…tonight against the Rich Harden-less Oakland Athletics.  (NOTE: This was intended to be posted before the game, but it somehow ended up as a page at the top of the site rather than a normal blog post, as some of you may have noticed.  Weird..)

Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Willie Bloomquist, SS
Raul Ibanez, LF
Jose Vidro, DH
Adrian Beltre, 3B
Jeremy Reed, CF
Richie Sexson, 1B
Jeff Clement, C
Miguel Cairo, 2B

Many of you have been complaining about the daily lineups setup by John McLaren and now Jim Riggleman for quite a while; I haven’t been.  Not because I agree with their lineup building techniques, but mainly becaues I was gone for a month and a half and was pretty detached from the team.  Now I’ve been home a week and am ready to take a closer look at one of these lineups.

It’s not as bad as I originally thought looking at it, but a few things don’t make much sense.

1.) Why is Bloomquist hitting second?  Yes, he can get the runner over, we get it, but even Cairo would make more sense in that spot.  Sure, we all complain when Cairo is anywhere in the lineup, but at least he possesses as swing capable of driving the ball hard through the infield or into the gap occasionally, while Bloomquist hits weak grounders that sometimes squeak through and popups.

2.) Hitting Clement eighth isn’t helping him succeed.  Why not just bat him 9th?  At least he has the protection of Ichiro in that spot, enabling him to see a lot more fastballs and hitable pitches.  What problem is worse, Clement striking out or making weak contact because he is being protected by Miguel Cairo, or Clement getting base hits but blocking Ichiro on the basepaths?  I say I’d rather have a slow runner in front of a fast one instead of having no runner in front of a fast one.  Two potential runs are better than one?  Sometimes traditional baseball logic gets in the way of common sense, something Mariner fans know better than anyone.

3.) Vidro hitting cleanup.  There is nothing left to say.