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USS Mariner says Travis Blackley is believed to have a torn rotator cuff and will get an opinion from Dr. Larry Pedegana. Unbelievable. If it’s true, he’s out til ‘06.
At what point does the Seattle media, or maybe the national media, or maybe anyone outside the Mariner blogosphere, start asking hard questions about how this organization handles young pitchers?
|After unranked Va. Tech gave USC all it could handle last weekend, there’s suddenly talk that maybe Oregon St. can surprise LSU this weekend. Not gonna happen.
Prediction: LSU drills the Beavers. 30+ point win.
|Clare Farnsworth reports today in the P-I that D.D. Lewis will “likely” need more shoulder surgery. Ugh. Can they go into the season with Tracy White and Kaz trying to replace Chad Brown?
Time to start scouring the free agents coming available as teams make their cuts. I doubt the Hawks see the need to make a trade, esp. if Brown really is only going to be gone the first 4-5 weeks of the season. But if it looks worse than that, I think you have to consider all your options for upgrading that OLB spot, including a trade. The Hawks have depth at WR and RB, but would they be willing to move a Mo Morris or Bobby Engram — the level of player it would take to get an adequate starter at OLB? Probably not.
|For all of you who end up here looking for information on Ichiro and Sisler (and judging from my referrer logs there are lots of you), this article from today’s P-I might be what you’re after:
Ichiro’s pursuit of record renews interest in Sisler
Yes, it does renew interest. This post from earlier in the month has somehow risen to #1 on Google when you search for “george sisler ichiro”. And that Google link is driving most of the new traffic in to this site over the past couple weeks.
(Oddly, coming in a close second, especially during the Olympics, was people searching for “lauren jackson” on Yahoo, which led to this old post.)
Anyway … Dan Raley’s article today does a good job of talking about who Sisler was and Ichiro’s chase of the record. enjoy!
|Greg Bishop writes in the Times about the return of Grant Wistrom to the practice field. Nice comment here about the Hawks taking it slow with his return:
“St. Louis is a great organization, but I’ve never [worked with] a training staff where that was the case,” he said. “Where the player wants to get back on the field, and they’re saying, ‘Let’s give it a little bit more time.’ It was definitely a breath of fresh air.”
You know, for all the concern about the loss of Brown and the MLB situation, you have to keep in mind that the first unit hasn’t allowed a TD yet in the preseason, and that’s also without Wistrom in the mix.
Speaking of the Rams … Kyle Turley is done for the year. Ouch.
And back to the Seahawks — D.D. Lewis is also back on the field. Brock Huard, though, is done for the season. He’s on IR, which means he’ll remain a Seahawks rather than face the likelihood of losing the 3rd-string job to Seneca Wallace.
Look for lots of cuts today. Need to get down to 75 players.
|Interesting story here … the Miami Dolphins are no longer trying to shut down unofficial fan sites and blogs, and instead invited 14 webmasters to a “Dolphins Web Weekend” that included a tour of training camp, sit down time with C Seth McKinney, and more.
The story is from the SJ Mercury News, but it may be better to start at PaidContent.org, which has some additional links to go along with the Mercury News article.
Et tu, Seahawks?
|In today’s News-Tribune, Larry LaRue says Bob Melvin is gone in the 2nd paragraph: “Melvin isn’t part of [the Mariners'] future.” He’s not saying “might be fired”, or “is on the hot seat” … he’s saying Melvin will be fired. The problem is that nowhere in the rest of his article does LaRue cite a source for what he’s stating as fact — not even that writer’s best-friend we all know as “a source close to the team.” Seems odd to get such a big scoop and not remember to quote a source; it seems irresponsible to report something as fact when it’s actually opinion.
