All season, manager Lloyd McClendon has the same refrain when the Mariners’ punchless offense is brought up.
“We’re challenged,” is the usual the reply. Wednesday, McClendon stood at the podium after an 8-1 defeat at the hands of the Twins and again tried to stay positive, despite scoring seven runs in the past six games.
“Listen, I’ve said it time and time again — from an offensive standpoint we’re going to be challenged. Some days, it won’t look good,” said McClendon. “I’ll take the whole picture and I think we’re going to be OK. It’s just a tough couple of days for us.”
It was a bad night to get a short outing from a starter with a bullpen day scheduled for Thursday. Tom Wilhelmsen will get the start, but how many innings the reliever can give McClendon remains to be seen. Suddenly, the Mariners are in danger of dropping a four-game series to the Twins, bringing up the rear in the AL Central at 41-49.
While the scuffling offense is of major concern, the pitching of Roenis Elias must be, too.
Elias was up with his fastball again and paid the price. Over the first two innings, the Twins knocked around Elias for five runs on six hits. Elias left after allowing seven runs (six earned) on seven hits and three walks in 3.1 innings.
The 25-year-old rookie has given up five or more earned runs in each of his last three outings. His ERA has risen from 3.74 to 4.54. One of the issues concerning Elias and the coaching staff is his load of innings. Elias (7-8) has 113 innings. He threw 130 innings for the entire 2013 season.
“The one thing we forget, particularly with young players and pitchers in particular, this game can be really tough and really cruel sometimes,” McClendon said. “One thing I told him tonight is he’ll get through these growing pains and we’ll be there every step of the way. But it was a tough night for him in a lot of different ways.”
What has McClendon seen?
“His stuff is pretty darn good. But I don’t care who you are — you’ve seen guys like Justin Verlander go through it,” McClendon said. “When you don’t have command of the fastball . . . you’re going to get hit, and he just has not had command.”
Up 1-0 entering the second, Minnesota put the first five men on base via a walk, two singles and two doubles. By the time the inning was over, the Twins plated four runs and Elias’ pitch count stood at 54.
Kendrys Morales led the Twins with three RBI while Chris Colabello batted 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI.
Meanwhile, the Seattle offense is in its worst slump of the season. A Robinson Cano seventh-inning double snapped a 17-inning scoreless streak dating to Michael Saunders’ solo home run in the seventh inning Monday.
“We didn’t get any extra-base hits for the most part, a lot of singles,” McClendon said. “(Minnesota) played a nice game. They kicked our butts tonight.”
Twins’ right-hander Kyle Gibson (8-7, 3.92 ERA) was the latest pitcher to hold the M’s scoreless. Using a sinker-changeup mix, the 26-year-old allowed seven hits and a walk over six innings. He struck out three on 91 pitches.
“He threw the ball well. I don’t think he had his best stuff tonight, but he made do with what he had,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He got himself in a couple of little jams but got out of them by making pitches. That’s kind of what we’re looking for.”
It also helped that Brian Dozier made a number of slick fielding plays behind him. He robbed Brad Miller of a sure base hit on a hard hit ground ball in the eighth.
“Dozier had a ton of really nice plays today,” Seager said. “It seemed like he was everywhere out there.”
Seattle had 12 hits, one for extra bases — Cano’s double. Any time two were on, Gibson wriggled out of the situation. Cano batted 3-for-5, while Endy Chavez, Saunders and Seager each had two hits.
Notes
Thursday’s start will be the first of Wilhelmsen’s major-league career. A spot was opened in the rotation when McClendon pushed Felix Hernandez back to Friday to face the division-leading Athletics . . . The Mariners optioned RHP Taijuan Walker to Triple-A Tacoma and recalled reliever Stephen Pryor before Wednesday’s game. The move allows Walker to make two starts for Tacoma beginning Saturday, as well as, Hisashi Iwakuma and Chris Young pitching on regular rest against the A’s Saturday and Sunday. With All-Star break next week, it was important to get Walker innings and also make sure Young didn’t have a longer layoff . . . Pryor pitched 1.2 innings in which he allowed a hit, two walks and one unearned run. The Mariners willoption him back to Tacoma Thursday and recall LHP reliever Lucas Luetge.
13 Comments
Am I hallucinating? Did McClendon just compare Elias to Justin Verlander???
He must have missed the announcement at Woodstock.
Comparing Elias to Verlander is just about as crazy as whoever called Safeco Field “hitter friendly” yesterday. Lots of delusion going around, it seems. Being above .500 for this long is starting to mess with people’s minds. Its like watching a miracle happen right before our eyes. Nobody knows what to make of it.
Well, somebody knows what to make of it. Surely the Lincster is issuing internal memos claiming that it’s now a proven fact that he is the smartest guy in the room, and even more, this weekend’s ‘greatest pitchers on earth’ boosted attendance will prove it. (Or maybe show his grand legacy to the prospective buyers sitting in the owner’s box…?)
Verlander gave up big runs in his last start. That would be the extent of the analogy. Otherwise, he would need to be offered a blindfold and cigarette before the deed is done.
So what’s the point in bringing up Pryor for one night and one appearance before sending him back down (burning up one more option in the process) and then bringing Luetge up? Why not bring up Luetge in the first place? They’re shuffling pitchers the way Bret Maverick used to shuffle cards.
If I didn’t have a calendar and access to the current standings, I’d swear this is the usual September scramble when the Mariners are 20 games under .500 and they’re sending warm bodies back and forth between Tacoma and Seattle to see if anyone still has a pulse. The ’62 Mets had more roster stability.
Dude. Its the Mariners. They’ve been screwing with players heads (and shoulders) with crazy moves for decades. This is Standard Operating Procedure for this franchise.
Since they moved Felix to Friday to get a Felix-Kuma-Young weekend against the A’s, they decided to do an all-bullpen start Thursday. Pryor was brought up to pitch Weds to save other arms. It’s a very labored situation, which gives you an idea about how they view the A’s series.
I don’t get it. McCL says the A’s series is no more or less than any other/one day at a time/ and I mean it– and wins are wins, against the easier-to-beat Twinks or the uber-good A’s (with their M’s-reject manager). So– why? Is it just a butts-in-seats gambit? If so, it flies in the face of McCL-speak, and it flies in the face of playing to win games as they present themselves on the schedule without picking which ones to lose by ad hoc roster shuffling.
Maybe there’s a bet in play: If the M’s win three of three, they get to trade the yeZ-man for Beane… and Lincoln retires?? Otherwise, as usual, Effzee nailed it.
This will surprise you, but sometimes the M’s say one thing and do another. LMC knows he needs to win 2 of 3. The problem is, none of the pitchers get to hit.
Then again, we have yet to see the Sucre Effect.
Options apply to the year not each individual call up, Pryor will likely bounce back and forth as he gets his strength back after being injured.
Elias is probably on a short leash now. If he has 1-2 more starts like this they’ll shut him down. If they don’t it’s going to be Dave Fleming all over again. I don’t want to see another promising rookie burn out from being overused.
See my comment below. The site will not let me just cut and paste it. ;)
Oops, thats me. Dont know why it posted as “Guest.” Weird.