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Don Kessinger

Archive for category Seattle Mariners

Tracking The Transactions

Jun 16

Posted by Jerry Milani in News, Seattle Mariners, Tracking The Transactions | No Comments

The transactions listings have always been one of my favorite parts of the Sports section.  They are direct, just-the-facts-ma’am, no one listing more prominent than the other.  But of course there are stories behind every one, some more complex and interesting than others, some involving other moves which may or may not appear there.

I sometimes see the news of a hiring and imagine that there must be much joy in that household.

From today:

UNLV-Promoted Jennifer Klein to women’s soccer coach.

Is this the culmination of a lifelong dream for Ms. Klein?  Is she ready to be the head coach?  Does she have the same doubts that most new coaches have?  Is she getting congratulatory emails and Facebook wall posts and calls?

And when I see that a player has been released or designated, I wonder what is going through his mind.  “Is this the end of the road?”  “What will I do next?”

Since I look through them daily, I’m going to try to pick one or two of the baseball items that initiate a thought or two in what I hope will be a new feature, “Tracking The Transations,” or TTT.

Today’s TTT:

SEATTLE MARINERS–Designated RHP Ian Snell for assignment.

Okay, I could leave this one up to Tom, but I’ll take a crack.  Snell, fans may recall, broke in pretty strongly with the Pirates a couple of years back., winning 14 games in 2006.  But after signing a fairly sizable contract extension, he struggled in ‘08 and ‘09 and famously requested a demotion to AAA, citing “too much negativity” in Pittsburgh.  After pitching extremely well for Indianapolis, he was later included in a deal with Jack Wilson to the Mariners.

That Snell regressed this year may be related to the issues that came to the front in Pittsburgh.  He is in the last year of that contract extension, and he’s just 28, so the going-nowhere M’s must really think he’s done.

My guess is that we haven’t seen the last of Snell.  Some team will try to make a reclamation project out of him and the arm that was firing 95 mph fastballs not too long ago, especially with another team footing the bill.

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Mariners open interleague play with Padres blowout – 5/21/10

May 22

Posted by Tom Biro in Game recaps, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners | 4 Comments

On Friday night, the Seattle Mariners finally unloaded on someone, and the Padres were the unfortunate recipient of a 15-8 drubbing. DH Mike Sweeney put together a 4-5 night, including 2 home runs and six RBIs, and all but one starter (3B Jose Lopez) had at least one hit against the Padres, giving Cliff Lee his second win of the season (2-2) – even after he gave up all eight runs (seven earned).

A month and a half into a season filled with less-than-stellar pitching, a trip to the restricted list for OF Milton Bradley, a rough start to the season for Ken Griffey, Jr. and a few trips to the DL for some players, the Mariners seemingly deserved the last two days. Thursday’s afternoon tilt against the Jays ended with a walk-off single by Griffey, putting a halt to a five-game losing streak, a hit that MLB.com’s Jim Street noted as being well needed.

It was the 10th walk-off hit of Griffey’s Hall of Fame career. He left the building without commenting on the hit, but several of his teammates said the hit was something he and the entire team needed.

After having spent the better part of the last few spring weekends at this park, I could definitely see a little bit of deflation start to enter into the crowds’ attitude recently. But on a night when Cliff Lee appeared to be hitting the mark with his pitches only to be swatted around by some free-swinging Padres, however, “the wave” was still in full force, beach towel promo night items were being swirled about all over the stadium, and 3-2 counts got fans off their backsides, in the hope that the bottom frames of each innings would result in more offense – and the rewards kept on coming, for most of the game.

For the moment, all that matters is that fans walked out of Safeco in high spirits, transitioning their beach towels from over-the-head swinging position to over-the-shoulders to stay warm on a chilly May evening. Will Sweeney keep his recent power surge going? Will that single by Griffey open up his season a bit more? Who knows. What’s definitely apparent is that if a little bit of consistent pitching were to come about, the M’s certainly have enough bats still around to make the scoreboard light up.

The Seattle Times‘ Geoff Baker nailed it in his game story when talking about whether or not this would stick around, however.

One could forgive the 24,139 shivering fans at Safeco Field for being a little skeptical that what they witnessed was anything permanent. For thinking that this 15-hit blitzkrieg was more in the spirit of every dog having its day, or even the blindest of squirrels happening upon a jar full of Planters premium.

But for the optimists among them, there were other signs of hope besides Sweeney falling just one RBI shy of his career best.

For now, let’s see if the Mariners can take at least one more game this weekend and put a series win behind them.

5/22/10 Game Notes: Ian Snell (0-2) v. Clayton Richard (3-2)

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Mariners drop 8th in a row, 4-3, to Angels – 5/8/10

May 8

Posted by Tom Biro in Game recaps, Seattle Mariners | No Comments

On Saturday night, less than 24 hours after an 8-0 trashing at the hands of Jared Weaver and the Angels, the Mariners took the field at Safeco looking to end an seven-game skid with Doug Fister on the mound. From our seats in section 213, down near the right field foul pole, I was hoping that the streak had culminated the night before, in a game that included a three-homer-in-four-batter inning and 6 2/3 of no-hit ball by Weaver, before Ken Griffey, Jr. was able to bust a single to right – the first of the Mariners’ two hits for the evening. You’d think that would be bad enough, but you’d be wrong.

Eight games. Eight losses in a row.

Coming from the land of the Yankees, I’ve woken up to my share of morning news that hitting coaches have been fired, as Alan Cockrell was this morning, or that a player was cut or sent to the minors, as happened a week ago today when the Mariners let Eric Byrnes go, and sent three others down. But I can’t say that I’ve seen it happen this way in a span of a week.

When I’d first gotten our weekend season tickets, I’d heard a ton about how this team was “built for Safeco” – which clearly has its drawbacks – and I was certainly among the many excited about a pitching staff that contained Cliff Lee (pre-injury) and Felix Hernandez (pre-shellshocking). After about a month of the season, however, it was pretty clear that there was a bit of lacking in the power department, and the pitching wasn’t exactly stellar. Plus, Lee was on the shelf for a few weeks. Not fun.

Ichiro continues to be a bright spot for the team, as does Jack Wilson’s defense at short (pre-hamstring injury). Slow starts for Mike Sweeney, Ken Griffey, Jr. and others have sent fans to the exits on the regular, and it’s unclear as to what the next best steps are. No one’s going to be trading a whole team, and replacing four players on a Sunday should be enough of a roster shakeup to a group of 25, shouldn’t it? Maybe not.

On Saturday night, a lot of us who stuck around the stadium were excited about being “in the game” as the sun went down, especially as manager Don Wakamatsu brought closer David Aardsma into the game for his 12th appearance of the year. But with Mike Sweeney leaving the bases juiced in the bottom of the ninth and Aardsma giving up a hit to Hideki Matsui in the 10th, it was yet another “well, at least we were in this one” feeling as we headed out of the park. Let’s hope this doesn’t continue to be a trend – or the high hopes that the team and their fans had for 2010 join “Wall Street” and “the auto industry” as things we all thought were “too big to fail.”

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