The Sun'll Come Out To Morrow

Yeah, okay. I've got to stop paying attention to the draft and pay more attention to work.

If you were stuck in meetings during the first few rounds, here's what's up:
- The Mariners selected Brandon Morrow at #5, which is sort of what people figured would happen, though most figured it would happen because Miller would be gone
- Luke Hochevar went #1 overall to the Royals (btw, pronounced HO-chay-vur according to that article; within the space of a minute three people pronounced it three completely separate ways)
- Dave Cameron is sad that the Tigers got Andrew Miller at #6
- UW funky pitcher Tim Lincecum goes to the Giants at #10 overall
- After the Pirates passed on him, the Phillies took Kyle Drabek at #18.
- Preston Mattingly, Donnie Baseball's son, went at #31 overall to the Dodgers.
- The Mariners took RHP Chris Tillman with second-round pick #49, LHP Anthony Butler with third-round pick #81, and RHP Enrique Orta with fourth-round pick #111.

More on Morrow:
- Conor Glassey interview with Brandon Morrow
- mlb.com article on Brandon Morrow
- Baseball Prospectus interview with Brandon Morrow
- Brandon Morrow player page for the Cal Bears

I have just a few brief thoughts:

It bugs me that the draft doesn't get the best players to the teams that need it the most due to the whole signability and money issue. I realize that first-round picks expect a decent signing bonus, but if the Royals seriously couldn't afford Andrew Miller, I see that as a problem.

Second, Brandon Morrow actually seemed pretty intriguing to me when I read Conor's interview with him a while back, and I'm not really that unhappy with the pick. He sounds like a pretty nice guy, and I don't see his diabetes as an issue; as it's been pointed out, Jason Johnson, currently of the Indians, is also a diabetic and has been pitching in the majors since 1997. So, let's hope this works out, and I look forward to trekking up to Everett to see these guys in a few weeks like I did for Jeff Clement last year.

Draft Dodging

Uh, the Mariners won tonight, 4-1 over the Royals. Are you surprised? I'm not.
Chase Utley rules. But you knew that already.
The draft starts tomorrow. We're taking a pitcher in the first round. We still don't know who.

I really don't feel like speculating on the draft, so I feel a need to read mindless Japanese tabloids, so here's yet another only-vaguely-baseball-related entry.

The gossip I've been reading about is all the stuff about the Chiba Lotte Marines' Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who is apparently pretty seriously involved with actress Sakura. They were introduced on a TV show called "Koisuru Hanikami" (aka "Honey Coming") back in January, which I'd actually watched part of and completely forgotten about. Basically, the show hooks up a pair of famous or semi-famous young adults on a "blind date", and generally the date is planned out by the previous couple on the show, and the cameras follow them around all day. It's sort of a combination reality show and dating show. Sometimes it can be extremely funny, sometimes it's just dumb, sometimes it's funny BECAUSE it's dumb. The episode with Nishioka and Sakura was kind of cool because they met up at Chiba Stadium for their "date" and spent part of it hanging out in the ballpark doing silly things like playing catch.

(Oh, heh, I found the clip of them on the "top ten best dates" one on YouTube, they're about 4 minutes in, after Edison Chen/Anne Suzuki and Hayami Mokomichi/Asami Reina.)

Anyway, six months later, they're apparently still dating, and various articles say that he apparently was talking about how important she is to him before a Yakult-Lotte game last week, and introduced her to his parents and all. I always sort of figured that most of the "dates" from that show never really led to anything in the future, so good for them!

Thanks to Gary Garland pointing it out.

Grady's Ladies co-founder killed by boyfriend

I wish this was a joke, but it's not. A few weeks ago I mentioned my bemusement at the cropping of Grady Sizemore fan clubs in the Cleveland area, noting that one of the biggest and most entertaining ones was the sisterhood of Grady's Ladies.

