Mariners Report--4/18

Seattle Mariners, 9-7, 1st place by 1 game over Oakland and Anaheim

TEAM STATISTICS (rankings out of all 30 MLB teams):
Batting:
.251 AVG (21st)
70 RUNS (18th)
11 HR (tied for 23rd)

Pitching:
3.65 ERA (9th)
1.24 WHIP (7th)
107 K (tied for 11th),

LATEST NEWS:
The Mariners have won 5 of 6 games, including 3 of 4 against Oakland, and have largely done it with solid pitching. In fact, in their last 11 games, they’ve only given up more than 4 runs one time. So far, the offense has been just good enough to win. In winning 4 of their last 5 games, the M’s have scored just 18 runs (3.6 per game). They’ll need to bump that offensive production up a notch if they want to continue their winning ways.

The AL West has been very competitive, with the M’s leading the division at 9-7 and the Rangers in last at 7-9 (just 2 games back). It’s the closest division in baseball and if the Rangers can hang in there, it will be that way at the end of September. Unlike previous years, the M’s haven’t gotten off to a torrid start against their division rivals and the decline in attendance this week might be the early result.

Who’s Hot—Hitters (stats for last 7 days):
RF Ichiro--.308 avg, 5 runs, 2 sb, .455 obp
2B Bret Boone--.321 avg, 3 hr, 4 rbi, .406 obp, .714 slg
SS Carlos Guillen--.308 avg, .419 obp
DH Edgar Martinez--.353 avg, .450 obp, 5 rbi

Who’s Not (stats for last 7 days):
LF Randy Winn—.136 avg, 0 extra-base hits, 1 RBI, 9 strikeouts in 22 at-bats
CF Mike Cameron--.227 avg, 0 rbi, 9 strikeouts in22 at-bats

Who’s Hot—Pitchers (stats for last 2 starts forstarting pitchers, last 2 weeks for relievers):
SP Jamie Moyer—1-0, 1.50 era, 12 inn, 13 k, 3 bb
SP Gil Meche—1-0, 2.31 era, 11.2 inn, 11 k, 4 bb
RP Arthur Rhodes—1-0, 0.00 era, 0.27 whip, 7.1 inn, 2 h, 4 k, 0 bb
RP Shigetoshi Hasegawa—0-0, 0.00 era, 0.66 whip, 10.2 inn, 6 h, 7 k, 1 bb
RP Jeff Nelson—1-0, 1.93 era, 0.43 whip, 4.2 inn, 1 h, 3 k, 1 bb
RP Kazu Sasaki—1-0, 3 svs, 1.50 era, 0.83 whip, 6 inn, 3 h, 9 k, 2 bb

Who’s Not—Pitchers (stats for last 2 starts forstarting pitchers, last 2 weeks for relievers):
SP Freddy Garcia—0-2, 4.50 era, 1.33 whip, 12 inn, 11 h, 7 k, 5 bb
SP Ryan Franklin—1-1, 4.82 era, 1.45 whip, 18.2 inn, 20 h, 9 k, 7 bb

A CLOSER LOOK:
Ichiro’s batting average is lower than you’d expect (.273) but he’s walking more this year than in either of his previous 2 years in the U.S. He’s on pace for around 90 walks after walking 30 and 68 times in his ’01 and ’02. His average will come up and he will steal more bases (3 steals so far) as Bob Melvin becomes a more confident manager and starts running more. He’s still a 100+ runs, 30+ steals guy and the average will get back over .300.

Bret Boone snapped out of an early slump and has come around in the last week. He’s the M’s major power threat so they need him to keep it going in the middle of the lineup.

Carlos Guillen may be hitting .326 so far, but don’t count on it to last. Nothing in his past says that he’ll hit over .300 this year. He was off to a good start last year too (hitting .337 in April of ’02), but ended up at .261.

Edgar Martinez is amazing. After straining his hamstring early in the year, he can’t run at full speed anymore. Not that he had much speed anyway. Now when he hits a ground ball, it’s a jog down to first and an easy out. I’d expect opponents to play their infielders back on the outfield grass because they’ll still be able to throw Edgar out at first from the outfield. He’s strictly a base-to-base guy. He can’t score from first on a double, can’t score from second on a single, unless it’s a deep single in the gap. Despite this, he’s hitting .368. Fantasy-wise, he’ll still hit, he’ll put up 20-25 homers, and around 100 rbi, but his runs scored will take a hit. When he gets on base in the 7th inning or later, they run for him. In his last 5 games, he has a .450 on-base percentage, he’s been on base 9 times, and hasn’t scored a run. One last thing about Edgar: the M’s absolutely need him in the lineup. Heading into last Wednesday’s game, the team was hitting 20 points higher when Edgar is in the lineup. His presence in the lineup makes everyone around him better.

