Seattle Mariners

SEA Pitcher WPA CLE Pitcher WPA J Saunders -0.112 Z McAllister 0.315 D Farquhar 0.034 R Hill 0.036 O Perez -0.302 C Perez -0.295 Y Medina -0.064 T Wilhelmsen (N/A) SEA Batter WPA CLE Pitcher WPA E Chavez -0.001 M Bourn 0.074 J Bay -0.023 J Kipnis -0.011 M Saunders 0 A Cabrera 0.227 D Ackley -0.07 N Swisher -0.01 K Seager -0.111 M Reynolds 0.256 K Morales -0.072 M Brantley 0 M Morse -0.075 C Santana -0.082 R Ibanez -0.039 M Aviles 0.047 J Smoak 0.418 Y Gomes -0.039 J Montero -0.172 D Stubbs -0.018 B Ryan 0.089 Hero: Justin Smoak (+0.418 WPA) Goat: Oliver Perez (-0.302 WPA) Honorary Bonus Goat: Jesus Montero (-0.172 WPA) Questions posited for the reader: 1. Is it better to be hurt than to never feel at all? After seven innings, this game was more of a surreal, hangover-fever dream than an actual sporting event. If the game had ended then, would you have been better or worse off? 2. As pretend general manager, would you potentially sacrifice wins for the big league club by demoting Jesus Montero for the sake of a Shoppach/Sucre combination? 3. Perform some internal calculus. Raul Ibanez, as you have no doubt noticed, has hit 6 home runs in 7 games. Is he, at this exact moment, lovable? If not, how many games of averaging .86 of a HR per game would it take to make him so?

Oliver Perez picked the wrong time to have a rare off day, giving up a leadoff single and then a double to Asdrubal Cabrera in the ninth. The Mariners intentionally loaded the bases with none out after that and brought Yoervis Medina on to pitch. But Mark Reynolds then hit a shot to the left side that a diving Brendan Ryan made a stop on. But Ryan was off-balance when he threw home and had no chance to get the runner. Mariners take their second straight walk-off loss, 5-4. The loss came after the Mariners had tied the game in stunning fashion in the top of the inning. After spending most of the day going through the motions, the Mariners were down to their last out, trailing by two runs and with nobody on base. But Raul Ibanez kept hope alive with a solo homer to right and then Justin Smoak tied it up moments later with his own solo homer to right-center. That's two hard hit balls by Smoak today, an earlier double nearly going out to left field before striking the top of the wall. That's a welcome sign for the Mariners. Unfortuantely for them today, they waited too long to get untracked. Had they actually done anything on offense prior to the eighth inning, they might not have still be tied in the bottom of the ninth.

Joe Saunders vs. Zach McAllister, 10:05am Tough loss last night, as Jason Kipnis hit a walk-off off of Lucas Luetge. Today’s game starts before some in Seattle have woken up, but as all baseball fans know, you can’t sleep on a pitching match-up like this: Saunders. McAllister. In the baseball mecca of Cleveland, Ohio. You’ll punch yourself in the face if you miss this. McAllister is a fastball/slider guy with a change to lefties. As I’ve talked about, he’s perhaps best known for massive gaps between his ERA and RA, thanks to a slew of unearned runs. He’s got another 5 already this year, which is pretty remarkable. Still, his ERA is even prettier this year as he’s finally got his strand rate above 70%; even so, his career rate is in the mid 60s. Be patient, get some runners on base, M’s. Michael Saunders hadn’t had a day off since his return from the DL, so he gets a day today. In his place, Endy Chavez leads off against the righty McAllister. 1: Chavez, CF 2: Ackley, 2B 3: Seager, 3B 4: Morales, DH 5: Morse, RF 6: Ibanez, LF 7: Smoak, 1B 8: Montero, C 9: Ryan, SS SP: Saunders -- This post came from: U.S.S. Mariner, and is copyright by the authors. This RSS feed is intended for the personal use of readers and not, for instance, spam blogs.Game 42, Mariners at Indians