Well, apparently this weekend one of the founders of Grady's Ladies -- Michelle Mielecki -- was shot and killed by her boyfriend, who subsequently shot himself.

I don't really have words for this. I know it's not really baseball-related, but as a female baseball fan, I feel a lot of sympathy for what the rest of the group must be going through right now. It's pretty messed up.

Thanks to Conor for forwarding me the link, even if it freaked me out.

Game Report: Mariners vs. Royals - Kansasmari Damacity! Royals Rainbow!

The first rule of book club is: when book club sucks, you don't talk about book club. Only Josh and Gomez showed up, and Josh was 45 minutes late, so there wasn't much to it. We didn't pick a book for August, either... it might either end up being Fantasyland, or I might try to make everyone read something by Mike Sowell. If there's anyone out there actually planning to show up for book club in August who has a suggestion for a book, feel free to speak up. Oh, and July's book club meeting will be on July 8th. We're still covering Paths of Glory by Mark Armour et al.

Anyway, Josh and I went over to the Royals game afterwards. For whatever reason, Josh is still a Royals fan, and I feel really bad for him, because, my god, the Royals really suck. I mean, they let us score twelve runs. In one game! Sometimes we don't even score twelve runs in a week!

Short version: Uhhh... the Royals suck. Sexson hit two home runs. Beltre hit one. The Mariners scored TWELVE FREAKING RUNS to win the game 12-1. Seth Etherton and Andy Sisco suck so much that at one point the Mariners had seriously scored 9 runs on 4 hits. I'm not kidding. The Royals really should have scored more than one run, but Paul Bako got called out at the plate in one of the most ridiculous calls I've ever seen, since he was safe by a mile. Oh well.

Tonight was "Cloverdale Meats Trading Card Night", which means that every fan (well, the first 20,000, at least, which for most intents and purposes is every fan) got an envelope with 27 trading cards in it. Everyone's set, though, would have five missing cards, and five extra of one player, the idea being that you're supposed to go to their "trading posts" and get a complete set by trading with people. Last year, we showed up too late to really do anything much with the trading cards. This year, we had plenty of time, but I just didn't feel like dealing with it. My set has five extra Roberto Petagine cards, one of which I traded to a guy down the row from me for an extra George Sherrill. I suppose I should pawn the extras off on Paul at some point. Josh gave me a Mateo, and I'm still missing Meche, Moyer, Lawton, and Livingston, and I'm sure you can guess exactly how much I care.

Josh went up to our seats, and I said "I'm gonna go try to trade some cards," but once I saw the ridiculous crowds around the trading posts blocking the walkways, what I actually did was go down to the field as the Royals were coming in from batting practice and see if I could get any of them to sign my ticket. What an apathetic bunch of losers -- seriously, they didn't even look out at the stands as they came in, probably figuring they couldn't possibly have any fans as far away as Seattle. Jeremy Affeldt was out by section 148 signing stuff though, and when I got there, he was saying to a little girl, "But you don't have a pen!" So I offered up my sharpie to the girl like "Here, would you like to use mine?" Affeldt signed her arm, said to her, "I bet you have no idea what I just wrote!" and started to hand me back my pen, so I said, "Wait, can you sign my ticket too, Jeremy?" Of course, little did he know that he was probably one of maybe five guys on the Royals roster that I might actually recognize. Heh.


This is about the only way Jeremy Affeldt will get to leave his mark on baseball.

The first inning yielded three runs for the Mariners as Ichiro doubled, Lopez walked and ended up on second on a passed ball by Paul Bako, and Sexson hit his first home run of the night, a nice 420-foot shot into the bullpen.