Randy Winn struggled through the Mariners homestand, and is hitting .182 at Safeco so far this year compared to .423 on the road. Safeco is a pitcher’s park, but I don’t think the park can take that much blame for Winn’s current struggles. For one thing, he has struck out 11 times in 33 at-bats at home so far. The park dimensions don’t make a difference if you’re striking out 1/3 of the time. The hitter’s background is another story. Mariners players have complained since the park opened that the hitter’s background isn’t the best. That might take some getting used to.

Mike Cameron is really struggling to just make contact. He’s struck out 20 times in 57 at-bats. This after all the reports out of spring training about his focus on cutting down strikeouts. His strikeout totals the last 3 seasons: 133, 155, 176. Right now he’s on pace for 200.

Freddy Garcia is pitching better than his 1-3 record shows. Garcia pitched a solid game against Oakland in his last outing (7 inn, 4 h, 2 er) but was outdone by Tim Hudson. That being said, his strikeouts to walks numbers are just 15 to 13 (K/BB of 1.15). A pitcher with his stuff should have a 2 to 1 ratio. If he comes up with a couple good games in a row (facing Cleveland and Detroit in his next 2 starts will help) and you can get something good for him in a trade, do it.

Gil Meche is coming around. You don’t necessarily want to pick him up yet, there are better pitchers likely available on waivers in your league, but he had a great game against Oakland (6 inn, 4 h, 0 er, 5 k, 0 bb) and was once a very highly-regarded pitching prospect.

The bullpen has been dominant so far this season, posting a 1.69 era and a 0.94 whip. The highest ERA belongs to Giovanni Carrara at 3.24. Rhodes and Hasegawa have cominbed to throw 22 scoreless innings. Sasaki didn’t pitch as much in spring training as he would have liked and is still shaking off the cobwebs, but he gassed it up to 95 mph in his last outing which is faster than I’ve seen him through in the last year-and-a-half. He’s still a top closer choice.

LOCAL SPIN:
After Jeff Cirillo broke out of a 1 for 28 slump to start the season with a 4 for 4 day, the local media jumped on it as a turning point for his season. The next day he went 0 for 5, but followed that with a 1 for 2 day that included a 2-run homer in the 6th inning that proved to be the game-winner. The headlines were all about Cirillo the day after that homer. Also doing their part to be supportive has been the Mariners announcers. With every play made in the field and every well-hit ball (even if it results in an easy fly out to center), the announcers claim that Cirillo is back on track. After the 2-run homer game Monday, Cirillo went 0 for 3 on Tuesday, then sat out a game against Tim Hudson on Wednesday, then was 0 for 2 on Thursday before leaving with a strained side after the 5th inning. The injury came on a fielding play. Manger Bob Melvin compared it to Dan Wilson’s spring training injury, which forced Wilson to the disabled list. Cirillo didn’t think it was that serious. If it is a DL-type injury, the M’s would be lucky. If he’s not injured, he’s sitting there making $6.475 million (6th-highest salary on the team) and the M’s will feel compelled to continue to play him and his .136 batting average. If he’s out for a couple weeks, the M’s can see what life is like with a thirdbaseman (most likely, Mark McLemore filling in) who can at least achieve mediocrity with a bat. If I was writing the headlines, instead of writing about Cirillo “being back on track,”, it would say: “Cirillo’s Dying Carcass Shows A Spark of Life.” Despite a couple good games, he’s still shouldn’t be on any fantasy team.

Another topic of discussion in the local papers is the decline in attendance this year from the last 2 years. Attendance was below 30,000 for the first 3 games against Oakland this week and a headline in the Seattle Times said, “Does Low Attendance Spell Trouble for Mariners Franchise?” It’s a load of crap, really. The M’s had the highest attendance in baseball last year, with Safeco being filled to 92.8% capacity for the season. They’re down a bit from that, but still in the upper echelon of attendance for this season. This is true despite a worse economy and higher ticket prices than last year. Putting a headline like that in the paper is a waste of everyone’s time.

INJURIES:
Jeff Cirillo strained his side in Thursday’s game. He doesn’t think he’ll be out more than a few days, but the Mariners might be more cautious because he’s also had troubles with back spasms recently.

MY TWO CENTS:
I love a good pennant race myself, so I’m rooting for the Rangers to hang close to Seattle, Oakland, and Anaheim all year. At the very least, I’m hoping that the M’s-A’s game on September 27th means something (I already have tickets for that one). All 4 teams in the AL West have been slugging it out for the first 2 weeks and it’s been great. Anaheim was swept by Oakland in the first week of the season, then returned the favor by sweeping them last weekend, only to then lose 3 of 4 to the last-place Rangers. Oakland started off 7-1, then lost 6 of 7 games. It’s wild, it’s wacky, it’s a whole lotta fun.