Hargrove's Incompetence Inflicting Marital Distress

Forget gay marriage. The greatest threat to that holiest of institutions is Mariner manager Mike Hargrove. His idiotic bullpen management this weekend, summed up in this post at USS Mariner, caused at least one marital breach we know of. There must be others. Says a USS Mariner commenter:

My wife is not talking to me because instead of driving I was pounding the wheel screaming to get “Gas Can” Mateo out and Putz in…shut it down now!!!

The cause of the upset--the M's played two tight one-inning games over the weekend, games decided by the bullpens, but in neither game did Hargrove use his best reliever, J.J. Putz.

On Saturday (M's lose in 14 innings), he warmed Putz up three times and didn't get him in the game. On Sunday (M's lose in 11 innings) he said he couldn't use Putz because he'd warmed him up three times Saturday.

Some managers make bad strategic decisions, Hargrove actively works to make sure his best players can't play. Next he'll have Ichiro dancing barefoot on broken glass between innings.

The non-move that got our dander up--yesterday, when he let Willie Bloomquist, the worst hitter on the team, bat in the 8th inning with the M's down one run, and two runners on. Inexplicable.

Sadly, like that other mismanager from Texas, it doesn't look like Hargrove's going anywhere.

M's start a three game series at Yankee Stadium today at 4:05 PST: Jarrod Washburn (4-9, 4.58) vs. Chien-Ming Wang (9-4, 4.00).