The third inning yielded four more runs for the Mariners, as Josh was saying "blah blah everyone thinks they predicted Beltre would suck blah blah" and Beltre hit a 402-foot solo home run into the potted plants out behind the centerfield wall. A guy actually jumped down to get the ball, jumped back up, and then got chased down by ushers. It was pretty funny. Lopez walked again and ended up on third as Paul Bako threw a pickoff that went way over Mientkiewicz into right field, Ibanez walked, Sexson hit a sac fly to score Lopez (as Ibanez ran to second, and almost got himself tagged out to negate the run and end the inning), Everett walked, and Johjima hit a double to score everyone else. Seth Etherton came out of the game, and Andy Sisco came in, Josh telling me that Sisco was one of the few decent pitchers on the Royals staff.

The fourth inning was where I had to wonder what Josh was talking about, as Andy Sisco's command problems led to a point where his balls-strikes ratio was about the same as the Mariners runs-hits ratio, something like 18 balls and 10 strikes and the M's had scored 9 runs on 4 hits. Betancourt walked, Ichiro walked, they both executed a double steal, but then Beltre walked too. Lopez hit a sac fly and Ichiro and Betancourt advanced again. Ibanez hit into a double play, except Beltre knocked down Grudzielanek at second base and so it was just a forceout. Big Richie came up and hit his second home run of the evening, 392 feet into the right-field stands. Singles by Everett and Johjima followed, but Reed popped out to end the inning, as four runs were added to the Mariners tally for a score of 11-1 at this point.

As I said, the Royals should have scored a run in the third inning as Pineiro was letting singles up all over the place. Ibanez just looked terrible on a single by DeJesus, where the ball bounced into his stomach and he still couldn't hold on to it. So when Grudzilla hit a single out to left, Ibanez got it and threw the ball in. Bako was running home, and he was seriously safe by about a second as Johjima was about three feet to the right of the plate when the throw came in, but he got called out to end the inning. The Mariners ran off the field, the Royals ran ON the field to argue with the umpire, and the Mariners fans all cheered.

Pineiro gave up a bunch more singles in the fourth inning, starting off with a double to Doug Mientkiewicz, who was driven in by Matt Stairs. Stairs probably had the best night offensively of any Royals player, going 2-for-3, walking, and driving in a run. After the Royals scored a run in the fourth inning, Joel Pineiro really bore down on them in the fifth and struck out Bako, DeJesus, and Esteban German, who had come in to play when Grudzilla said, "I'm a real major leaguer. I refuse to participate in this debacle any longer."

The first four innings of the game took about two hours, and the last four innings of the game took about one hour, anyway, as the Royals bullpen actually isn't so bad, bringing out Elmer Dessens, Joel Peralta, Ambiorix Burgos (!) and Jimmy Gobble. The Mariners tacked on a run off Burgos in the 7th inning when Jeremy Reed singled and Ichiro drove him in a little bit later, making it 12-1.

At this point, I remember the family behind us having a conversation that went something like this:

Mom: "Now see, the guys in white are the Mariners. They're the home team. The guys in the blue uniforms are..." (pauses, either forgetting the team name or wanting her kid to speak up)

Little kid: "Evil."

Josh, cracking up: "I don't think the Royals are competent enough to be evil."

Then again, this is the same family that a few innings ago, the little kid asked "How come the Mariners players all start off with a ball and a strike on them and the other guys don't?"

The spelling bee thingy was a new clip, for Johjima. And of course, the guy who actually got it right was Japanese. I expected it to be the Pineiro one since he was pitching and all.

The "Ask the Mariners" was "What TV show would you want to be a guest star on?" I didn't get all the responses, but it was something like:

Hargrove: "Baywatch."
Sexson: "Survivorman." (What the hell is that?)
Bloomquist: "Grey's Anatomy." (The crowd cheered.)
Sherrill: "24."
Moyer: "CSI."
Beltre: "Friends." A pause. He looks at some guys off camera. "Why you laughing?"

Also, I don't think Carl Everett got the memo that said you're supposed to hit a home run on your birthday. So no cakewalk for him.

