[wufners]

Mariners breaking out much of their likely opening day lineup today, save Beltre (owie on his thumb) and Vidro (no DH today.)

51 Ichiro Suzuki CF
5 Yuniesky Betancourt SS
28 Raul Ibanez LF
44 Richie Sexson 1B
6 Brad Wilkerson RF
2 Kenji Johjima C
4 Jose Lopez 2B
12 Mike Morse 3B

Pitching:
52 Carlos Silva
18 Ryan Rowland-Smith
41 R.A. Dickey
54 Sean Green
59 Eric O'Flaherty
66 Robert Rohrbaugh
76 Brodie Downs

Live if you're going 88 mph in your Delorion with the flux capacitor modificiation boxscore

[Pirata Morado]

SABR Matt, on Mar 7 2008, 02:11 PM, said:

YU-NI-ES-KY!!

2-0 Ms...classic YuBet line drive down the line.

Wow Yuni with a Blast? Who's next on the HR-to-hit list? Willie? What did Ichiro do to get on base? His first hit of the pre-season?

[Pirata Morado]

Seems like it was a walk by Ichiro.

[Pirata Morado]

Hey, I found this link back there at page #37 of Sport Spot. It is the gameday link for one of the ST games:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/y2006/gd.ht...anamlb_seamlb_1
Perhaps it can work for 2008 if we tweak some parameters in the link, I tried changing the date and the teams to no avail. But perhaps somebody can get it to work?

[Pirata Morado]

I got it!

This is the gameday link:

Gameday

[Pirata Morado]

Top of the 4th:

Ibañez flies out to LF.
Sexson grounds out to SS.
Wilkerson strikes out (again, twice so far today, get used to it).

After 3 and a half, score tied at 2.

[Montucky]

Pirata Morado, on Mar 7 2008, 03:08 PM, said:

Top of the 4th:

Ibañez flies out to LF.
Sexson grounds out to SS.
Wilkerson strikes out (again, twice so far today, get used to it).

After 3 and a half, score tied at 2.

RRS in to replace Silva who gave up 6 runs on 7 hits...

[Montucky]

SABR Matt, on Mar 7 2008, 03:11 PM, said:

Silva got torched...that'll happen from time to time so be aware of that.

High-contact pitchers are always at the mercy of the Gods of luck.

Yeah, it sounded that way...single..single..single...HR...done for the day.

RRS gets his guys in the bottom 4...

Theriot and Fontenaeau (sp).....UGGGHHHH, think willie on roids

[Pirata Morado]

Yuni's bomb is our only hit so far.

[Montucky]

SABR Matt, on Mar 7 2008, 03:20 PM, said:

pecked to death...it happens. Not gonna worry about it.

I think Silva's sinker wasn't sinking too well due to the dry air.

Yeah you don't go 12-12 (or whatever he went) by being ULTRA consistent. But as our #3, he should give us enough QS (hopefully) to make him servicable. I am not to worried.


MEANWHILE, RA Dickey, struck out D. LEE AND A. Rameriz. That's good.

[Pirata Morado]

Dickey strikes out 2 in his perfect 5th. 6-2 Chicago North.

[Montucky]

Pirata Morado, on Mar 7 2008, 03:28 PM, said:

Dickey strikes out 2 in his perfect 5th. 6-2 Chicago North.

This game has loss written ALL OVER it. They sound lifeless...like you say 1 hit.

[Huindekmi]

I don't care about the wins or losses either. It's still early in ST and these guys are working on getting into shape and shaking off the kinks.

A few notes from today's game:

• Silva looked pretty sloppy today. In the first, everything was down. Way down. The Cubs just sat there and let him try to throw it over the plate. When he did, they tagged it. When he didn't, walk city. Then he settled down a bit. The next two innings were classic Silva. He was working fast, guys were putting the ball in play but the defense was handling things nicely.
  
• Then came the fourth inning. I was a little surprised to see Carlos come out - I thought we were still on the three inning routine. Chicago was. Apparently, Silva thought so too. Meatball after meatball were just nailed hard into the holes. With the bases loaded and Silva looking lost, the wife said "lets go get a hotdog." The line for a good grilled sausage was long and I thankfully missed the bloodletting. When we returned, it was 6-2 in favor of the Cubbies.
  
