Open season in Blog-ville if M's lose

I can almost hear the dissent building irrationally. Nerves beginning to fray. Cactus League questions lining up like hitters by the batting cage.

Bloggers blogging until their finger tips are as worn as base-stealer's pants. Anxiety increasing before Felix Hernandez has thrown the season's first pitch.

The sublime quickly morphing into the absurd.

Before Tuesday's 10-3 win over Texas, the Mariners were 0-5 and a guy actually came up to me at breakfast Tuesday, shaking his head and telling me, in all seriousness, he thought Mariners manager Mike Hargrove was doing a lousy job this spring.

That comment got me imagining the kind of blogosphere nonsense that could build rapidly if the Mariners keep losing before the real games begin.

Imagine how hot Hargrove's seat could get in Blog-ville.

I conjured a group of passionate, well-intentioned, if not quite well-informed, fans hunkered in some chat room, debating the Mariners' slow start in the desert.

"There he goes again, mismanaging his bullpen," ILuvGar types, beginning the debate. "What's Hargrove thinking bringing in his closer in the sixth inning of Monday's game against the Cubs? I know we were clinging to a 4-3 lead, but what's J.J. Putz doing in there?

"And I understand Hargrove was desperate for a win, but no manager's book tells you to bring your closer into a one-run game in the sixth. Hargrove's panicking, I tell you. That hot seat he's sitting on must feel like a furnace about now."

On the first day of camp, Hargrove was asked about the temperature of his seat as he was starting his third season as Mariners manager, and he quickly let it be known that he wasn't addressing that question, not in February or March or September.

Who could blame him? As Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren would say, "It is what it is." Hargrove doesn't need reminding.

But back to the chatters.

"No doubt about it, against the Cubs on Monday, he got out-managed by Lou Piniella," SafecoSlim blogs. "He pulled Richie Sexson in the fourth inning. THE FOURTH INNING. How does he expect to win games with moves like that? That's not managing. That's surrendering."

You can almost hear a voice of reason trying to explain that this is only spring training. "Whatever happens in Peoria, stays in Peoria," BringBackBone types.

But some other grouchy fan whose patience has been thinned by three straight last-place finishes finds the Hargrove quote from Tuesday's newspaper: "We don't go out there to lose. We don't go out there just to play, to get our game in shape. We play to win. It just hasn't happened so far."

Then the ire rises.

"What's he talking about when he says he doesn't go out there to lose?" types ARodHater. "He didn't even start Ichiro in the charity game. Don't you think that's taking charity a step too far?

"And if he was playing to win against Lou's Cubs, why did he pull Miguel Batista after two shutout innings? We had a 4-0 lead until Hargrove started turning his bullpen into a carousel. And in the bottom of the ninth of a one-run game, that he swears he's not going out there trying to lose, why isn't Raul Ibanez hitting? Where's Ichiro?"

"That's just shoddy managing," types BoonieTwo. "Bill Plummer was better than that. I'm telling you, Maury Wills would have won that game. He would have kept Batista in there for at least six innings and had Putz up for the ninth."

The point is, everybody's a critic, even in March. And, when teams have been losing as long as the Mariners have been losing, no bad deed goes unnoticed.

"I'm blaming general manager Bill Bavasi, not Hargrove, for the loss to the Cubs," I'mNotPatGillick types. "If he hadn't traded Rafael Soriano, Hargrove could have gone to Soriano in the sixth and saved Putz for later. It was too early for Putz. I'm telling you his biological clock was all out of whack. In that situation we needed a setup man."

On the first spring-like day of the year, with the sound of the Cactus League game on the radio riding the soft March zephyrs, we get reminded that baseball season is almost here. But I suspect the early March losses already are making some fans apprehensive about the new year.

"You ask me, he got lucky out there today," I can see CoraCoraCora blogging after the win. "I mean, how many times can Hargrove go to the Tony Torcato well? He's not going to get three ribbies out of Torcato every game like he got against Texas.

"Using Torcato, instead of, you know, Adrian Beltre, late in a game is exactly the kind of move that gets a manager fired."

Throw a few more coals under that hot seat. Opening day is only 26 days away.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.