Grid 182
Save us from more save columns
ERIK: IG managed to combine two of my least favorites today: Miami (nee Florida) Marlins and 300+ SAVES CAREER. The latter is just 31 guys and the former is … well, I doubt I could name 31 guys who’ve been Marlins. Plus I was generally off today. I’d stare at two teams and get nothing. No confluences confluenced. And in the end why struggle to come up with, say, Bob Cerv (KC Athletics 1957-60, LA Angels 1961), when you’re getting high percentages on the 300+ SAVES guys anyway? Which is why I started plugging in the first guy I thought of.
The misses: I first went Jesse Orosco upper right but that turned out to be way off; he didn’t even get halfway there. He just pitched forever and has the most famous save in Mets history. Earlier I’d tried to memorize Fernando Rodney’s teams the way I had with Al Oliver and Dave Cash but it’s not taking with Rodney, probably because I’m not taken with Rodney; so lower right was just a stab in the dark. When did Rodney pitch for the Marlins? 2016, it turns out. He’d signed with San Diego, they traded him on June 30 (for Chris Paddock), and in 39 games for the Marlins he went 2-3 with a 5.89 ERA and 41 Ks/25 BBs. Sounds about right. Eight saves, three blown. Also sounds about right.
The other miss was at A’s/Marlins where I went Jeff Conine. One day I’ll remember his non-Marlins teams. They are: Baltimore, KC, Mets, Reds, Phillies. What do they have in common? Asking, not telling. I guess there’s a vague 1969-80 World Series thing there. Mets beat the O’s in ’69, who beat the Reds in ’70, while the Phillies beat the Royals in ’80, but that’s not exactly the neatest of mnemonics.
Last day of the regular season, Tim, and the M’s did what I wished they’d done yesterday when you were watching from Section 327: beat the Texas Rangers. Initial reaction: Yay, we kept them from the division title! Quick follow-up: Shit, we just handed the division title to the Astros again. There’s no winning there, even when there’s winning.
TIM: 100% agree. I barely paid attention today, but part of me was hoping for a Mariner loss just to stick it to the Astros. Oh well. At some point over the next few days I will indulge a compulsion to find out how many games in total the Mariners lost because they couldn’t score a runner from 3rd with 0/1 out. I’m guessing it’s about 8 or 9, but I’ll find out! We were at at least one together, Felix Appreciation Day. Learn your fundamentals, Mariner coaching staff. Then explain them. While you’re at it, maybe also examine the reasons why taking home-run cuts when you’re leading off an inning down five runs is not winning baseball. Cal Raleigh can call out ownership all he wants, but he’s as much at fault as any of the other whiff-prone M’s and given what we’ve seen all year(s), I have to think any big FA bat or whathaveyou that Raleigh wants to get would just be indoctrinated into the Joaquin Andujar style of hitting the Scott Servais regime appears to favor, “swing hard in case you hit it.” I saw it after the Sewald trade: Canzone and Rojas came over and (a) worked counts, (b) used the whole field, (c) bunted given the opportunity. After they were here for a few weeks, they were swinging for the fences too. (Though I still think Canzone is potentially great and Rojas has been a lot better than I thought he was going to be, which, yeah, low bar, but still.)
Anyway, that’s for another time. Today we’ve got another Grid:
Like you, I say “ugh” to both Saves and Marlins. Angels, too, to a lesser extent.
The Mets row was fine, easy picks all the way through; quite a few Mets/Cardinals to choose from just off the top of my head, starting with your choice of Coleman. Also Carlos Beltran, Gregg Jeffries, Todd Zeile, Fernando Vina, Joe Torre, and, of course, Keith Hernandez and the man traded for him, Neil Fucking Allen. But Oquendo seemed more under the radar, plus he deserves a little recognition. An outstanding utility guy and an on-base machine.
The Angels remain forgettable in most respects, so Suzuki and Eckstein were the only names that came to mind that fit. Rodney was, frankly, a guess, much like with you and the Fish. Everybody had a few weeks of the Fernando Rodney Experience, didn’t they? No? Just one-third of everybody? OK, then.
For the Marlins I knew a very few, including Marte because it was recent, and Marcell Ozuna for Fish/Cards. But somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind there was an image of Terry Pendleton in black and teal—his last decent season, a .290 campaign in ’95. But for saves I had nothing. Seeing Robb Nen was the top answer made me go, oh, right, him, but my guess was Roberto Hernandez. BZZT, wrong, he was on the other Florida expansion team; it was Trevor Hoffman that was the expansion Marlin (before he was Trevor Hoffman).
BTW, have you listened to the latest Poscast? I found myself relating pretty well to the die-hard Padres fan’s laments, and actually said “YES” when Joe said the Mariners were the AL Padres. Schur’s description of Padre batters with no sense of object permanence was on target for Raleigh and Kelenic and Dylan Less-is-Moore to me.