Please Castillo Save our Souls Game thread

[bpj]

I wonder how the collective record of the Mariners would have changed if they had simply chosen to walk Mike Trout and Yordan Alvarez in every AB they've ever faced em.

What this series is boiling down to is that the Astros have all-world talent in their lineup... they have Yordan Alvarez, we're praying that Carlos Santana and and his .692 OPS are going to overcome the dude opposite him with a 1.019 OPS... There's a slim chance that it happens, so you always bet on the proven bet.

The M's should finally be in a place where they make REAL roster additions from a positional standpoint so we're not rolling guys out there with sub .200 avg's anymore.

You want to compete with Houston? You want to scare them? Aaron Judge would do that. Carlos Santana does not.

And I'm not begrudging Santana... that's just the truth.

Couldn't agree more, this team is an Aaron Judge and a Josh Bell away from having a deep, good lineup. Guys like France and Haniger are complementary players, we need impact.

Two key additions would do it. Judge is the impact player of impact players.

[DanielVogelbach]

It will be interesting to see who they pitch. Will they go with their 4th starter to save Verlander for ALCS/game 5, or try to win in game 4 if Ms win 3?

I think they're gonna save Justin, and it will backfire, because Castillo will go on short rest for game 5. First thing's first, though, gotta avoid being swept. I like the Ms chances behind the home crowd and Kirby. The Astros will be feeling zero pressure, though.

Remember the 95 series the Ms were down 0-2. They had the next 3 in the Kingdome, but still, the Seattle fans know you can come back from 0-2 it just takes a tiny little 3 game streak. So, they should be loud regardless. Push this thing to game 4 and things can get interesting real quick.

[GL_Storm]

I'm honestly not that optimistic about Kirby right now. I think he's out of gas and I didn't like his inning the other day vs. Toronto.

[TraderGary]

I wonder how the collective record of the Mariners would have changed if they had simply chosen to walk Mike Trout and Yordan Alvarez in every AB they've ever faced em.

What this series is boiling down to is that the Astros have all-world talent in their lineup... they have Yordan Alvarez, we're praying that Carlos Santana and and his .692 OPS are going to overcome the dude opposite him with a 1.019 OPS... There's a slim chance that it happens, so you always bet on the proven bet.

The M's should finally be in a place where they make REAL roster additions from a positional standpoint so we're not rolling guys out there with sub .200 avg's anymore.

You want to compete with Houston? You want to scare them? Aaron Judge would do that. Carlos Santana does not.

And I'm not begrudging Santana... that's just the truth.

Couldn't agree more, this team is an Aaron Judge and a Josh Bell away from having a deep, good lineup. Guys like France and Haniger are complementary players, we need impact.

Two key additions would do it. Judge is the impact player of impact players.

Completely agree with both of you. But I'm not signing Judge to a 10-year $350-400M contract or whatever he'll be looking for. It will look great for maybe the first 5 years, and then it will be another albatross like the Pujols or Cano deals were. We need to look elsewhere for that impact bat, but I wholeheartedly agree we need someone in the middle of the lineup that scares people.

[Lamda]

He's not out of gas - the only thing that worries me about Kirby is that over the last 2+ weeks he's only thrown 1 inning of baseball. You worried about that 1 inning he threw - well he'd never thrown out of relief before and it had been 10 days since he had thrown. Now its been another full week and he's going to need to be at the top of his game which could be asking a lot. I'm hoping we get 5 innings out of him and he doesn't give up more than 2 runs.

The thing about the Astros lineup is the only difference has been Alvarez. Our lineup amazingly has pretty much beat theirs so far minus that guy. The simple formula now has to be if the bases aren't empty than he doesn't get pitched to.

[TraderGary]

Castillo doesn't look happy about that.

No he really didn't look happy at all and I think I know why.

The camera didn't immediately show how Julio reacted to the ball when it first came off the bat, but just watching the play live and then the replay, my sense is that Julio either got a really late jump, or initially started back before coming in on the ball, and by then it was too late.

