So to Recap

CB Bucknor is a terrible umpire, and we need robots. That Langerhans at bat very well could have cost us the game. There’s no way to know what would have happened from that point on if he had drawn the walk, but look at it this way. The score would have been 4-3 instead of 4-2, with Ichiro coming to the plate and the bases loaded. I sure as hell like those odds better. Here’s the at bat, note the two terrible calls.

That plot really doesn’t do pitch 5 justice though, as it was nearly at his ankles. Those weren’t the only two bad calls of the night by Bucknor though, oh no, he was consistently terrible. Here’s the plot for Luke French on the night, notice the 5-6 pitches called balls that were clearly in the zone.

Compare that to the plot for Sergio Mitre, note that there aren’t any pitches in the zone called balls, but plenty of pitches out of the zone called strikes.

If you are as enraged about this as I am, sign this petition.

Alright, that’s my umpire rant for the night. This game was pretty wacky all around though, from bad defense to terrible base running decisions. If you could pinpoint one moment in tonight’s game where things really turned to shit for us, you’d probably have to point to the Franklin Gutierrez error in the 2nd. With 1 out and a runner on first, he and Ichiro failed to communicate on routine fly ball, causing it to drop between them. The Yankees went on to score 4 runs in the inning. When your pitchers rely so heavily on your defense, the occasional misplay usually comes back to haunt you, and that’s what happened tonight.

To address the Ichiro play in the seventh: it was a stupid decision. There was absolutely no good reason for him to be stealing third base there. With two outs, Russell Branyan at the plate with a 2-0 count, and your team down two runs, you really couldn’t do anything stupider. I love Ichiro, and I rarely find anything wrong with his decisions, but this one was terrible and severely hurt our chances to win this game.

This game as a whole was just infuriating. I don’t remember ever screaming louder during a Mariners game than I did after that Langerhans strikeout. If I  can find anything positive to say about tonight, it’s that Luke French did a really nice job of bouncing back after that second inning. So kudos to him. Oh, that, and Boston lost, so we didn’t lose any ground. Doug Fister vs. Joba Chamberlain tomorrow, so yeah, we’ll probably get swept.

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