Ichiro was actually a home run short of the cycle. Josh and I sort of wondered if he'd get another plate appearance, but then they put in Bloomquist to play right field in the 8th. That was sort of lame. Nothing against Willie in this case, but it's not often you get a shot at something like that.

I really feel sort of bad for the Royals. I mean, they're just TERRIBLE, and aside from centerfielders, they don't seem to be capable of drafting and developing any real talent. The thing is, at some point, don't you have to wonder whether there's any point in continuing to put such a team out on the field? Josh pointed me at the amusing blog Royals Review, where they periodically contrast the 2006 Royals to the 2003 Tigers, the 1962 Mets, and the 1941 Phillies, all well-known for their complete inability to play baseball. The sad part is, the 2006 Royals are actually in last place compared to those others. This is not only a bad team, this has the potential to be a historically bad team.

Game Report: Mariners vs. Royals - Ibanez's Birthday Cakewalk

Wheeee, that was fun. Just a few hours before heading to the game, I suggested that it might be cool if Raul Ibanez got a home run for his birthday, and he did just that. Did you know that June 3rd is Carl Everett's birthday? Maybe he will hit a home run for his birthday too. That would be nice. I really wish I could go to June 8th's game with a big "誕生日おめでとうございます城島さん!" sign for Johjima, but it's an afternoon game. Damn. Petagine's birthday is June 7th (and Emiliano Fruto's is June 6th), too. Busy week.

Short version: Jamie Moyer got a 93-pitch, 2-hit, 2-hour complete-game shutout victory over the Kansas City Royals as the Mariners roiled the Royals, 4-0. This is sort of like saying "The Mariners went to the bakery and bought a cake and walked home with it," except it's more like "Jamie Moyer was just sitting there and some dude handed him a cake. It was decorated with back-to-back home runs by Jose Lopez and Raul Ibanez. Yuniesky Betancourt brought the paper plates and napkins and double plays, and everyone had a lovely walk." Besides the two home runs off of Bobby Keppel's 82nd and 83rd pitches of the night, the Mariners scored two runs in the 8th inning off Jeremy "It doesn't matter if I suck, I'm a Royal" Affeldt.


Shortest. Game. Ever.

To be honest, there isn't really very much to say about this game. It really is the shortest complete pro baseball game I remember attending. Not very much offense was mustered on either side. As a matter of fact, I was marvelling that it was only like 8:25pm at the start of the 7th inning, but wondering whether the game might go into extra innings if neither side could manage to score a run.

The bottom of the 7th inning really was probably the most exciting few minutes of the game in terms of offense; the 7th inning stretch was over, the game started again, Bobby Keppel threw his 82nd pitch of the evening to Jose Lopez, and BAM! it was over the left-field scoreboard. Neat! Then Birthday Boy Ibanez stepped up, and smacked the first pitch again into right field, deep, deeper, going, going, gone! Lopez's went 373 feet, Ibanez's went 351. Still, that was pretty cool. Richie Sexson came up and I was like "Okay, now it's Richie's turn to hit one," and a few pitches later he TOO hit a huge line drive out to left field. This one bounced into the platform between the scoreboard and the left field wall, though, and landed back on the field; Richie hadn't really been running hard since he thought it was a home run, so as he tried to get to second base, he was tagged out by a mile and credited with a single. Whoops.

Looking at my scorecard, between simple groundouts and double plays, Yuniesky Betancourt had a hand in acquiring 15 of the 27 outs. There were 6 straight 6-3 plays, and one that should have been a 6-4 but he threw the ball about two feet to the left of Lopez and into right field instead. There were 3 double plays involving him; two 6-4-3's and a 1-6-3. And the other three outs were popups, none of which were actually really in his territory, of course, but Betancourt's boundaries extend pretty much from Ibanez to the ball girl to the pitcher to the second base umpire, I think.

