Bad Fanmanship

Is it just me, or are the Tampa Bay (Devil) Ray fans really bad?

For one, it’s surprising to see so many at a game…

Sure, it’s their home opener, the team is loaded with young talent, and there is a new, state of the art stadium on the way…

But it’s still the Rays. When have they ever had a decent fan base?

I don’t want this post to be taken as a diatribe against the Rays, their fans, or anything associated with their organization.

I like the Rays, and I really do like their chances of finishing as a better team than the New York Yankees this season.

Yet, tonight I guess I saw what may just possibly be a bad representation of the population of the greater Tampa/St. Pete area.

It wasn’t just the full blown shot of the fan giving a standing, double bird salute before commercials that was ugly, even more unappealing was the chours of boos that resonated between plays, and cheers, for the next couple innings…to this point still in fact.

Yes, it was a close play at third. Yes, BJ Upton kicks serious ass, and proved how much of a baller he was by sliding in ahead of the throw at third while running with one shoe out of the batters box. But, after multiple replays, there was no conclusive proof that Beltre DIDN’T block that play with his leg.  Completely legal. Completely pimp.

Wendlestadt was right on top of the play. He made a great call.

M’s just won. Good show from the bullpen tonight. Corcoran will have to stay once JJ is back. Who leaves?

Grow up TB fans, you got a fun team to root for.

Has Eric O’Flaherty “lost his confidence?”

The numbers that Eric O’Flaherty has posted in his first five outings have been pretty atrocious: in less than three innings, Eric has allowed nine base runners, five of which have come around to score.  All seven of the hits he’s allowed have been against left-handed batters, for a .636 average and a 1.182 OPS.  Not exactly what you’d like to see from your left-handed specialist whose job it is to get left-handers out.

I argued against the Bedard-Jones trade when the rumors were reaching a fever peak during the off season.  Besides decimating the offense for a pitcher we’d have no guarantee for keeping long term (the seemingly prescient prediction of 3-2 and 2-1 scores seems utterly obvious), we would also be dealing reliable lefty set-up man George Sherrill, hoping that the 23-year old O’Flaherty could be slotted in Sherrill’s stead.  The night-and-day performances between the two pictures so far this year prove otherwise.  As much as it hurt watching Sherrill pick up three saves during the four-game Oriole sweep, it hurts even more when you realize that O’Flaherty has lowered his ERA in only one of his outings, a scoreless inning against the Orioles on Saturday that dropped his ERA six points.

Now McLaren is asking out loud whether O’Flaherty has lost his confidence, and whether he should just be utilized in low-pressure situation.  This is a profoundly negative turn of events at this point in the season, especially when it leaves Ryan Rowland-Smith, whose splits between right handerd (.804 OPS) and left handed batters (.762) are negligible, as the left-handed specialist.

Oh to have Sherrill back.  I still have a continued profound distrust of the Bedard-Jones trade, and a strong suspicion that the outcome will be a handful of negatives against the Mariners that cancel out any positives that Erik is able to bring to the pitcher’s mound.  Perhaps my stance can be broken if Bedard delivers a seven-inning, two-hit, no-run, 11-strikeout performance (but most importantly a win!) against the Rays.  Otherwise, if you were to ask me at this moment if I’d rather have George Sherrill or Erik Bedard on the Mariners’ roster, my answer would be in favor of Sherill.

The Slaughter at Camden Yards

Four games, four losses.  I guess the Orioles are a real baseball team after all.

Of course, we all miss J.J. as the closer.  Yes, the M’s bullpen had a 10.57 ERA in 7.2 innings of the four game series against the Orioles, while the starting pitching racked up a 3.96 ERA.  But that’s only half the story.

The other half is that the M’s hit a miserable .203 over the past four games, and despite hitting seven home runs, it resulted in little production as the M’s were not able to get on base.  Scoring 14 runs over four games- while also walking 14 times- isn’t going to lead to very much wins.

Oh well, I guess the M’s felt obliged to let their old friend George Sherrill rack up three saves against them.

So there is a breakdown in two key parts of the M’s game plan: the bullpen, which was a strength from last year when J.J. asserted himself as the best closer in the league, and the offense, which we all knew was going to struggle to push across runs.

The road trip continues with a mid-week series at Tampa Bay, where the Rays have just finished playing the Yankees tough, and where the Mariners played an intense series last year.  The Rays are no longer the laughing stock of the league.  With a scary offensive line-up, and a rotation stocked with solid pitching (lacking the Cy Young candidate Scott Kazmir currently due to arm troubles) this series is not going to be a push-over.  The M’s might be lucky to scratch out a game, but a sweep on Tampa Bay’s end is also likely.

At least the M’s have Bedard and his a 10-3 career record against Tampa Bay to turn to to put an end to this slide.  Also going for the M’s is that Matt Garza- who has allowed 10 runs in nine innings against the M’s- is taking the hill for the Rays.  Of course, seeing how the Mariners’ offense folded against the likes of Steve Trachsel and Daniel Cabrera, that means absolutely nothing.

I guess the M’s felt that they had to defer to the Angels, despite their shortage of pitching, as they are the defending AL West champions.  And probably forever will be.