The Mariners fell to the Indians 6-3 in 10 innings last night, as Jason Kipnis ripped a walk-off three-run blast off of Lucas Luetge. Seattle missed out on their first opportunity to reach the .500 mark since the second week of April, and fell to 20-22. This morning, the Mariners get underway at 10:05 PT, with Joe Saunders taking on Zach McAllister. Before they get Bad road starter Joe Saunders. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports underway in Cleveland, here are some things to look out for. Woeful road Joe Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Saunders’ four starts on the road in 2013: April 3, Oakland: 4 IP, 4 ER, 7 H, 4 BB, 3 K April 19, Texas: 4.2 IP, 7 ER, 9 H, 3 BB, 0 K April 24, Houston: 5 IP, 8 ER, 11 H, 2 BB, 2 K May 5, Toronto: 5 IP, 7 ER, 9 H, 2 BB, 0 K All four of these are horrid starts in their own special ways, and all four are Mariners’ losses by wide margins. The closest game of the bunch was the first one, a 6-2 loss to the A’s. Anything can happen in baseball, but starting Joe Saunders on the road this year has been akin to a forfeit for the Mariners. Part of that may be that he only has five strikeouts in 18.2 road innings this year. He’s relying on contact too much and paying the price. His 12.54 road ERA has to come down today for the Mariners to sniff success. Saunders gets day off Endy Chavez is leading off and playing centerfield today, a role Michael Saunders has occupied in every game since returning from the disabled list. Eric Wedge and my northwest.com’s Shannon Drayer played it off like a regular day off, but Saunders has been slumping lately. Three of his last four games resulted in 0-for-5 performances, and in those three games, he totaled seven strikeouts. That doesn’t equate to quality lead off hitting, and Saunders’ time in that slot could be limited if Chavez or Dustin Ackley can keep hitting. Morse returns from eye trouble The official word on Michael Morse’s eye irritation last night was that he poked himself in the eye some time leading up to Friday’s game and had issues with a dislodged contact and blurred vision for the rest of the night. The Mariners could have used his hot bat yesterday, as runs were few and far between. Hopefully the eye issue doesn’t derail Morse’s hot streak, during which he has racked up nine hits in his past four games. Here’s the lineup for today: Chavez CF Ackley 2B Seager 3B Morales DH Morse RF Ibanez LF Smoak 1B Montero C Ryan SS

This is a big start for "Safeco Joe" Saunders today. His home-road splits have become a bit of a running joke, but nobody on the Mariners is laughing and Saunders sure isn't. Saunders is 9-0 with a 1.72 ERA in 13 career starts at Safeco Field. He's 3-0 with an 0.94 ERA in four starts there this season. Problem is, he's 0-4 with a 12.54 ERA on the road. For the Mariners to be a winning team and contend this season, they need more stability after the top two guys in the rotation. Saunders is being paid $6.5 million to provide some of that stability, but, so far, as you can see, he's been rather unstable. That has to change. A mid-rotation starter doesn't have to win every game. But he does have to deliver quality innings on a routine basis regardless of the ballpark. Otherwise, he's just fourth or fifth starter material. The Mariners right now have too many guys delivering those performances. They need Saunders to do more. He can start by delivering a good performance in a road game.