I think that was a ball that needed to, and probably should have been caught, and I think that's why Castillo was less than pleased, particularly with Alvarez coming to the plate representing the go-ahead run. And we all saw what happened.

I can recall this happening at least one or two other times during the season with Julio. It seems he doesn't read the ball well when it's not hit well or it's in front of him. I really believe that's what happened on that play, and it was the play that turned the game around for Houston. If that ball is caught like I believe it should have been, the inning is over and we're still nursing a one-run lead.

Anyone else agree with this assessment?

[bpj]

I wonder how the collective record of the Mariners would have changed if they had simply chosen to walk Mike Trout and Yordan Alvarez in every AB they've ever faced em.

What this series is boiling down to is that the Astros have all-world talent in their lineup... they have Yordan Alvarez, we're praying that Carlos Santana and and his .692 OPS are going to overcome the dude opposite him with a 1.019 OPS... There's a slim chance that it happens, so you always bet on the proven bet.

The M's should finally be in a place where they make REAL roster additions from a positional standpoint so we're not rolling guys out there with sub .200 avg's anymore.

You want to compete with Houston? You want to scare them? Aaron Judge would do that. Carlos Santana does not.

And I'm not begrudging Santana... that's just the truth.

Couldn't agree more, this team is an Aaron Judge and a Josh Bell away from having a deep, good lineup. Guys like France and Haniger are complementary players, we need impact.

Two key additions would do it. Judge is the impact player of impact players.

Completely agree with both of you. But I'm not signing Judge to a 10-year $350-400M contract or whatever he'll be looking for. It will look great for maybe the first 5 years, and then it will be another albatross like the Pujols or Cano deals were. We need to look elsewhere for that impact bat, but I wholeheartedly agree we need someone in the middle of the lineup that scares people.

I'm not signing Judge to that contract either.

But I think he ends up with something more like 8/$250.

He's no spring chicken, and he doesn't play a premium position outside of NY's Little League sized outfield.

He's quite a bit older than most guys that sign huge, long contracts.

Harper got 13/330, but he was 26 in his first season of it.

Stanton signed for 13/325, first season of that contract he was 25.

Judge will be 31 next season.

Miguel Cabrera did sign an 8 year/240M contract at age 33. Might be a good comp, especially considering how it turned out.

[D-train]

Mariners played as well as they could. They were the better team outside of 1 player and some bad luck...

Yep, outside of Santana thinking he was Rickey Henderson nothing to second guess or complain about. Pena's pop up was just pure luck just like we got with JP in Toronto...

[D-train]

Moore with an OPS against RHP this season of .714
Kelenic with an OPS against RHP this season of .587


and he's pinch hitting that rooster looking mf'er in for Moore just because he's left handed.

Dipoto and Servais are idiots. They've stuck to their empty guns far too long.

Same reason he brought in Ray instead of Swanson. A pure handedness move. They are literally going with 1970s decision making processes...they could eliminate their entire analytics department and hire a 17 year old girl right out of high school to just pull up and print out splits stats and hand them to them and they would make more informed decisions than they are now.

[D-train]

I think we have a shot. Don’t underestimate home field advantage - Seattle is going to be louder than a Seahawks game. If we win the next game at home, I think we win the second one, too. Then we have some inertia, which also counts for a lot. We come back to Houston fired up like we were for the first game after winning in Toronto, and we stand a legitimate chance of taking it all.

Maybe we start a petition: walk Alvarez. No matter what inning, no matter how many outs, no matter who’s on base. Walk, rinse, repeat. Do not let that beast swing a bat, ever. Who cares how much we get booed. Sign it and send it to Scotty.

And.

Believe.

It will be interesting to see who they pitch. Will they go with their 4th starter to save Verlander for ALCS/game 5, or try to win in game 4 if Ms win 3?

What’s that? Ah - Game 5? Don’t talk about - Game 5? You kidding me? Game 5? I just hope we can win a game!