Seattle Mariners

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

This game looked on paper beforehand like the Cleveland Indians might swing and bash the Mariners and Brandon Maurer into submission. You had the team with the best OPS in the league stacking its lineup with lefties to face Maurer, a pitcher who struggles against opposite-handed bats. Instead, it was the Mariners who did most of the hitting in this game. They wound up outhitting the Indians 10-7 and really, it was 10-5 with two out and none on in the 10th inning. The Mariners had run up the pitch count of Indians starter Ubaldo Jimenez just five innings in and forced him from the contest by working counts, getting on base and making his life difficult. They just couldn't finish the job...again. Instead, the Indians saw Jason Kipnis hit a three-run homer off Lucas Luetge in the 10th inning after two batters got on via a walk and a slow chopper. So, it's the Mariners taking the 6-3 loss here even though they were the ones doing the most offensively all night. Seattle pitchers actually had retired 16 batters in a row before Drew Stubbs got the walk off of Luetge in the 10th. So, once again, the fundamentals are there. The Mariners just need to build off that base. “We had plenty of chances,’’ Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. “We’re playing good baseball. We still have to do a better job with runners in scoring position. We’ve got to do a better job of stringing hits together and putting to together innings. “We’ve shown signs at times, of that, but we’ve yet to be consistent with that. That’s why there’s so much reason to believe that we’re going to be a much better offensive club when we start to get to that point.’’ Tough to argue with that contention. The Mariners have spent the past three weeks getting on base and winning more games than they lose. But when they do lose, it's usually because they don't capitalize on the many chances they set themselves up for. The Mariners stranded seven runners the first five innings and 1o on the night. They went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. But on the plus-side, they put 14 runners on base. When you do that and you hit two home runs in the game, you usually wind up with more than three runs. As Wedge said, when the Mariners start to get some more timely hits, they will be scoring more than this with all those runners on the bases. These are good teams the Mariners have played lately in some real tight games. I like the vibe I'm sensing off the club. So does Raul Ibanez, who hit his fourth home run in four games tonight. “I think it’s a great attitude,’’ Ibanez said. “There’s a lot of energy in here before the games and there’s a good, confident vibe on everybody’s part. “This team seems to really be coming together nicely and battling,’’ he added. “Games like that, those (opposing) guys are battling too. And there’s nothing to hang our heads about. We’ve got to keep fighting. And if we keep playing like that, good things are going to happen.’’ You can see what a little power in the lineup can do. There were times when it was a 3-1 game in the fifth inning and Maurer was struggling a it with two on that it looked like the game might be lost. But then Endy Chavez makes that nice catch on a hard liner to right and doubles the runner off first base. All of a sudden, Maurer is through the fifth and then -- boom! -- Ibanez ties it with one swing in the sixth. When you have some bigger bats in the lineup, it gets dangerous for the other team when they put runners on base. That wasn't the case here in Seattle the past few years. From there, it was a completely different game. The Indians couldn't buy a hit and Maurer found an extra gear and kicked it in during that sixth inning. “That was awesome,’’ Maurer said of the Chavez catch. “A great play. That help

The Mariners had plenty of chances to win this game, but just could not get a big hit when they needed it the final few innings. Come to think of it, the Cleveland Indians couldn't get one either until the very end, with the Mariners retiring 16 in a row at one point. But Lucas Luetge walked Drew Stubbs with two out in the 10th, then saw him steal second. Michael Bourn then hit a slow roller past Lucas Luetge for an infield single that put runners at the corners. Jason Kipnis came up next and hit a walkoff three-run homer to hand Seattle a 6-3 loss. Luetge had Kipnis 0-1 in the count, but the next offering was lined clear over the wall. The Mariners had outhit the Indians 10-5 by the time the ninth inning was halfway done. But they'd also stranded nine runners on base to just three for Cleveland by that point. Those missed chances, especially early on in the game, once again loomed large as the late innings arrived. It's the first loss by the Mariners on a walkoff homer since Dayan Viciedo did it against Kameron Loe the first weekend of the season back in April.

