Week 16 Recap

Date	Away Team	Score	Home Team	Score	Result
7/14	–	–	–	–	–
7/15	National League	3	American League	5	W
7/16	–	–	–	–	–
7/17	–	–	–	–	–
7/18	Mariners	2	Angels	3	L/16
7/19	Mariners	3	Angels	2	W/12
7/20	Mariners	5	Angels	6	L

A short week with the All-Star game and the surrounding break early in the week. Felix, Cano, Seager, and Rodney all helped the American League beat the National League in the Midsummer Classic and secured home field advantage for the Mariners in this year’s World Series. (If you want to take a brief look at home field advantage, check out my post on the King’s Court)

The Mariners resumed play with a three game series against the Angels. There was a ton of hype surrounding the three game series against the Athletics right before the break but this Angels series was just as important, if not even moreso. The Mariners and Angels needed ten extra innings to settle these three games and, after two walk-off wins, the Angels emerged triumphant. So this marathon of a series and the Athletics series last weekend have shown us that the Mariners can play competitively with the top two team in the division and AL. We’re not at the point where I’d be confident in a one game playoff but we’re close. The trade deadline is July 31, just a week and a half away. Let’s see if Jack Zduriencik has any more magic up his sleeve.

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 (7/7-20).

Batters

Name	G	AB	1B	2B	3B	HR	SB	BB		AVG	OBP	SLG		BB%	K%	BABIP	WAR
Robinson Cano	9	39	15	2	0	1	0	3		0.462	0.500	0.590		7.1%	7.1%	0.486	0.7
Kyle Seager	10	40	7	2	0	3	0	3		0.300	0.341	0.575		6.8%	20.5%	0.310	0.5
Michael Saunders	4	15	5	0	0	1	0	1		0.400	0.438	0.600		6.3%	25.0%	0.500	0.3
Dustin Ackley	9	29	5	2	0	0	0	1		0.241	0.267	0.310		3.1%	12.5%	0.280	0.0
Endy Chavez	9	35	11	0	0	0	2	1		0.314	0.324	0.314		2.7%	8.1%	0.333	0.0
James Jones	10	42	11	2	0	0	1	1		0.310	0.326	0.357		2.3%	23.3%	0.406	0.0
Jesus Sucre	3	9	2	0	0	0	0	0		0.222	0.222	0.222		0.0%	30.0%	0.333	0.0
Willie Bloomquist	7	13	3	0	0	0	0	1		0.231	0.286	0.231		7.1%	28.6%	0.333	0.0
Justin Smoak	5	17	3	1	0	0	0	0		0.235	0.235	0.294		0.0%	17.6%	0.286	-0.1
Stefen Romero	3	9	1	0	0	0	0	0		0.111	0.200	0.111		0.0%	30.0%	0.167	-0.1
Brad Miller	9	31	4	1	0	0	0	3		0.161	0.235	0.194		8.8%	14.7%	0.192	-0.2
Corey Hart	8	26	5	1	0	0	0	1		0.231	0.259	0.269		3.7%	18.5%	0.286	-0.2
Mike Zunino	9	28	1	1	0	1	0	0		0.107	0.138	0.250		0.0%	27.6%	0.105	-0.2
Logan Morrison	9	36	2	2	0	1	1	3		0.139	0.205	0.278		7.7%	17.9%	0.143	-0.3

•  Mike Zunino has not had a good month of July. He’s hit just .095 this month with just a single home run. Even though he’s adding value with his glove it’s easy to forget that he was called up very early in his career. He received just over 500 plate appearances before being called up for good. To contrast, D.J. Peterson, the Mariners top hitting prospect, has over 600 plate appearances already and he’s only just made it to Double-A. For all the progress Zunino has made defensively, he’s going to need to start make some adjustments at the plate or risk losing playing time. We can probably guess that the Mariners called up Jesus Sucre to give Zunino more regular rest without loosing any defensive value.

