I watched a few innings of the Marlins-Cardinals game while lifting weights at the gym last night -- apparently I left right before the Marlins called in ickle Ronnie Villone to pitch an inning. Dammit! If you are looking for a good game to watch today, I suggest tonight's Marlins-Cardinals game at 5:10pm PDT, where pitching aces Dontrelle Willis (14-6, 3.07) and Chris Carpenter (15-4, 2.33), two of the best starting pitchers in the majors this year, are going head-to-head. Will Carpenter overtake Garland for winningest pitcher in the MLB? Will wild Willis willingly wilt, or will wily Willis willfully win?
Though if you're a diehard Mariners fan, you are probably watching the New Kids On The Dock (Campillo and Harris) pitching in Detroit. Oh please please please don't let Campillo become another Madritsch, we so do NOT need this now...
Happy birthday, Mariners with early-August birthdays!
8/1/68: Shigetoshi Hasegawa ("Happy birthday. Have a pink slip.")
8/2/77: Julio Mateo ("Happy birthday. Get ready for when the new kids implode.")
8/5/78: Jamal Strong ("Hey, kid, you get to celebrate your birthday in the majors... as a pinch runner. Ha ha ha!")
8/10/78: Jorge Campillo ("Happy birthday. Have a callup.")
And while we're at it, other early August birthdays:
8/2/82: Grady Sizemore (Seattle native, and overall cute kickass kid.)
8/3/76: Troy Glaus (Happy birthday. Have a healthy knee and back and 21 more home runs.)
8/4/62: Roger Clemens (Hm, 43. I bet he'll be pitching until he's 50 at this rate!)
8/5/68: John Olerud (Seattle native, and boy do I miss him.)
8/5/76: Bobby Kielty (All I have to say is this.)
8/5/77: Mark Mulder (It feels like he should be older. A 93-47 lifetime record already is no small accomplishment for a 28-year-old. If he could continue winning at this rate, he'd have a record of 330-150 or so by his 40th birthday.)
8/7/75: Edgar Renteria (From one red team to another.)
8/7/29: Don Larsen (Included because I just finished reading "Perfect".)
8/9/74: Matt Morris (Another impressive Cardinals pitcher. Happy birthday, have a win.)
8/9/69: Troy Percival (My former favorite closer.)
8/9/51: Steve Swisher (Father of Moneyball Nick.)
...
8/23/83: Jeff Clement (Our catching hope for the future. Happy birthday, have a less ugly uniform than Everett's.)
In other news, the Mariners have two consecutive Mondays of BECU Family Nights coming up -- 8/8 against the Twins and 8/15 against Kansas City, which means that View Reserved seats are only $10. It's generally not hard to get decent seats for those games, and Mondays are generally decent traffic days around Seattle.
The Angels are here from 8/12-14, too. I wonder what position they will have in the standings by then?
Standings as of today (Aug 2):
West W L PCT GB L10 STRK
Los Angeles 60 45 .571 - 4-6 L2
Oakland 59 46 .562 1.0 9-1 W5
Texas 53 51 .510 6.5 5-5 L1
Seattle 45 59 .433 14.5 4-6 L1
Standings as of July 2:
West W L PCT GB L10 STRK
Los Angeles 49 31 .613 - 8-2 W2
Texas 42 37 .532 6.5 5-5 W4
Oakland 39 41 .488 10.0 8-2 L1
Seattle 33 46 .418 15.5 2-8 L7
My gosh, that's very different. Oakland was already on their tear to make up space in the race by July 2, but this is ridiculous. They've gone 20-5 in the last month, whereas the Angels have gone 11-14 and fallen to a mere one game ahead of Oakland. The Rangers have also gone 11-14 to end up 6.5 games behind the A's instead of the Angels, and where are we? 12-13! Woo! We did better in the last month than the Rangers or Angels! Wheee!
At this rate, I would project that since the Angels have 9 games between now and when they get here, and 3 are against the A's, they will be 64-50 (and the A's will be 66-48), unless they seriously kick butt in their games against the A's, which I doubt.
Uhh, yeah. Well, anyway. It still sucks to be at the bottom, but hey, maybe we can kick the Angels while they're down (except for Jarrod Washburn, because he's cute. And he guarantees Willie Bloomquist, our Fix-it Man, some more playing time).
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