80-76, Quick Game Notes

Not a lot to say, and not a lot of desire to say it on a beautiful afternoon. We lost. Oh no.

• Ryan Rowland-Smith is probably mad at himself for letting the win get away from him, but truth be told, I don't know that he should've been out there to start the eighth in the first place. He'd already thrown 104 pitches through seven innings, and though that's fewer than he threw in each of his previous five starts, by the same token, that's an awful lot of labor on a guy who already missed a chunk of time and doesn't exactly have the most durable track record. Plus, there was nothing but righties due up. RRS admitted that he ran out of gas in that final inning, and as far as I know it wasn't until John McDonald doubled that Wak even got someone up in the bullpen. A tough way to spoil an otherwise effective and pretty typical start.
  


• Wak's choice of arms in the bullpen didn't win him any fans, either - Miguel Batista wound up pitching, with Garrett Olson warming up. I doubt he would've done that in an important game, but it's still never pleasant to see. Why Olson didn't come in when Adam Lind pinch-hit is beyond me. I'm a fan of Wakamatsu, but that eighth inning left a sour taste in my mouth, and I'd like to hear his explanation for why he managed it the way he did.


• It's really fun to hate Miguel Batista, and I'm right there with you, but you know why he's been able to make so much money? Because sometimes he throws pitches like this.
  
  The first one - the Felix one - you saw a few days ago. The Batista one is from this afternoon, and PITCHfx clocked it at 97mph. Miguel Batista is like old Felix if you take away old Felix's slider, curveball, and change.


• The first time we saw a Mariner do that crotch chop thing, we assumed it was vulgar in nature. Recently Geoff Baker's posted a bunch of material trying to trace it back to more wholesome Japanese origin. Today, when Mike Sweeney returned to the dugout after his home run, the gesture was accompanied by a clearly audible "suck my dick". I don't know if today was just a joke after the team caught wind of the discussion or something, but at least one time now it has been unequivocally juvenile.


• Kenji Johjima has very quietly raised his batting line to .251/.298/.413, and his nine home runs would put him on a 21-homer pace over 600 PAs. What the team is going to do about him this offseason remains a mystery, but as of this writing he is almost certainly the best catcher in the organization.