting in the work.’’ So, the Mariners improve to 3-2 on this trip. They have Felix Hernandez going on Thursday night, so, if Joe Saunders can surprise people tomorrow night, maybe the Mariners -- if they figure out how to score in more than an inning or two -- might really salvage something on the road here. This was the first step.

Source: FanGraphs Life Essence: Tie - Jeremy Bonderman, Kendrys Morales. (.272 WPA)Leach: Tom Wilhelmsen (-.188 WPA) Jeremy Bonderman came into the game with a 3.68 ERA, 3.90 K/9 and corresponding 5.22 FIP. He lowered two of those number tonight, although not the one that usually best predicts future success. After tonight Bonderman's K/9 is 2.92. 2.92! The lowest qualified K/9 this year is Scott Diamond at 4.07. This is what vintage Carlos Silva looks like but with more walks. This is not a major league pitcher. The revolution of the last decade with pitcher evaluation has revolved largely around the idea of separating what a pitcher can/cannot control. Tonight in 6 innings Jeremy Bonderman's BABIP was a lowish .250. He walked 3, hit a batter, struck out none, allowed 10 baserunners and did not allow a run. Again, 10 baserunners in 6 innings, 0 runs. You can already hear the roar of the waves. The tide of regression is washing ashore for Jeremy Bonderman. It is an ill tide filled with dread, and that's too bad. Comeback stories are always fun to root for. Bonderman has overcome a long battle with injury to reach the major leagues. But this comeback story isn't a heartwarming Disney movie. It's your friend's Vine. It's short and it sucks. One of the last pillars of the Tom Wilhelmsen House of Sand came crashing down tonight as he finally allowed a dinger. Tasked with holding a one run lead in the 8th Wilhelmsen thew this to Albert Pujols:Pujols did this and the game was tied. It followed the recent trend of Wilhelmsen getting super terrible results and given the pitch location and hitter face it's hard to argue it wasn't merited. However, the overall line shows 1.2 IP and 16 of 25 pitches for strikes, including a sexy curveball appearance to strikeout Peter Bourjos. Wilhelmsen was going to give up a home run this year, and he did. To Alber Pujols. But the rest of the outing? It was better, and that's nice. As always it's a small data point. Baseball is an endless collection of tiny data points that are meaningless until they aren't. Keep watching. More importantly keep reading your clicks pay for my daughter's diapers. For some reason there is almost nothing in baseball that infuriates me more than the LHH strike zone. It strikes me as incredibly unfair. A batter standing on one side of the plate operates with a completely different set of one of baseball's core tenants than a batter standing on the other side. Enough ramble. Look at the glorious testament to incompetence John Hirschbeck gave baseball tonight: (via Brooks Baseball)That is a breathtakingly huge strike zone. The Mariners strike out. A lot. It's easy to roll eyes when you see Cupcakes Blanton match his career high with 11 K. But remember that left handed hitters, of which Seattle started 7 tonight, had to deal with pitches ~.17 Altuves outside the strike zone being called strikes. Please, please fix this MLB. It's beyond frustrating. Justin Smoak returned from injury tonight. The first pitch he saw he hit for a home run. He hit a would be double that was caught because Peter Borjous has one of those Animal Power Suits from Wild Kratts (I watch a lot of PBS kids shows) set to "Antelope". He hit another ball hard on the ground that resulted in an out. It was the classic Smoak peep show. There is almost no way that Justin Smoak is going to end up being anything other than an average bat at a position that requires the bat to be above average. But until this team finds a better solution he's going to play, and he's going to tease. Josh Hamilton: 0-5, 3 GIDP, 2 K, 8 outs. Season line: .213/.269/.388, 73/19 K/BB. Josh Hamilton is like concentrated schadenfreude. I don't wish him any personal failure or ill will but I cannot resist the urge to take great, great gobs of joy from the pain he causes Angel fans. May it continue.

Kendrys Morales hit an RBI single in the 10th inning against his former team, leading the Seattle Mariners to a 3-2 victory against the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night. Read more Kendrys Morales news

We've talked about it before, but if the Mariners want to keep this goal of a .500 season intact, they will have to come out of this road trip with a winning record. Fall to 10 games under and they're pretty much toast. Right now, they're at nine under .500 with three games left on this trip. Time for the Mariners to surprise people by taking two of three. Three of three would be real good, but, well, baby steps with this bunch. They aren't calling Dustin Ackley up yet to play the outfield, so apparently, they are convinced the guys on-hand can get it done. Time to prove it.