Seriously, though, Betancourt's glovework was fantastic. In the third inning, after Mientkiewicz had been hit by a pitch, Angel Berroa lined a ball at Betancourt hard. He got the ball but fell on his butt with the backward momentum, but WHILE SITTING ON THE GROUND still managed to flip the ball to Jose Lopez in time to get the double play. It was insane. In the 9th inning, he managed to get a grounder by John Buck, while running way back in the hole, and still fired it to first base in time. He's just one hell of a player; he makes the hard plays look routine and the superb plays look normal.

Beltre also had a hell of a nice stop off Esteban German in the 8th inning, where he went down on a knee to stop the ball, ended up spinning around on the ground with the momentum of it, but still trapped it and transferred it in time to throw it to first base off one knee.

The "Stump The Broadcaster" trivia was "What player holds the single-season record for most AB without a sacrifice hit?" Rick Rizzs had to choose between three players -- two of them were Frank Thomas and Garret Anderson, I forget the third -- and he went with Frank Thomas, but the answer was actually Anderson. Thomas has actually gone his entire career without ever hitting a sacrifice (bunts, I assume -- sac flies seem to be counted separately on b-ref), but Anderson has the record for single-season at-bats without a sacrifice, mostly because he gets more at-bats because he doesn't know how to take a walk.

I spent half the game bouncing up and down and singing "M-I-E-N-T-K-I-E-W-I-C-Z" over and over again. For some reason, I couldn't come up with a good tune to sing "G-R-U-D-Z-I-E-L-A-N-E-K"; I think it's got something to do with the hop of the "double-u". Instead, I ended up just referring to him as Grudzilla.

Anyway, yay, book club today! Saturday! 5pm! Elliott Bay! Yankees suck, hooray! Royals suck too! Joel Pineiro vs. Seth Etherton, whoever the heck that is.

Happy Birthday, Raul Ibanez

Hey, today is Raul Ibanez's birthday. The Mariners are playing the Royals, which are the only teams Ibanez has spent time with in his career. Hopefully he'll step up and hit a home run tonight. That would be cool.

(Oddly, in a weird coincidence, my ballparks calendar lists Gene Michael as their June 2 birthday, and people who have read this month's book club book would have just recently read quite a bit about Gene Michael's tenure as a player and manager and GM of the Yankees. It's a sign. YOU MUST COME TO BOOK CLUB TOMORROW.)

Anyway, I'm going to the Mariners game tonight, so I'll have a game report tomorrow. For now I just have some varied and sundry links to share, mostly from other blogs.

Jason Churchill at the Prospect Insider shares the amusing parts of a conversation with Travis Blackley, including gems such as "I get to face Clemens in two weeks, dude. Yeah, he’s going down. I’m going to be looking for an autograph, but Clemens is going down. Just give me one run."

Jim Caple at ESPN's Page 2 has his own take on the whole Clemens thing.

Paul at Mariners Morsels has some intriguing ideas for boosting attendance at Safeco. Now, I'm all for Dollar Dog Night, but "Turn Ahead The Clock" might be a bit much...

Both The 700 Level and Conor Glassey have mentioned the auctions which are up on mlb.com right now for the pink Mother's Day stuff. Seriously, those home plates signed by the whole team are pretty cool, I think. I'll be doing Race For The Cure in a few weeks though, so that's when my charitable donations will end up getting to the Komen foundation.

In general, I don't read a lot of mlblogs; most of them that I've stumbled upon make my head hurt. However, I've finally found one that I'm pretty addicted to - Zack Hample's The Baseball Collector. Not only is he a pretty good writer, but the stories are really entertaining to read, and like me, he's into taking random trips to other baseball parks fairly often. I'm pretty jealous of his ability to get baseballs, though; my only one in recent memory has been from Willie Bloomquist. I'm not a good enough stalker, obviously.

Contrary to my last statement, actually, I do read Dan Haren's blog and David Wright's blog on mlblogs.

