I thought you’d all enjoy this. Rojo Johnson, an ex-con from Venezuela, making his debut for Round Rock.

Not a very pleasant time in Marinerville. Anyone who watched yesterday’s game is ready to jump off a cliff. If you read USS Mariner this morning, you’re even more depressed. The seasons probably over unless we go on one of those 20 game winning streaks like those pesky A’s did back in the day.

This really is the worst-case scenario that nobody planned for. No one thought Lopez, Figgins, Johnson, Moore, etc would be this bad. We knew going in there were risked. We could have set our watch to the fact that Bradley would freak out and Jack Wilson would get hurt. But there were things that we could have done better roster wise. And while our playoff hopes might be lost, there are moves that can be and should be made internally to squeeze every last win out of this schedule, because my lord we need it.

Griffey to the 15 day DL for CSS (Carlos Silva Syndrome)
It’s no secret, Junior is bad. He is awful. He is terrible. There is no way around it. I love him dearly and I hate to say this. But the fact of the matter is we have two players on the team that can’t play the field. That is unacceptable for a professional baseball team. You cannot waste two roster spots. The boys at LL had a great idea to put Jr. on the DL until around August, and if we’re out of it by then he can come back and parade around like last year. That is the ideal plan, because every day that he is on this roster, our chances of winning are slimmer. At this point in their respective careers, Sweeney does have more life left, and as terrible as he is, Junior is just that much worse.

When Bradley comes back, slide him in to full time DH role while Saunders takes over in LF full time
Hopefully when Bradley comes back, there will have been a miraculous change of character, he will be born again and start hitting. He was hitting when he left, and we could really use some of that as has been well documented. But we need Bradley in that lineup EVERY GOD DAMN DAY. You cannot put him in left field as much as you did before, because he will get hurt. He plays harder than his body will allow and gets hurt, so limiting him to DH is the best thing for everybody involved. Plus by doing this we get to keep trotting Saunders out there, who is a stud in the field and at the plate. Sweeney will become the back up DH/pinch hitter and Langerhans will be your greatest Mariner of all time 4th outfielder.

Get rid of Jesus/Sean White
It’s one thing to have two players that can never pick up a glove and it’s an entirely other thing to have that plus a seven man bullpen. Bedard is set to come back in early June and with the way things are shaking out it looks as if Hyphen has already lost his rotation spot. So you’re probably gonna move him to the bullpen leaving you with Aardsma-Lowe-Kelley-League-Snell-RRS. By getting rid of both Junior and the extra pitcher, it leaves you much more flexibility. No one wants Tui to play short stop in a Major League Baseball game. And with Jack Wilson seeming to have been constructed out of glass, you need an effective backup like Josh Wilson that can eat innings at SS with out totally embarrassing himself at the plate. Plus Sean White sucks. He has two strike outs this year. In total. TWO!

So there’s all I can think of for now. We needed a lot of things to go our way and until we do some of these things we are only hampering our chances even further.

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle has a nice little tidbit of information for all those fans that are still getting over the tragic “Eric Byrnes” era. Byrnsy is doing just fine and found a everyday job, in a slow pitch softball league.

I’ve often enjoyed the Game Day screen shots you see around the M’s blogosphere, so here’s my first attempt.

First let’s look at Ryan Langerhans’, greatest Mariner of all time, triumphant home run last night.

That is one fat sunova bitch fastball. Langerhans is extremely patient. Yes, he is only batting .143, but that is only based on 14 at bats. He’s walked eight times already in his brief time up here, getting on base at a .455 clip. His patience allows him to punish pitches like this one. Yeah he’s not going to hit 30 bombs, but he’s also not going to get himself out like Mr. Sweeney. He’s going to wait for that sweet pitch even if it means striking out looking every once in a while. These are reasons I love Langerhans so very very much.

On to Griffey. Junior is extremely patient as well. He is also looking for that one fastball he can still handle.

The problem is, he can’t handle it any longer. Here’s his juicy fastball:

These are both very similar pitches. Junior’s was around 94 MPH while Langerhans’ was around 92. They both arrived at the plate around 85 MPH. Juniors broke about 2.2″ while Langerhans’ broke 3.8″.  Junior’s is a bit higher in the strike zone, which is usually what they tell pitchers NOT to do while they are pitching to future HOFers.

The point I’m trying to make is, yes Griffey is done. I hate saying it. It saddens me greatly. But we are at the point where Griffey is really dragging the team down. Sure this comparison is based on 2 isolated at bats, but we’ve seen this all year. Griffey has to guess, and even when he guesses right, he’s incapable of doing anything with it. At this point in his career he is WORSE than Langerhans. He is WORSE than Josh Wilson. If Wak batting him 7th behind those two says anything, it says “Hey Junior, we really appreciate all you’ve done, but go home to Orlando and be with your family.”