Week #20 in Review
King Felix makes his Safeco Field debut, and oh yeah, the Mariners played 5 other games this week…
Vital Signs
Wins: 49. Losses: 64. Games out of first place: 16.5.
The Mariners drop another game in the standings. And they are staring up at the Athletics who now lead the American League West. And though they have still yet to be officially eliminated from the playoff picture (August still isn’t half way over), according to Baseball Prospectus’s playoff odds, the M’s now have a 0.00128% chance of making the playoffs. It’s now a 6.5-game chasm between the Mariners and the Rangers in third place. They are 3.5 games below their projected wins according to third-order wins.
Runs Scored: 488 (13th in the American League, tied for last with Kansas City). Batting average: .257 (last). On-base percentage: .315 (last). Slugging percentage: .393 (last). Home runs: 93 (13th, thank you Kansas City). Bases on balls: 311 (11th). EqA: .248 (last).
Runs allowed: 518 (7th). Staff ERA: 4.38 (8th). DIPS ERA: 4.74 (13th). Strikeouts: 604 (last). Bases on balls: 369 (11th). Home runs allowed: 123 (10th). Starters ERA: 5.01 (11th). Relievers ERA: 3.10 (3rd). Defensive efficiency: 70.5% (4th).
Mariners won their first series in two weeks, and they were two strikes away from their first sweep since the close of the first half. They went 3-3 on the week, despite being out-scored 20-16. They were out-slugged in home runs 5-3, but drew more walks than the White Sox and Twins 17-15. It’s a sad thing to hold your oppoenents to a .601 OPS and still get out-scored.
Heroes
Richie Sexson went 5-for-23 (.217/.280/.609). Sure, 5 hits in a week is nothing to get too excited about, but when all five go for extra bases, that’s a productive week. Proving that getting to first base just isn’t enough, Sexson slugged 3 doubles and a pair of home runs. But thanks to Ichiro!, Willie Bloomquist and Raul Ibanez (who were getting on base ahead of Richie at a clip of .357, .308 and .240, respectively for the week), those 5 XBH produced only 4 RBI for Sexson. And props go out to Doyle for his first major league longball since May 29, 2002. Dude hits home runs as often as George Lucas makes Star Wars prequels. Only Doyle home runs are better. And hopefully will happen more often now.
Felix Hernandez can own this space here for the pitching hero of the week. 8.0 – 5- 0 – 0 – 0 – 6 – 0. There’s his line for his second major league start. Making it against the Twins doesn’t hurt just one bit. Just imagine if Felix could pitch against his own Mariner lineup? On second thought, don’t. On third thought, buy your tickets for Monday’s game now. Against the limp Kansas City lineup, King Felix will look like a hot knife through butter.
Not-so-much Heroes
Cursed catchers! Yorvit Torrealba goes 1-for-10 (.100/.100/.100). But then Raul Ibanez (.174/.240/.261), Adrian Beltre (.182/.280/.227) and Yuniesky Betancourt (.167/.211/.278) each provided their own respective misery at the plate.
The suckerpunch of Wednesday’s game has been mentioned in this space earlier. And while Jeff Nelson got tagged for the loss in the game (he did walk Lew Ford to start the inning, losing a 10-pitch battle, and then plunked Shannon Stewart, handing the Twins the winning run in scoring position), it was Shigetoshi Hasegawa who allowed three runners on base and watched four cross home plate before he even recorded an out. His line for the week: 0.2 – 3 – 2 – 0 – 0 – 0.
Coming to a stadium near you
This weekend the Mariners host the Los Angeles Angels. While they are just a game back of the A’s for the division lead, and own the wild card by 2.5 games, they’ve gone 13-13 since the All-Star break. They come from Oakland, where in any normal universe, they would have swept the A’s, but the A’s, of course being in their altered state of A’s conciousness, stole the last two games in the 7th inning from the Angels. LA stands at 9th in the league in scoring and 2nd in the league in run prevention. Pitching matchups will be Moyer/Washburn, Harris/Colon and Meche/Lackey.
On Monday, the Royals come to town. The Royals come to town! The Royals, who are buried 36 games out of first place! Never mind that that Royals score runs just as often (or not so often) as the Mariners and allow them at a rate topped only by Tampa Bay. Never mind that they’ve lost 13 straight now. Go buy your tickets for Monday’s game right now. I’m serious. Dead serious. Because I have three words for you: Felix versus Greinke. Which leads to the challenge question of the week: When was the last time two such heralded prospects playing for such irrelevant teams squared off against one another?
Felix versus Greinke.
You have no excuse to not be there.
Comments
13 Responses to “Week #20 in Review”
“Dude hits MLB home runs as often as George Lucas makes Star Wars prequels.”
Nice write-up…….just one small adjustement. ;o)
Love these write-ups. Lots of info already, but maybe add the home attendance figures and how those compare on the year and against other AL teams. I’m sure that per fan at the park, the M’s put out the worst team by far.
How long before we hear complaints that the King’s stats are “inflated” because of the poor offences he’s been facing?
Does Greinke still count as a heralded prospect the way he’s getting hit these days? I realize you can compare it to Maddux’s early career, but that season line looks like a cross between Pineiro’s pitching and Franklin’s run support.
Speaking of which, you’ve got Harris as Saturday’s pitcher. Do you know something we don’t, or is this wishful thinking that Roano Franklero’s going to be sent back to the Mexican League?
Dude, as long as you’re identifying “heroes,” Piñeiro oughtta get at least a mention. 2 qs (shoulda been 2 w), 14 ip, 4 er (2.57), only 1 bb. If you’re rooting for the M’s to do well, that’s gotta please you, and is at least as heroic as a dinger.
Speaking of matchups, as it looks now 8/26 shapes up as Hernandez vs. Hernandez.
Although the m’s and royals share similar levels of ineptitude, the royals just look worse because they make so many boneheaded defensive plays. The m’s sound defense prevents them from being such a laughingstock on the highlight shows. Gotta look for the positives right?
Re: #2
Attendance Numbers on ESPN
I hope the link works if not: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/attendance
cut and paste away.
Thanks, Tim, don’t mind if I do.
Top five in avg. home attendance per win:
LA Dodgers 902
NY Yankees 812
San Francisco 800
Chicago Cubs 707
Seattle 692
and the bottom five:
Chicago Sox 386
Oakland 386
Florida 382
Cleveland 370
Tampa Bay 323
R(wins, avg. attend.) = .388
What a putrid team.
Those attendance numbers are surprising. Mariners fans aren’t too bad eh?
Re Yuniesky — seems to me, however bad his overall production, that he should at least get a shout-out for getting the hit that gave Felix el Rey his first win.
Of the not so heroes, I can tolerate YuBet’s weak hitting for now. He really is a rookie of rookies, not having played for a year before this year and moving up the minor league ladder so quickly his head is probably still spinning. Also compared to Pokey, he has more upside and in the long run he will be cheaper.
So, kinda sad, but…
If anyone wants to go see Felix on Monday but doesn’t have anyone to go woth, shoot me off an e-mail at acblue83ATcomcastDOTnet. I’ll go alone if I have to, but I don’t really have a lot of friends in Seattle as of yet, and none of said friends are real big baseball fans.