Franklin Gutierrez played designated hitter on Friday for the second straight time in his injury rehab stint for Tacoma, but the Mariners want him to get work in right field during his time in Triple-A in order to provide more options for when he returns from a strained hamstring. Gutierrez is eligible to come off the 15-day disabled list as soon as he’s ready now, but manager Eric Wedge said he’s not going to just keep doing the same thing with the injury-plagued outfielder and one of the changes will be getting him ready for more than just his normal center-field duties. “We want him to play some right field as well as center, for a couple reasons,” Wedge said. “One, I think it’s easier to stay healthy if you’re playing left or right field versus center field. Two, Michael Saunders has been great in center field. And three, if he’s not 100 percent, then we’re better off with him in right field. “Now if he’s the Guti of old, 100 percent, then of course you want him in center field. But he just hasn’t proven he can do that. So we’re going to give him some time down there to work things out. We DH’d him last night just because of the weather conditions, but we want him to play both.” Saunders has played very well in center and Wedge is very comfortable keeping him there. But he’d be glad to have a fully healthy Gutierrez there if that is possible. Wedge said Saunders is the better center fielder right now “if Guti’s not 100 percent. But if Guti’s 100 percent, I don’t think there’s anybody better.” Getting Gutierrez healthy has long been the issue, however. He’s now on his fifth disabled list stint in the past three seasons. He’s played just 148 games in those three seasons while missing 218. So Wedge wants to see something different during this rehab stint before he returns. The Mariners have 20 days to make that decision. “I’m going to work off him,” Wedge said of a possible return date. “But like I told him, I need him not to just be able to play up here, but be able to play every day, steal a base and do some things. Otherwise we’re just going to end up back where we are right now. I want to give it some time.” The tough part for the Mariners is when they bring Gutierrez back, they’ll need to make a roster decision. They can’t carry six outfielders, so someone will have to go at that time and Endy Chavez seems the likely man out unless there’s an injury in the meantime. But sending Chavez down would mean exposing him to waivers and someone could claim him, given he’s played pretty well. But the Mariners will face that decision when it comes. For now, they just push ahead with Saunders in center and Gutierrez in Tacoma. Saunders has started 15 straight games since returning from a sprained shoulder and has struggled on the current road trip, going 2-for-19 in the first four games. So Wedge gave him Saturday off and had Chavez in center, with Saunders expected back Sunday. Michael Morse was also back on Saturday, recovered from an eye irritation caused by a contact lens problem before Friday’s game. Here’s the full lineups:

Yesterday we got to watch Lucas Luetge, the team's seventh or eighth-best reliever, cough up a game in the tenth inning while Tom Wilhelmsen watched from the bullpen. I had a lengthy screed prepared for this flagrant managerial ineptitude, until I remembered that he'd already pitched consecutive nights against the Yankees, throwing 23 pitches on the sixteenth. Here are Wilhelmsen's career stats when pitching for a third consecutive day: Sv K/9 FIP Tom Wilhelmsen 0 0.0 0.00 Whether or not Wilhelmsen could perform such a task is certainly open to debate, and though we're unlikely to see a 1974 Mike Marshall ever again, it's been said (often by older relievers) that today's bullpen is treated with too light a touch. The balance of the estimated risk versus the reward of staving off Luetge-dom in a mid-May contest against the Indians is an exercise I leave the reader. Today, hopefully, we will not have to talk about Lucas Luetge pitching in high-leverage situations. The lineups: 1. Chavez CF 1. Bourn CF 2. Ackley 2B 2. Kipnis 2B 3. Seager 3B 3. Cabrera SS 4. Morales DH 4. Swisher DH 5. Morse RF 5. Reynolds 3B 6. Ibanez LF 6. Santana 1B 7. Smoak 1B 7. Aviles LF 8. Montero C 8. Gomes C 9. Ryan SS 9. Stubbs RF P. Saunders SP P. McAllister SP I only seem to post game threads involving Joe Saunders. It makes me feel like I'm his personal catcher, like I'm Jamie Burke. I guess there are worse things in the world than feeling like Jamie Burke. Things you should know: Michael Saunders gets the day off, after starting all 15 games since coming off the DL. That sounds pretty impressive, but then, those 15 games came over the course of 25 days. Still, Endy Chavez catches all the fly balls today. Resting Saunders also frees Wedge to ride the Hot Hand of Raul Ibanez. Currently Ibanez has a triple-slash of .235/.278/.541. It's the lowest OBP of his career, minus the early backup-catching days of his youth, and the second-highest SLG. Among the starters, only Seager and Morse have a higher OPS+ (126). Enjoy it while it lasts, if that's the sort of thing you enjoy. Zach McAllister has a shiny 2.68 ERA, but beneath it he's a pretty average righty. He mixes a two-seam and a four-seam 91mph fastball, both of which are decent, with a curve and an occasional change-up, both of which are slightly less than decent. McAllister's FIP so far is 4.03, making him about a two-win pitcher on average. Mark Reynolds is quietly having a great season, batting .263/.353/.564. What's more, it may not be a fluke: his famous strikeout rate (career 32.3%) is down to 25.6% this year, as he's making contact far more often. His contract is for $6 million this year, and according to FanGraphs, he's already produced $5.4m worth of value. He's only 29. In an unimpressive free agent class of 2014, he might earn himself a ton of money. This isn't true, but it feels like the entire Cleveland Indians roster is comprised of players the Mariners shouldn't have traded, players the Mariners should have drafted, and players the Mariners should have signed. And Trevor Bauer.