• Sexson didn't impress anyone today. He looks like a pure guess hitter these days. He was no where near the ball most of the day.
  
• Mike Morse hates rental cars. Not sure what the deal was, but Morse was swinging just under everthing today. He kept fouling balls off, over the stands behind 1B and into the parking lot. We were sitting in that area and kept hearing THUNK as the balls ricocheted off cars in the lot. Bet people wish they had sprung for that optional insurance now, huh.
  
• Clement's arm isn't that bad. In the 8th, Murton tried to steal a base. Clement popped out of the crouch in almost textbook fashion and gunned him down with a perfect throw to Chen. Nice to see.
  
• Wilkerson had a bad day. He started out with a weak strikeout in the first. Then slipped and fell in the outfield when he misread a fly leading to Chicago's runs - it was scored a hit but there was plenty of error in it. Later on, a runner decided to advance from 2B to 3B on a shallow fly out. Wilkerson's lobbing throw arrived way too late. If Ichiro were in RF today, no one would have even tried to advance on that ball. Wilk had a solid hit to the gap, but his decision to stretch it to a triple was comical - he didn't have a chance.
  
• Yuni looks great. His bat is solid and there is no trace of the yips that plagued him early last season.

Photos to come shortly. Have to get them uploaded to Photobucket first.

[Huindekmi]

We showed up early enough to catch most of the warmup drills. While it was interesting watching Ichiro play long toss, it was hard to get a good shot of it. But I did get a nice shot of Rob Johnson during some catcher drills:


Tui was part of the rotation on the infield drills:


After drills, a few players stopped to sign autographs. When the crowd noticed that Ichiro was one of 'em, it became a feeding frenzy. Photos don't do it justice.

[Huindekmi]

Time to check out Hohokam Stadium...
Nice grass seating in the outfield under the scoreboard


Looks comfy...


Mrs. Huindekmi welcomes you to the park.


Today's starting roster...

[Huindekmi]

Game time!

Ichiro starts the game with a walk and makes Lilly worry about him stealing second.


That led to Yuni's bomb just over the fence in the LF corner. It happened so fast that I didn't catch it on film, but the M's were up by two and who cares.

Then not much else happened. The M's didn't even manage another hit for innings. And no one wants to see the Silva's mess. Not even Silva.

At the end of thegame, McLaren looks a little disappointed.


But it wasn't an easy victory for the Cubs. At the endof the game, they were so pooped that they just collapsed on the field.

[Huindekmi]

On thing I forgot to mention...

Fukudome is GOOD!

[Huindekmi]

SABR Matt, on Mar 7 2008, 11:51 PM, said:

Fukudome is a freakin' stud. He runs almost as well as Ichiro, throws BETTER than Ichiro, and has power unlike anything Ichiro could imagine. He's going to be the best position player to come from Japan IMHO. Even over Ichiro.

I'm not ready to annoint him the best from Japan, but he's going to be a darn good player.

He runs the bases well and looks good in the OF. His arm doesn't look that great, but he also didn't have any opportunities to really throw under duress. No need to throw a screamer if there's no one on base.

He has a quick, smooth, compact swing. He seems to have decent patience, makes solid contact when he swings and ball jumps sharply off his bat. He won't have the power of Hideki Matsui, but he'll have more than Ichiro. I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit ~20 HR per year, especially in the NL.

He would have been an improvement over Wilkerson in RF or Ibanez in LF. Oh well. I wish him well in Chicago.

[Huindekmi]

SABR Matt, on Mar 7 2008, 11:52 PM, said:

BTW not to be improprietous, but Mrs. Huindekmi is a nice catch. Lucky dog you!

She recently got waxed to remove all that blue fur, figureing it would be too hot in the AZ sun. Who knew?

Now I wonder what I look like under all this fur.







Edit:
Required disclaimer: I love my wife and she did not need multiple hair removal treatments before going on vacation.

[Griffey Come Back]

Huindekmi, on Mar 8 2008, 10:45 AM, said:

Now I wonder what I look like under all this fur.







Edit:
Required disclaimer: I love my wife and she did not need multiple hair removal treatments before going on vacation.

Like a hispanic freedom fighter I imagine