Week 4 Recap

• Well that was an interesting week. After dropping two of three to the Astros, the Mariners returned home to face the Angels and won three out of four. We’re now sitting in sole possession of third place in the AL West despite losing four of six against the Astros. If we had just gone 4-2 against them, we would be just one game behind Oakland and four behind Texas. 

• 2013 Safeco Field Home Run Count: 26 (Twice as many as this time last year!)

Player Performances

One of the features I’m including is a look at the recent player performances from the past two weeks. That small of a sample size will give us some pretty extreme data points. If you want to see the methodology behind these statistics, check out this page. The two tables below are the batting and pitching data from the last two weeks (4/15-4/28).

• Kyle Seager took a sixteen game hitting streak into this week (it ended on Sunday afternoon). Something to watch with Seager is his walk rate. He’s shown better pitch recognition this year even though he’s continued to be aggressive at the plate. Both his strikeout rate and his walk rate are higher than his career average. Both rates are something to watch as we move forward.
• Dustin Ackley racked up some hits as his BABIP started to correct itself after starting the year at an unsustainable level. Ackley is working on his own nine game hitting streak and has raised his season batting average up to .241 and his BABIP to .284. He still isn’t showing the gap power he showed in the minors and when he was first called up in 2011. After working out all the kinks in his swing these past few weeks, hopefully he’ll find his power stroke soon.
  
• Jesus Montero hit two home runs this week and didn’t do much else. He’s still losing playing time to Kelly Shoppach who has cooled off since his hot start. Montero did have an excellent play at home on Saturday night, blocking Mark Trumbo from scoring on a safety squeeze. Despite that defensive highlight, its clear that Eric Wedge prefers Shoppach’s skills behind the plate no matter how well either of them is hitting.
• Carlos Peguero was called up from AAA-Tacoma after Franklin Gutierrez went on the DL with a strained hamstring and promptly hit a monster home run and took a walk in the same game. He was sent back down today as the Mariners activated Michael Saunders from the DL. Sadly, Raul Ibanez is still a Mariner.
• Earlier this last week, Eric Wedge announced that Brendan Ryan had lost his starting shortstop position to Robert Andino. Besides the fact that the best defensive shortstop is now benched, the roles Ryan and Andino are now playing don’t seem to be as clear as starter and backup. Since the announcement, Ryan and Andino have started the same amount of games, two apiece. The way this roster is constructed does not allow for Andino to be an everyday starter as Ryan can only play shortstop and is clearly not any use as a pinch hitter.

• Hisashi Iwakuma continues to be a revelation as our number two starter. Did you know he has the best ERA in the AL since the 2012 All Star Break. Did you know that he has a higher strikeout rate than Felix this year! Now you know that Hisashi Iwakuma is an awesome starting pitcher. Its too bad Eric Wedge didn’t know that at the beginning of last year. In hindsight, it looks completely foolish to have had Iwakuma start last year in the bullpen.
• Don’t look now but Brandon Maurer has thrown three good games in a row. He’s still dealing with a home run problem and will continue to have problems facing lefties if he doesn’t start throwing his changeup more often but he actually looks like a decent mid-rotation starter. That’s more than could be said for the other half of our rotation.
• Aaron Harang and Joe Saunders are pretty bad. Both of them can’t keep the ball in the ballpark, giving up nine home runs between the two of them. Amazingly enough, Joe Saunders hasn’t given up an earned run while pitching in Safeco this year. Saunders only has two (!) strikeouts in the last two weeks. At least Harang is getting strikeouts but he’s allowing everyone who gets on base against him to score. Both of these guys probably aren’t as bad as the stats make them seem. They’ll likely see their home run rates fall back towards league average and start stranding more runners, but yikes.
• Yoervis Medina was brought up from AAA-Tacoma two weeks ago amidst a flurry of moves after Stephen Pryor hurt his lat. He’s shown that he could be a serviceable middle reliever while Pryor is on the DL. In fact, four of our relievers have a strikeout rate above 30% (five if you include Wilhelmsen’s 29.2%). If you can strike a guy out, you’ll make it in the Mariner’s bullpen.

AL West Standings

The Week Ahead

The Mariners stay at home and host the Baltimore Orioles for a three game series. Hopefully the Mariners will be able to carry on their momentum from this last week against the Orioles, a team that destroyed them last year (1-8). We finally have an off day after playing sixteen games straight and then finish the week up in Toronto. The Blue Jays have been pretty disappointing this April after being the heavy favorites to win the AL East. With the top of our rotation facing the Jays, we should see a pretty competitive series to close the week.