Jeremy Bonderman vs. Joe Blanton, 7:10pm If last night’s match-up focused on a trade/acquisition that works out exactly as you’d hope, tonight’s features the opposite. Joe Blanton looks very much like the pitcher he was in Philadelphia – he’s an average GB%, solid K%, low walk pitcher who gets the most out of a 90mph fastball and an assortment of bendy pitches. He’s a junkballer, but he’s carved out a niche for himself by being a dependable middle- to back-of-the-rotation starter. The Angels, sensibly, thought that by taking a guy out of a HR-aiding park like Philly’s and inserting him in HR-neutralizing Anaheim, they’d get the great K:BB ratio without paying a penalty in gopher-balls. Well, that deal’s worked fine, but the Angels aren’t collecting lots of kudos for signing Blanton to a 2-year, $15m deal. Part of the reason is that Anaheim can’t protect Blanton in away games. He’s given up 11 homers in 7 road games, and batters are slugging .592 off him away from So Cal. But that doesn’t mean he’s been brilliant at home. Blanton’s game works when his BABIP is under .300. This year, it’s .368. Sure, some of that is clearly luck, but his LD% and the homers suggest that batters are getting a good look at his pitches. His FIP isn’t terrible despite all of the HRs thanks to the K:BB ratio, but his ERA is pushing 6. It’d actually be worse if he wasn’t pitching relatively well with RISP; he’s getting torched with the bases empty. In any event, this is not the rotation-stabilizer they thought they were getting when they picked up Blanton (and traded Ervin Santana away). Bonderman’s been better recently as his sinker has a bit more sink, allowing him to post great GB numbers against righties. He’s throwing a ton of sliders, which has been effective (in a tiny sample, SSS warning here) in generating weak contact. But just as we saw with Brandon Maurer, he doesn’t have a good pitch to go to against lefties. As a result, they’re destroying him. But also like Maurer, he may find some success against the Angels’ righty-heavy line-up. 1: Chavez, RF 2: Franklin, 2B 3: Seager, 3B 4: Morales, DH 5: Ibanez, LF 6: Smoak, 1B 7: Zunino, C 8: Saunders, CF 9: Ryan, SS SP: Bonderman -- This post came from: U.S.S. Mariner, and is copyright by the authors. This RSS feed is intended for the personal use of readers and not, for instance, spam blogs.Game 71, Mariners at Angels

Justin Smoak is getting dressed in the clubhouse as we speak and can't wait to get back on the field, having not started a game since May 26. He's back in the lineup tonight, playing first base. "I just need to stay locked in to what I was doing,'' he said. "Just be ready to hit and let it fly. Hopefully, that's where I'm going to be from here on out.''

It was annouced earlier that Justin Smoak will be recalled from Triple-A Tacoma, following his recent rehab stint for his strained oblique. In accordance with the move, corner infielder Alex Liddi will be sent back down to Triple-A, which has been his off and on home for the past couple of seasons. Smoak played in 5 games with Tacoma, hitting .238/.273/.333 with a couple of doubles. That obviously doesn’t mean much however, so take it as a grain of salt. As for Liddi, it was only a matter of time until he returned to his pseudo-home of Tacoma. As tradition, he struggled in his brief playing time during his call-up. In just 18 at bats he had just one hit, while striking out 7 times. He will return to AAA as he tries to make himsef into more than a organization filler, but that is unlikely to happen. He has been about average with the Rainiers this year, so I wouldn’t expect much moving forward. While this move may seem pretty cut and dry, there are some larger implications at hand. As if the team was not already filled with enough 1B/DH types, Michael Morse seems to still be suffering from an injury, while Kendrys Morales just returned from one of his own. Morse may not see much time in the outfield for a little while, so that leaves three guys for two spots. Morales obviously deserves to play as much as he can, so that leaves the other two batting for time. While Morse has been underwhelming himself this year, he has fared better at the plate than Smoak has. He currently has a 118 wRC+, to Smoak’s 105. Defensively however, it is a different story. By most accounts, Smoak is average or better at 1st. Morse? Not so much. It all depends on what the team is going for. Offense seems to be the main priority, as the outfield defense has been terrible. That suggests Morse will get the majority of the time, until he is able to return to the outfield. However, this team has stuck with Smoak this long, and may like what he has been able to do in terms of getting on base. The most likely case is some kind of time share. I am not saying they will split it evenly into thirds, but I doubt any of the three will be relegated to full time bench duty. It will be interesting to see how the M’s decide to handle the problem that they created, and that was bound to pop up at some point. In my opinion, Smoak belongs on the bench as a late inning defensive replacement and pinch hitter. But I doubt the M’s and I will see eye to eye.

The Seattle Mariners activated first baseman Justin Smoak from the 15-day disabled list on Tuesday. Read more Justin Smoak news

First baseman Justin Smoak was activated by the Mariners on Tuesday after 20 days on the disabled list with a strained oblique muscle, with infielder Alex Liddi optioned to Triple-A Tacoma to make room on the 25-man roster. Smoak hit .238 (5-for-21) with two doubles and one RBI in five rehab games with Tacoma, including a 2-for-5 effort with a double on Monday in Sacramento. The Mariners can use Smoak’s return, as first baseman Kendrys Morales has been limited to designated hitter duties in recent days by a sore back. Outfielder Michael Morse has also been filling in at first base, but he’s been slowed the past two weeks by a strained quadriceps muscle in his right leg. “It’s important,” manager Eric Wedge said of Smoak’s return. “He’s a fantastic first baseman and he was heading in the right direction offensively before he got hurt.” Smoak, 26, was hitting .240 with three home runs and eight RBIs in 46 games before he injured the muscle in his right side on a checked swing on May 25. He made one appearance as a pinch hitter on May 29 before going on the 15-day disabled list. Smoak’s on-base percentage of .350 is the highest of any Mariners starter other than rookie second baseman Nick Franklin, who has put up a .382 mark in his first 20 games. Liddi hit .059 (1-for-17) in eight games in limited duty while filling in mostly at first base since being called up from Tacoma on May 29.