I really wish Nick Swisher would write a blog, since he's one of the most entertaining guys in baseball and I'm a huge fan of his. At least ESPN is covering him in a series they're calling Sophomore Year; I'll have to remember to check that from time to time.

Bobby Valentine shares some pictures from a series of ads he did for Shinsei Bank. It's really scary how... right he looks in those ads. Seriously, Bobby's got to have the best life ever. The other day he was recording with DEEN, and before that he was hanging out with infielder Matt Franco's uncle, Kurt Russell.

I forgot to mention the no-hitter former Mariners farmhand Rick Guttormson threw against the Rakuten Golden Eagles last week. Sure, the Eagles are like Japan's version of the Royals, and Watanabe almost no-hit them earlier this year too aside from that whole ejection thing, but still. This was the first no-hitter by a Yakult Swallows pitcher since Kazuhisa Ishii pulled it off in 1997.

And on a last note, since I need to mention something Phillies, Gavin Floyd was finally optioned, and Eude Brito was called up to take his place. With Jon Lieber on the DL for a month, this leaves the rotation at Myers, Lidle, Hamels, Madson, and Brito. Should be interesting to see where things end up by the time Lieber's ready to come back.

Book Club Reminder and Other Fun

Hey, look at this, it's June. Do you know what that means? It means that Book Club is meeting this Saturday. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, and if you've read The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, or hell, even if you haven't, but want to talk with the group and maybe come up with some future stuff to read, show up at Elliott Bay at 5pm or a little before, and come along to see the Mariners play the Royals, one of the few teams we have a decent shot of beating.

Something happened today, something very, very momentous. Something that hadn't happened in a long, long time. Do you know what I'm talking about, my friends?

No, I'm not talking about the Mariners finally winning a freaking game already. Yes, yes, it had been a week since they'd last done that, and I am happy for them, yes indeed.

No, I'm not even talking about Roger Clemens signing a contract, making him a major leaguer again for the first time since the 2005 World Series ended seven months ago. I do realize that his family could not quite match the Astros' offer, but he may get to pitch in a game with his son next week, which is kind of cool.

No, I'm not even talking about the fact that Chase Utley is trailing Craig Biggio by only 17k votes in the All-Star balloting for National League second basemen. I mean, the last time a Phillies second baseman was in the All-Star game was 1995, and it should be noted that Mickey "Eeny Meeny" Morandini ALSO lost to Craig Biggio in the balloting.

No, this is something that's more wonderful, something that hasn't happened since July 27, 2004.

Take a look at this box score! Do you see what I see? Those words that make you take a second look at the page, like, "Did that really happen? It can't be."

The words that say "J. Kendall homered to deep left".

Jason Kendall hit a home run today! Jason Kendall hit a home run today! Oh my god, the sky is falling!

What's all the Fuss-ano about?

Enrico Campitelli, who writes The 700 Level, was apparently quoted in a New York Daily News article recently. Rico's got quite a few Fasano-related entries on his blog already; it's no wonder he was contacted as a source for it, as the Sal's Pals group themselves don't seem to have a cohesive website yet.

Now, the thing is... who the hell would ever dream of writing an article comparing Sal Fasano to Alex Rodriguez? But, that's exactly what the NYDN did in this article: Phillies role player has one thing A-Rod doesn't: Respect.

Rodriguez is a lot like "Titanic" - the movie, that is - a big-budget award winner with millions of supporters, but seemingly just as many detractors. Fasano's Philadelphia story would be more like "Office Space," a cult hit that nobody could have expected - not to mention his striking resemblance to Diedrich Bader's character in that film.

Well, anyway. I haven't quite finished working with all the pictures I took in Philly, but this was one of my favorites, actually, showing how Fasano's fans have been getting into the act:


Screw Billy Wagner, South Philly has a new hero.

Unfortunately, you know, when I think about it, the closest thing Seattle currently has to Sal's Pals is the Kitsap Kounty Klan, aka Willie's Worshippers.