Beyond that, though, the article raises several interesting points:
That said, it’s important to note that Melvin was hired as a player’s manager — a guy who could lead a veteran team who didn’t require the hands-on treatment that a struggling team needs when it fires a manager. Problem for Melvin is that the Mariners are no longer a veteran team. Assuming that next year’s team will look similar to what we see now, with the hopeful exception of a couple veteran position players (3B, 1B, and/or OF), the question remains:
Is Melvin the right guy to manage a youth movement?
|Who knows what Freddy Garcia will do in the future … but I do know that it’s looking more and more like Miguel Olivo will be doing great things in the future. Catchers with the pop to hit 20 HRs a year, that also run well on the bases, and have a plus throwing arm are hard to find. Even more so when they’re only 25 years old. He needs to work on backstopping a game — too many dropped balls, passed balls, etc. But I suspect some portion of that is not knowing the pitchers well enough yet. He appears destined to be a Very Good Catcher. And if Jeremy Reed is as good as advertised (when do we get to start finding out???), then the Mariners really got a steal of a deal from the White Sox. Heck, even if Freddy turns into a consistent top-shelf starter, it’ll end up as a wash at worst.
|I didn’t bother watching the 2nd half — someone tell me, did we just take our foot off the gas?
Impressive win from what I saw. What stands out the most for me is this: We have a great secondary. I’m not talking about the INTs — hard to get too excited about a couple picks off Ryan Leaf … I mean, Philip Rivers. I’m talking the overall effort — tipped passes, deflected passes, and tight enough coverage to lead to a few sacks. Lucas has looked terrific when I’ve seen him.
Koutovides also looked pretty good, as did Huff. Didn’t notice Bates doing much. Maybe MLB by committee is the way to go.
Looking at the game recap on NFL.com — SD’s first TD was an INT return. Then they didn’t score again until the 4th. I’ll assume our 2nd team was in by then, which means our 1st team defense still hasn’t allowed a TD in the pre-season. Nice. The 1st team offense also looked solid, despite Hass’s INT and fumble. At times it looks the offense can do anything it wants. They take every snap with incredible confidence.
The only negative: I. Kacyvenski. No tackles. The missed tackle they replayed was an obvious mistake, but I also saw him getting pushed around a lot out there. Meanwhile, Tracy White had 4 tackles.
Good win overall. I suspect we won’t see the starters in too long against the Vikes next Thursday, but it sure would be fun to watch our secondary get a few good series in against Culpepper and Moss.
|I’ve been a religious buyer and player of both EA Sports football games for the past 3 years. And I’ve loved both of them almost equally. Until this year, that is.
The pre-release hype for NCAA was phenomenal, and what was described sounded great — the home-field advantage, toughest stadiums to play in, the expansion of the dynasty mode, all that stuff. I was all geeked up.
Madden didn’t seem to get nearly the same amount of pre-release hype, or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places. Everything I saw was about Ray Lewis and the jinx, or about the collector’s edition they put out. Very little was said about the game play, the Owner mode changes, and things like that.
In past years, I’ve bought NCAA and played it to death for a month until Madden came out. Then they’d always compete for my attention. This year, I played about 8 games of NCAA and lost interest. I don’t like it. At first I thought maybe it was just because my favorite team sucks this season so I was losing lots of games and looking bad in the process … 41-0, 33-3, etc. But I played as a much better team … and still didn’t like it. It’s too slow. Runners and receivers are too slow. Zip passes from strong-armed QBs don’t have much zip. Nothing feels “right”. I don’t know how to describe it — they really overhauled the gameplay AI, and made it worse, I think.
Madden, on the other hand, is even more amazing than I expected. The gameplay is terrific — my RBs and receivers are making cutbacks I’ve never seen before. The defensive control is stunning — individual hot routes and all that. The variety of types of tackles is incredible. It’s fast … well, faster than NCAA at least. And the Owner/Franchise mode stuff … EA Sports Radio, Gameplans, newspapers and email, all of it is fantastic.
Madden is only out two weeks now, compared to 6 weeks for NCAA … but I’ll be wearing out Madden a lot sooner than NCAA this year. Next summer, NCAA will probably be a rent-before-you-buy item.
Am I alone in thinking / feeling like this?
Oh — and running the Seahawks, I’m 5-2 so far in my first year of Franchise mode. Darrell Jackson is having a huge year. And Alex Bannister is actually very effective as the 4th WR. Who knew?
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