We're a couple of hours from gametime and Michael Saunders is getting a rare day off for the Mariners, having played 15 games in a row. Saunders has looked tired at the plate his last two games, so the rest comes at a good time. You can expect to see Saunders playing a lot of center field going forward, perhaps even once Franklin Gutierrez is ready to return off the disabled list. Gutierrez was slotted to play right field last night for Class AAA Tacoma prior to being moved to the DH spot because of slick field conditions. I asked manager Eric Wedge this morning whether we should read anything into Gutierrez being in right instead of center. "We want him to play some right field as well as center field for a couple of reasons,'' Wedge said. "One...I think it's easier to stay healthy if you're playing left field or right field versus center field. Two, Saunders has been great in center field. And three...if he's not 100 percent, then we're better off with him in right field. Now, if he's the Guti of old, 100 percent, then of course you want him in center field. But he just hasn't proven that he can do that. So, we're going to give him some time down there to work things out.'' Wedge said it's critical that Gutierrez comes back fully healthy, meaning he could very likely use all 20 days of allotted rehab time before the team calls him back up. "Like I told you (media) guys and I told him, too, I need him to be not just able to play up here, but able to come up here and play every day, steal a base and do some things. Because otherwise, we're going to end up right back where we are right now.'' There's another big reason the team needs to be able to count on Gutierrez daily. "The fact of the matter is, there's a good chance we'll lose a player when we activate him, too,'' Wedge said. "That's real, too.'' Indeed it is. As we've mentioned before, Wedge has no plans to carry six outfielders. I asked him about that again this morning. "No, we can't do that,'' he said. "You just can't do it.'' So, that leaves a tough decision ahead. It also leaves the team extremely vulnerable going forward if Gutierrez or Saunders gets hurt again. Right now, there is no way the team is about to release Raul Ibanez or Jason Bay given how they're playing. The odd man out, if things stay as they are, would be Endy Chavez. Now, if Chavez gets through waivers, then great. He can be outrighted to AAA. But there's a good chance that won't happen. We all saw how even an unproven Casper Wells kept getting claimed on waivers. A seasoned outfielder like Chavez, who can bat leadoff and is hitting .282, is going to be looked at by plenty of teams. If the Mariners lose Chavez, their center field insurance becomes Corey Patterson, signed a couple of weeks back to a minor league deal. Patterson didn't play at all in the majors last year after hitting .239 for Toronto and St. Louis back in 2011. Though he has big league experience, it isn't as recent as what Chavez gave the Mariners and there appears to be a clear talent dropoff between the pair. So far, he's hitting .194 with a .533 OPS for AAA Tacoma. That's the guy the Mariners would have to call up to the big leagues if Gutierrez goes down again after the Mariners lose Chavez to a waiver claim. Now, Wedge isn't about to say who the odd man out will be once Gutierrez returns. But I asked him whether he'd be comfortable going forward with just Gutierrez and Saunders as center fielders in the majors. "Yeah, I'm comfortable with that,'' he said. "I mean, those are two fine options for us. So, I'm comfortable with that. Now, if something happens, then you might get a little bit thin. But again, you can't cover everything. You know? You try to hedge your bets as best you can and go from there.'' In other words, if things stay the same

