M's Road Trip vs. Detroit, Toronto, Tampa Bay

[TTown]

so, this is miguel olivo's life: he's terrible forever, finally hits a nice patch (8 game hit streak, couple bombs, rose his average about 80 points) and then he gets himself hurt. somehow, i hate him even more now.

tonight was one constant nut slap after another. lack of run support for felix; that poorly executed safety squeeze; that poorly executed safety squeeze that actually WORKED, given the catcher never applied the tag; brandon league; upton's single in the 11th; the 12th inning as a whole.

just throwing it out there, but how long do we allow brendan ryan to continue trotting out there? horrific month of april for him. and i like brendan ryan... but damn.

[Sweezo]

just throwing it out there, but how long do we allow brendan ryan to continue trotting out there? horrific month of april for him. and i like brendan ryan... but damn.

With Olivo, we have two potentially good, young options to replace him [Montero, Jaso]. But there's really no threat to Ryan on the roster. Kawasaki's interesting but I like him as a pinch runner, defensive replacement. And there's no one in the minors who would really seem to fit.

All in all, at the end of the season I expect he'll put up a similar line this year compared to last year. He seemed very streaky last season; Started off the season ice cold [April], then went on a tear in May, and then fluttered between streaks the rest of the way. He's not a consistent hitter...I think we just have to deal with it when he's struggling because he'll snap out of it eventually.

[TTown]

felix had the audacity to give up a run yesterday, we lost in extras.

lost 3-1 again today. noesi was okay, relief pitching was good, saunders had a solo home run... montero was 4/4.

[Sweezo]

felix had the audacity to give up a run yesterday, we lost in extras.

lost 3-1 again today. noesi was okay, relief pitching was good, saunders had a solo home run... montero was 4/4.

Today just seemed like bad luck. We had plenty of hits and base runners, but the team is something like 0-30 when it comes to scoring opportunities with men on base right now. Unreal.

The future of the team is starting to take shape though. With Olivo on the DL and Figgins seeing the bench more [with Ackley sliding into the leadoff slot] things are starting to progress. There's some bitter disappointments [Smoak], some mild surprises [Seager, Montero], and some big surprises [Saunders, Liddi].

The team needs to keep pushing the envelope. The Detroit Tigers need starting pitching at the moment and the churn of the rumor mill says they're looking to add someone, which makes me wonder if the team might try to move Jason Vargas again. Erasmo Ramirez seems like he could slide into the rotation without too much trouble if needed. Vargas makes $4.5 million this year and only has one more year of team control left if they offer arbitration.

[Sweezo]

Hell of an at bat by Smoak at the end. Runners on 1st and 3rd, and with a favorable count he takes an 82 mph change/split in the top of the zone, then flails at two balls that were low out of the zone [the second of which would have bounced in the dirt before the catcher put a glove on it if if Smoak hadn't fouled it off]. Then he flies out to end the threat.

We don't really have a deep enough bench to just sit him for awhile...but we need to sit him for awhile.

[Slats]

DFA Figgins.

[Bulltalk]

Well this is the second time the M's have taken us to the edge of drifting off into obscurity. The first time they somewhat surprisingly swept Detroit, and won 4 in a row. Now they're 11-16 finishing the road trip 0-6. It's the same old problem, a couple of big hits away from adding more runs and getting a few more wins, of parts of our batting order going flatline (Figgens, Ryan, Smoak, somewhat Ackley).

I still remain confident in Ackley, Montero, Seager, and Ichiro, have been pleasantly surprised by Liddi, and appreciate the way Saunders battled back from the abyss.

The thing with the M's is absent of enough of the long ball, we're very dependent upon stringing hits together, and it is getting tiring when like 40% of the batting order suddenly disappears for long stretches. Sound familiar?

I'm done with Figgens. Time to cut bait. We might have to find a way to get more hitting by playing some players slightly out of position. Smoak has got to come alive soon. I'm not sure what to do about him now. Hopefully Carp can give us some meaningful/productive at bats soon. Anybody else in the minors to give a shot now?

I don't know. I just don't want the team to fade completely out of the picture before the 1st of June, which they are threatening to do.