Pitchers

Name	IP	G	TBF		SO	K/9	BB	BB/9	HR	HR/9		BABIP	ERA	FIP	gmLI	WAR
Hisashi Iwakuma	22 2/3	3	84		21	8.34	0	0.00	1	0.40		0.226	1.59	1.86		0.9
Felix Hernandez	15	2	57		18	10.80	6	3.60	1	0.60		0.219	1.20	2.81		0.4
Chris Young	19	3	78		15	7.11	2	0.95	4	1.89		0.298	3.79	4.62		0.1
Roenis Elias	3 1/3	1	20		3	8.10	3	8.10	0	0.00		0.500	16.20	4.04		0.0
Brandon Maurer	5 2/3	4	19		7	11.12	0	0.00	0	0.00		0.167	0.00	0.67	1.2	0.3
Tom Wilhelmsen	6 2/3	2	25		7	9.45	3	4.05	0	0.00		0.133	1.35	2.39	1.6	0.3
Danny Farquhar	5 2/3	4	22		6	9.53	0	0.00	0	0.00		0.400	3.18	1.55	1.5	0.2
Charlie Furbush	2 2/3	4	10		1	3.38	0	0.00	0	0.00		0.222	0.00	2.39	2.0	0.1
Fernando Rodney	4 1/3	4	19		5	10.38	5	10.38	0	0.00		0.333	4.15	4.30	2.5	0.0
Lucas Luetge	1	1	4		0	0.00	1	9.00	0	0.00		0.333	0.00	6.14	0.3	0.0
Stephen Pryor	1 2/3	0	8		1	5.40	2	10.80	0	0.00		0.200	0.00	5.54	0.5	0.0
Yoervis Medina	3 1/3	5	16		2	5.40	1	2.70	0	0.00		0.273	2.70	4.64	1.2	0.0
Dominic Leone	4	4	18		5	11.25	2	4.50	1	2.25		0.400	4.50	5.39	1.2	-0.1
Joe Beimel	4 1/3	6	19		1	2.08	2	4.15	1	2.08		0.267	2.08	7.06	1.7	-0.2

• Tom Wilhelmsen made a spot start last week and this week he pitched four innings in Friday’s extra innings grueling affair. The Mariners attempted to stretch Wilhelmsen out into a starter last year after he lost the closing gig. With Blake Beavan out for the foreseeable future and Brandon Maurer now a full-time reliever, it looks like Tom Wilhelmsen has become the go-to spot starter for the Mariners. I’d be interested to see if he’d be able to stretch out to five or six innings to give the Mariners extra depth for their rotation but I think the bullpen needs him right now. Right now, the Mariners starter on Wednesday has yet to be decided. I’d expect either Tom Wilhelmsen or Taijuan Walker to get the call. I’m secretly hoping for Wilhelmsen’s second start this year.
• Fernando Rodney was called on to try and get a five out save on Sunday night. He failed (although he did provide some hilarious arrow antics).

 

 

Rodney probably shouldn’t have been asked to try and get five outs. He’s been asked to get more than three outs just once this year and had pitched an inning the day before. But, due to the extra ten innings in the two previous games, the Mariners bullpen was pretty gassed. I’d argue that Danny Farquhar could have been used in the eighth (he wasn’t used on Saturday) but McClendon opted for his closer.

 

AL West Standings

Team	Win-Loss	Win%	Games Behind
Athletics	61-37	0.622	–
Angels	59-38	0.608	1.5
Mariners	52-46	0.531	9
Astros	41-58	0.414	20.5
Rangers	39-59	0.398	22

AL Wild Card Standings

Team	Win-Loss	Win%	Games Behind
Angels	59-38	0.608	+7.5
Mariners	52-46	0.531	–
Yankees	50-47	0.515	1.5
Blue Jays	51-48	0.515	1.5
Indians	50-48	0.51	2

The Week Ahead

Date	Away Team	Probable Pitcher	Home Team	Probable Pitcher
7/21	Mets	L Jonathon Niese	Mariners	L Roenis Elias
7/22	Mets	R Jacob deGrom	Mariners	R Erasmo Ramirez
7/23	Mets	R Bartolo Colon	Mariners	TBD
7/24	Orioles	L Wei-Yin Chen	Mariners	R Hisashi Iwakuma
7/25	Orioles	R Kevin Gausman	Mariners	R Felix Hernandez
7/26	Orioles	TBD	Mariners	R Chris Young
7/27	Orioles	TBD	Mariners	L Roenis Elias

The Mariners start a seven game homestand against the Mets and Orioles on Monday night. The Mets haven’t played in Seattle since 2011. After the Mets leave town, the Mariners begin a four game series against the Orioles. Baltimore is currently atop the suddenly weak AL East. But they’re one of only three teams in the AL that have a better record than the Mariners. With our top three pitchers going against them, I’d expect a series win.