Week 7 Recap

• A week that started off so well, taking two of three from the Yankees, turned pretty sour this weekend. The Mariners were swept in Cleveland and lost three of their games in walk-off fashion. That’s only par for the course. The Mariners haven’t won in Cleveland since 2011 and five of their last seven games against the Indians have been walk-offs. A optimist would call that fighting against a tough opponent. A pessimist would call a loss, a loss and would have stopped being a fan 10 years ago.

• Over the four game series in Cleveland, the Mariners launched eight home runs and were swept anyway. On Monday night afternoon morning, the Mariners hit home runs in the eighth, ninth, and tenth innings and lost. Getting on-base still matters. Also on Monday, Tom Wilhelmsen could have ended the game but made an error covering first base and allowed the tieing run to score. Saturday’s game was lost on a defensive miscue on Jesus Montero’s part. Defense also still matters.

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 (5/7 – 5/20).

• The newest members of the Home Run club? Brendan Ryan and Endy Chavez. Ryan actually had a decent road trip and may have played his way out of the doghouse. Also, Brendan Ryan is still the best shortstop in the league. Baseball is funny sometimes.
• Raul Ibanez also had a crazy road trip. For his return to Yankee Stadium, he launched three home runs and added two more in Cleveland. Raul Ibanez is 40 years old. Baseball is funny all the time.

• The bullpen imploded during the series in Cleveland. Lucas Luetge, Oliver Perez, and Charlie Furbush all picked up losses in this series. Overall, the bullpen has been a strength of this team, both in performance and in value. Carter Capps and Yoervis Medina have both pitched well and are young and cheap. Furbush and Perez have dealt with some control problems, both of them have higher walk rates and home run rates than their career averages.
• Tom Wilhelmsen isn’t striking out as many batters as we would expect. He has only one blown save on the year but he hasn’t seemed as dominant as he has looked in the past. Tom Wilhelmsen threw this pitch on Monday morning.

I love Tom Wilhelmsen’s curveball.

• Hector Noesi made a spot start on Thursday in place of Aaron Harang. Surprisingly, Noesi wasn’t completely terrible. He was sent back to AAA-Tacoma so that a fresh arm could come up to relieve the depleted bullpen. Danny Farquhar, come on down! I expect Noesi to be back in a few days and either Farquhar or Luetge to be sent back.

AL West Standings

The Week Ahead

After the disaster of a series in Cleveland, the Mariners play a quick two game series in Los Angeles against the struggling Angels. After an off day, the team returns home against the division leaders, the Texas Rangers. Good thing we’ve got Safeco Joe, Felix, and Kuma pitching for us in this tough series. It’s hard not to feel like this is a crossroads for the Mariners. We’ve just lost a competitive series in Cleveland and now we play two division opponents. Let’s see how much this team has progressed in the past few weeks.