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The Seattle Mariners head to Ohio in the A.L. West's second position and just one win away from .500. Ryan Richards of Let's Go Tribe is this series' guest. Date Time Pitching Probables 5/17 4:05 pm PDT Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Brandon Maurer 5/18 10:05 am PDT Zach McAllister vs. Joe Saunders 5/19 10:05 am PDT Justin Masterson vs. Felix Hernandez 5/20 9:05 am PDT Scott Kazmir vs. Hisashi Iwakuma Jon: The Indians unexpectedly emerged over the offseason as the top suitor for two of the best free agent hitters: Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn. How did your expectations for this season change between the end of last season and Opening Day 2013? How have the new guys looked so far? Ryan: The mood surrounding the team at the end of last season was about as dark as it could be. Manny Acta was a lame duck from the middle of August onwards, and it was apparent even from an outsider's perspective that he had completely lost the clubhouse. But even more painful than the remainder of the season was the prospect of the offseason. Yes, the Indians would hire another manager, but the scariest thoughts were centered on the upcoming roster shakeup. The farm system didn't really have any prospects ready to help in 2013, and the Indians had never been major players in the free agent market, so that meant veteran-for-prospect trades. Most of us expected that Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, and others would be dealt for prospects, a couple minor free agent signings would take place, and the team would treat 2013 as a rebuilding year, similar to what happened in 2002-2003 and 2009-2010. There was also the possibility that the entire front office would be let go given the failures in the farm system and at the major league level. Then suddenly Terry Francona became interested in managing the Indians. It turned out that he had maintained friendships with Mark Shapiro and Chris Antonetti that began during his time with Cleveland in 2000, and saw the Indians, even in the state that they were in, as a great opportunity to return to managing. Francona even had a clause placed in his four-year contract that allowed him to leave if there was a change in the front office. So when the Indians hired Francona, it was a package deal, and that set the stage for what happened later that winter. I don't want to go too much into what happened last offseason, other than that Choo was dealt, but three position players were signed (Swisher, Bourn, and Reynolds) that improved the lineup even with Choo's departure. I don't think many expect this club to win the division or anything, but they do see that the franchise seems to have a direction now, which is quite a departure from how things looked nine months ago. As for how the additions have done this season, the answer is very well (with the exception of Brett Myers, who was throwing batting practice before going on the DL). Michael Bourn has been sidelined a large chunk of the season after he cut his finger in the middle of April, so I haven't really gotten a chance to see him play in long stretches, but of the little I have seen of him, he's matched expectations (excellent fielder, disruptive on the bases, a decent hitter). To say Nick Swisher has a bubbly personality would be a vast understatement; he was the one that put this together in Spring Training. Thankfully that's not all he brings to the table; he's been as advertised on offense, a patient hitter with power from both sides of the plate. And the Bourn signing has allowed Swisher to play more first base, which improves the defense at several positions (Bourn in center, Drew Stubbs in right, Swisher at first). While Bourn and Swisher have largely met expectations, Mark Reynolds has surpassed them. When the Indians signed him, I thought that Reynolds would hit some home runs but not much else. Well, he's hit home runs.... ..but to this point he's also been a surprisingly complete hitter, cutting down his swi

The Cleveland Indians went out and signed two free agents -- Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher -- that many thought the Mariners might take a run at this past winter. Cleveland now has the best offense in the AL in terms of OPS and Bourn and Swisher are a huge part of it. Bourne is batting .281 with a .343 OBP and .469 slugging percentage out of the leadoff spot -- no, he isn't Chone figgins reincarnated -- while Swisher has hit .273 with a .374 OBP and a .492 slugging percentage. Mariners starter Brandon Maurer struggles against left-handers and the Indians have stacked their lineup with lefties and switch-hitters. So, either Maurer starts throwing his curveball with some effectiveness or it could be a very long night. No Michael Morse for the Mariners. A late scratch with an irritation in his eye.