You ever wake up in the morning and know exactly what’s going to happen to you the whole rest of the day? Let me tell you: it’s goddamn creepy. The first time it happened to me, I couldn’t get out of bed for half an hour. It was like having a bucket of raw information dumped into my brain – the flood of data, the sheer sensory overload just shut my system down. I couldn’t move. Or, maybe, I knew I wasn’t going to move until exactly 7:23 and 36 seconds, when the cat decided my face looked comfortable. One of those things. Anyways, it’s a weird-ass feeling, like déjà vu on steroids. First thing I thought was, probably shouldn’t have stayed out with the girls past one AM the night before a quarterly review. Then I realized I’d known I was going to think that before I’d thunk it, and then I realized I’d known I was going to think that before I’d thunk it, and then all hell broke loose inside my head. Like being drunk, only not, y’know? That first day, I was too shocked to actually use any of it. Here: imagine you woke up one day with wings. You wouldn’t jump out of bed and take off right away, right? First you’d freak out, and then you’d freak out some more, and then you’d try to pretend like they weren’t there, but it wouldn’t work. And then, maybe, you’d get kinda curious, do a few flaps, work your way up to it until finally you’re skipping around town like the world’s heaviest zebra bird. Or something. So I went in to work like always, only a little bit late because of the whole head exploding thing. I saw it coming – the spilled coffee, I mean, not the psychic crap – but I couldn’t do anything about it. Too bad. I liked that blouse. Anyways, by the time the quarterly got done, I was freaking the fuck out. At first it just seemed like the same old, same old routine of work: broken printer, lost USB key, asshole in the cubicle next to me making fun of my Mariners mousepad… but by the time I got to the Q&A bit of the presentation, and I knew the As before they asked the Qs, I had a feeling something was up. Or, rather, I knew something was up. So I asked my boss for rest of the day off. She said sure, congratulated me on the great presentation, looked impressed when I said I'd done it doped up on Nyquil. Told me to take care. I went home, called up my boyfriend, asked him if he'd believe me if I told him something weird. He said sure. I told him. He didn't believe me. But he came over after work anyways, because we'd already scheduled a date for that night (takeout dinner and the Mariners on TV, God help us). The food was crap, but the company made up for it. Plus, the M's flattened New York 12-2, and the look on his face when Seager hit the home run and he realized I'd called the final score perfectly... there's something you don't see every day. The next morning when I woke up I didn't have it. It's weird like that - not every day, not always the whole day. My boyfriend laughed at me when I told him: "Miss One-Shot Psychic, wasting her shot on the Mariners". But then it was back the day after, and he shut up pretty quick after I told him exactly which puddle he'd slip in on the way to work. Being psychic has its advantages. That third day was the day I figured out I could change stuff. If I saw a future I didn't like, usually one that involved the asshat one cubicle over talking to me, I could figure out the steps that had led up to it and then do things differently. Just like that, my work day became about sixty times more pleasant. Feeling pretty good about myself, that night I called up my friend Miranda, told her to come over to my house - I had a cool new trick to show her. She consented. When I flipped on MLB.TV, she sighed. "This better be good," she said... I practically rubbed my hands together with glee. Then I pulled out a pen and an index c

SEA P WPA CLE P WPA Maurer -.043 Jimenez .117 Furbush .166 Hill -.163 Capps .216 Allen .045 Luetge -.422 Shaw .150 Perez .134 Pestano .134 SEA WPA CLE WPA Saunders -.275 Bourn -.008 Ackley -.103 Kipnis .343 Seager .010 Cabrera -.149 Morales -.083 Swisher -.067 Smoak .028 Santana .129 Ibanez .231 Giambi -.025 Shoppach -.106 Reynolds -.188 Chavez -.098 Brantley -.100 Ryan -.020 Stubbs .149 Brought The Thump: Raul Ibanez, +.231 What A Chump: Lucas Luetge, -.422 Fuck Cleveland. Questions! 1) Write a short poem (haiku, limerick, heroic couplet... whatever) expressing your hatred for the Cleveland Indians. 2) Michael Brantley is an interesting outfielder not entirely dissimilar to 2012 Michael Saunders. What do you think would be a fair trade that would bring Brantley to the Mariners? 3) A genie descends from the heavens and offers you power over all of the beverages in the city of Cleveland - you can change them all into whatever other soda, juice or soft drink you choose. What drink do you pick, and why? Poll Player of the Game Raul Ibanez Brendan Ryan Brandon Maurer 35 votes | Results