April 7, 2003 Mariners Reports

Seattle Mariners
Record: 3-3, 2nd place in AL West, 2 games behind Oakland A’s

Who’s Hot—Hitters:
LF Randy Winn—Winn is hitting .423 with 6 runs scored, 4 doubles, and 2 steals. He’s been the M’s top hitter, getting hits in 5 of 6 games. Winn is in an ideal spot in the lineup, #2—behind Ichiro and ahead of Edgar Martinez. Winn went 6 for 13 in a 3-game series in Texas over the weekend. Now the M’s are back at Safeco, a much tougher park to hit in, so Winn should come back to earth a bit, but is worth a spot if you need runs and steals.

DH Edgar Martinez—Edgar’s annual hamstring pull happened Sunday, while running out a ground ball for a base hit. For the last few years, every time Edgar hits a ground ball, I’ve been wincing in fear that he’ll pull a hammy. The report is that he’ll only miss 3 to 5 games, but injuries will be an ongoing problem for Edgar. It’s too bad too, because he was off to a torrid start: .381 average, .500 on-base percentage, and a .577 slugging percentage.

1B John Olerud—Actually, hitting .304 with a .385 OBP doesn’t really qualify as hot for Olerud, it’s just what you can expect from him.

Who’s Not:
3B Jeff Cirillo—Well, so far it doesn’t look like Lou Piniella was to blame for Cirillo’s terrible year last year, he’s 1 for 18 (.056) this season and Piniella is 3,000 miles away. Don’t expect it to get a whole lot better, the M’s come home for 10 games and Cirillo is a .217 hitter at Safeco. If you made the foolish mistake of drafting Cirillo, DUMP HIM NOW!

C Ben Davis—His batting average is twice that of Cirillo (2 for 18, .111) but . . . ugh. I thought he’d take advantage of Dan Wilson being on the DL. It didn’t happen. Davis has struck out 6 times in 18 at-bats and hasn’t drawn a walk. He did hit one homer. He’s not a lost cause yet considering the weakness at catcher in Fantasy Baseball, but he had an opportunity for a week to show something and didn’t take advantage of it.

2B Bret Boone—A .222 batting average and 2 RBI in 27 at-bats isn’t the start the M’s were hoping to get from Boonie in the heart of the batting order. Things won’t be easier for Boone with Edgar out of the lineup for the next few days. He started slow last year, hopefully he’ll pick it up before July this time.

Who’s Hot—Pitchers:
The Bullpen—Carrara (3 inn, 0.00 ERA), Hasegawa (5.1 inn, 0.00 ERA), Rhodes (3.1 inn, 0.00 ERA), Nelson (2.1 inn, 3.86 ERA), and Sasaki (2 inn, 4.50 ERA) have been solid.

Who’s Not—Pitchers:
The Starting Rotation—Joel Pineiro (6 inn, 4.50 ERA) was the only starter who pitched halfway-decently the first time through. Franklin (6.00 ERA), Meche (10.80 ERA), and Moyer (12.46 ERA) were rocked, as was Freddy Garcia in his first start. Garcia settled down in his 2nd start, picking up a victory.

LATEST NEWS:
Dan Wilson was activated from the DL and went 1 for 4 on Sunday versus the Rangers. He’ll likely be eased back into things but will be considered the starter when he’s back to full strength.

LOCAL SPIN:
If losing to Oakland (and Tim Hudson and Barry Zito) in the first 2 games of the season was disappointing to M’s fans, they may have set their sights too high. The A’s are clearly a much better team when looking at the lineup and the starting rotation. The Mariners look better defensively but the A’s have a clear overall advantage. The Mariners’ next 13 games are against the AL West, so this is an important stretch of the season to see what they’re made of.

INJURIES:
DH Edgar Martinez will miss 3-5 days with a tweaked hamstring.

QUICK VIEW:

Add:
Ichiro—Little power but he gives you average, runs, and steals galore. New manager Bob Melvin seems to like to run.
Edgar Martinez—As long as he’s only out 3-5 day, he’s worthy of a spot but be ready to drop him if the injury bug continues to bite.
Randy Winn—.280 average, 100 runs, 10 homers, 60 rbi, 30-40 steals.
Joel Pineiro—Has more talent than Moyer and a better attitude than Garcia.

Drop:
Jeff Cirillo—I’d be surprised if very many people have him on their rosters, but if you’re one of the unfortunate who does, get rid of him quickly. Cirillo’s batting average in every park other than mile-high Coors Field the last 3 years: .236, .266, .249.

Hold:
Freddy Garcia—Wait until he fattens up his stats against the Indians and Tigers (The M’s play 12 of 24 games versus those 2 teams between April 22 to May 18) then consider a trade as his value goes up.

MY TWO CENTS:
Going 3-3 on a season-opening road trip isn’t bad. The M’s had an extended spring training because of the cancellation of the trip to Japan and were likely chomping at the bit to get things going for real. Running into Hudson and Zito in Games 1 and 2 wasn’t easy, and the M’s put up just 3 runs in those 2 games. But they bounced back to beat the A’s in the series finale, then took 2 of 3 from the Rangers, and things are looking okay. The next 13 games, all against division foes, will be important for the M’s to get a feel for how the season may go. They still need a big gun pitcher and, quite frankly, they need to fill the gaping hole in the lineup that is Jeff Cirillo. If you match up the Mariners’ third-base spot with the Athletics (Eric Chavez), Angels (Troy Glaus), and Rangers (Hank Blalock), the M’s fall far short. The M’s have 3 weak spots in the lineup: 3B Cirillo, SS Guillen, and the catcher spot, either Wilson or Davis. They can put up with weak offense from the key defensive spots, shortstop and catcher, but they need more production from third base.