Death to all Flying Things...I think I love you

So, I always tell Garbs not to bring this up on the blog, but after the game tonight it needs to be said. I have an unbelievable man-crush on Frankin Gutierrez. During last year it was Evan Longoria and the work that Guti has done out in centerfield has completely won over my [baseball] heart.

It started out innocent enough. I mentioned to Garbs earlier in the season that if I had a daughter I'd let Franklin take her to the prom. The only stipulation was he was to have her home by 10:00 pm. Well, as the season went along, I extended the deadline to midnight, then the next morning. When Gutierrez started hitting the ball with authority during the NL West road trip I started to turn a bit and said I would let Guti take me to the prom. Now...full on man-crush. It's not sick or dirty...it's just right.

So what if I get made fun of for this. Guti is a beautiful, beautiful person and I will shout it out to the world so everyone can hear! Well, the best way I know how to do that is through this blog. I distinctly remember recording our last blogcast over at Garbs' and I mentioned it looked like Gutierrez was starting to come around.

Dave over at USS Mariner posted a while back about how Gutierrez should be an all-star. When you compare his glove with the recent tear he's been on I don't think you can even doubt that he should at least have been considered. Unfortunately for Guti, most fans reward offense over defense. So, until Guti starts putting the ball out of the ball park in a Josh Hamilton fashion, he might have to settle with the adoration of yours truly.

Here's what Guti has done since that San Diego series on June 16th:

.395/.500/.686

That's a batting average of .395, an on-base percentage of .500 and a slugging percentage of .686. This is very impressive and although I don't think the kid will be able to sustain his offensive production it was his defense that initially attracted me to him in the first place.

Here are Guti's defensive numbers so far:

UZR: 12.0

Remember, UZR is a measure of how many runs a player saves a team with their defense. Gutierrez has saved us 12 runs just by being out in centerfield. That's phenomenal.

For those of you who like to look at other metrics like errors, it's just not a valid statistic. If you don't believe me look at Gutierrez' throw a couple days ago against the Orioles. The throw unfortunately hit the side of the mound and bounced past the catcher for an error. Now, if it hadn't have hit the mound, the runner still would have been safe at home but the other runners wouldn't have advanced giving him an error. But regardless, Guti has only committed 3 errors this year compared to a ton of Sports Center Web Gems. That's going to be my next project, ratio of errors to web gems, cause they're both misleading. But the truth is, Guti gets it done in the field.

For those of you who prefer to look at more basic statistics, here are the numbers I used to get the batting averages, on-base percentages and slugging percentage for Franklin Gutierrez.

Games: 22

At Bats: 86

Hits: 34

Walks: 9

1B: 23

2B: 4

3B: 0

HR: 7

Vargas impresses; Defense does not

Same shit story, different day, right? It's starting to become really frustrating to watch the 2009 Mariners turn close games into blow outs! It happened again last night with Jason Vargas pitching a solid 5 innings, giving up 5 hits, 1 run (on the Chris Davis homer), 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. Not too shabby for your first major league start in 2 years and frankly he exceeded all of my expectations against a dangerous Texas lineup.

I'm going to beat this defense topic into the ground yet again. Our outfield defense is amazing, our middle infield however, has become a liability. In the 7th inning of last night's game Yuni again botched another play up the middle on a ball hit by Andruw Jones. The play should have been made and the only reason he wasn't charged with an error on his off-target throw was the fact the Rangers were the home team and the bookkeeper wanted to boost Jones' average.

Let's take a look at the UZR of our two middle infielders Betancourt and Lopez courtesy of fangraphs.com. Remember, UZR is a way to measure how many runs a player contributes or gives up based on the balls they either reach or fail to get to compared to the rest of the players at that position.

Let's start with Yuni. Our shortstop has cost the Mariners -6.4 runs per game based on his defense. Shortstop, arguably the most important defensive position is not a place to be giving up 6.4 runs in 32 games. It may be time to see what Ronny Cedeno can do in the 6-hole.

Lopez, although playing not as poorly as Betancourt, has a UZR of -1.5 based on his defense. And the argument for Lopez was that he more than makes up for his lack of defense or focus with his bat. Well, looking at Jose's offensive stats you'll see he's hitting .248/.289/.360. That's a .248 average, .289 on-base percentage and a .360 slugging percentage. Not exactly setting the world on fire.

Back to defense, this means between our two starting middle infielders they have given up nearly 8 runs! It is absolutely inexcusable for a pair of professional middle infielders to give up a combined 8 runs. So, it's little wonder why when horrible defense up the middle is paired with a flailing offense we can't pull out wins in close games, or prevent close games to becoming blow-outs.

This problem has been occurring for the last three years and it's time to be addressed. How Zduriencik and Wakamatsu take care of this situation however is rather limited. You can't bench both players because the only utility infielder on the team is Cedeno. And you can't trade both of them, so the question remains, If you had to choose between keeping Yuni or Lopez, who would you keep?

Seattle vs. Tampa Bay

If any of you actually listened to the podcast you would know that I cautioned everyone against getting excited about the Mariners' amazing start. I warned everyone that we still have yet to play any of the A.L. East teams.

Well that all changes tonight and I'm now telling you this series is very winnable. The series will feature two of the best defenses in baseball as both lead the league in UZR. So what will this one come down to? Tampa Bay's pitching. Last year Tampa had one of the more impressive starting rotations but as of now they have failed to show a glimpse of 2008. If the starting rotation can keep the Mariners hitters in their current funk I see them winning the series.

But! There is a but, I would take a struggling hitter over struggling pitching. Hitters can be streaky at times and without warning things click and begin to make sense. Seattle has gotten off to this amazing start without much offense. That being said I look for Tampa's pitching to make a comeback but ultimately not the comeback needed to take two-of-three games against the M's.

My guess? Seattle wins Game 1 with Washburn on the mound. Tampa wins Game 2 and Felix dominates the Rays in a pitching duel with James Shields for the Game 3 W and the series win!