Do we have a problem?

I was able to go to the Mariners game on Friday night. The stadium was full of buzz as Cliff Lee was set to make his debut as a Seattle Mariner. He certainly did not disappoint as Rangers hitters looked seemingly lost against the Cy Young winner. He finished the night after pitching 7 innings of 3-hit ball with 8 strike outs and no walks. If any of you have the opportunity I say go see this guy live. It's really amazing to watch him work.

But for all the happy feelings I had from my first Cliff Lee experience, the joy was quickly ruined by the Mariners anemic offense and some questionable decisions from our manager Don Wakamatsu. Let me begin by saying I like Don Wakamatsu. I think he's done an unbelievable job not only bringing a clubhouse together but also performing his duties as a field manager. Unfortunately, on Friday night he made some decisions that I just can't agree with and regardless whether or not they led to a positive outcome, I had been questioning.

1) I believe it was in the tenth inning, but with the bases loaded and one out, Jack Wilson was stepping up to the plate. Jack Wilson is not a very good hitter but I have faith in him that he could at least avoid hitting into a double play. All he had to do was hit the ball into the outfield and we could go home happy Mariners fans excited about the prospect of our new pitcher. Instead Wakamatsu pinch hit Wilson with Mike Sweeney. The significance of this switch is two-fold; Sweeney, like Wilson, does not hit the ball well and once Wilson is out of the game we don't have a major league caliber backup shortstop. Sweeney immediately hit into a 6-4-3 double play and the threat was over. That next inning, Matt Tuiasosopo took over for Wilson at shortstop and actually factored in the outcome of the game as a 12th inning throwing error put the a Ranger runner on 2nd base.

2) After a leadoff single in the 11th inning by Ichiro Suzuki, Chone Figgins beat out a sacrifice bunt for a single. Runner now stood on 1st and 2nd with our best hitter, Franklin Gutierrez stepping to the plate. I thought a sacrifice bunt was possible, however considering the absolute lack of offense from anyone not hitting in the 1st or 3rd spot in the order, highly unlikely. Sure enough Wakamatsu had the sacrifice in effect and Gutierrez took two quick strikes before striking out. If any other batter had been at the plate I would not have thought twice about the decision, as it is, nobody on this team, outside of Ichiro and Gutierrez are even hitting the ball. Let's watch Guti excite the Safeco crowd.

This is only one game, and like I mentioned earlier, I'm a fan of what Wakamatsu has done with this team. But I'm hearing increasing rumblings about his mis-use of the bullpen and how he builds his lineups. Wak has one of the most difficult jobs in the majors, every day he has to decide who is going to DH and often that decision is between Griffey and Sweeney. There's obviously no reason to panic, but I'll definitely be keeping my eye on how Wak manages the lineup a bit more as games continue to be played.

The King Reigns, Guti saves the day

I hope anyone reading this post caught the Mariner game last night, because if you watched the whole thing, there is no way you can't be excited about the outcome. Games like last night are the reason why I watch every game I can. People often say that baseball is boring to watch, that its extremely slow. I can't fault them for that, because it can drag on from time to time. However, when you get the right ingredients together, baseball is tops, in my opinion, in suspense and intrigue. Last night was a prime example of what can happen when you have a player who is on fire, a King who is taking his rightful throne, and two teams who realize what is at stake by playing each other.

Franklin Gutierrez...Wow. Noah "touched" on him in his post, but its really exciting to watch this guy come into his own. Currently, in the last 22 games, Guti has raised his average from approx .250 to almost .300. That's insane! Its interesting to watch a pitcher's approach when facing him. It looks like the scouting report on Frank was that the best way to get him out was to bust fastballs in on his hands, jamming him. But ever since the NL West trip, he is CRUSHING these pitches, getting his hands through the zone, and driving balls over the left field wall. His HR's are consistently over 400 feet and in what seems to be the most opportune times. So we have a guy that catches anything that is hit in the air to center field, who is completely on fire at the plate, and is also clutch. Playoff teams have guys like that. Its guys like that that win you division titles because they come through in huge series. My only concern with Guti is wondering what is going to happen when the scouting report determines that the outside pitch is the way to go. We'll see how well he can adjust to a different approach, but after what I have seen lately, I got all the confidence in the world in this guy as of late. Its tough to say who actually "won" the game for the M's last night for me. Frank was a huge part of it though.

King Felix, in my opinion, gets the game ball for the M's last night. This is his upteenth time in a row that he has come out, no matter who the opponent, and dominated. The Rangers lead the league in home runs, and he made them look like a little league team all game long. His two seem fast ball, with all the movement, is basically a 93-95 mph curve ball. Pair that with his actual curve ball, and finish it off with one of the best change up's in the game, and you have your stopper. Your ace. Your King. By holding the Rangers to one run, he allowed the offence to grind away on the Rangers' starting pitcher, Hunter, and get into their bullpen. He did everything an ace is supposed to do. Go 8 innings, hold the other team down by the neck, and allow your team to have a decent inning. A solid ace is another huge piece to a playoff team, and we look to have ours firing on all cylinders. The fact that he did it against a team we are trying to catch is absolute gold, sending a message to the Rangers and Angels that we are for real, and we're chasing you down on the backs of guys who want it.


Lets call last night and the next three games what it really is. A statement series. The closest thing to playoff baseball that you cant get...in July. We came out with our Ace, shut down our rival, and eventually locked it up with a majestic HR by a guy who is exploding onto the scene as a major player. Now I know it was only one game. This is a four game series, and if history has taught an M's fan anything, its that you can't get too excited (two years ago we were a similar situation and found a way to lose 10 or so games a row...). But history has also allowed us to experience the feeling of a playoff caliber team, and what they are able to do on any given night - to excite, along with succeed in huge games. I feel like that's what the M's did last night. They showed the Rangers, the AL West, and their fans that they can win the big game. I still think they are a piece or two away from truly contending, but not too far. Last night's win hopefully sold the powers that be that this season can be a huge success if we make the right moves. Last night got me all kinds of inspired (if you can't tell by this post). I'm heading to the game tonight to hopefully see the M's shave another game off the Rangers' division lead. Let's get excited about this team folks. Baseball isn't all that boring when the team can pull off wins like they did last night.

Garbs

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

The worst trade in Mariner history

News broke today that Erik Bedard has been placed on the 15-day disabled list. The move is retroactive to June 8th but I think you can squash the possibility of trading Bedard by the deadline. You'd be hard pressed to find a general manager in Major League Baseball willing to give up a prospect or two in exchange for a left-handed pitcher with a history of injuries. Regardless whether his ERA and BAA is in the American League's Top-5.

So, let's recap this amazing trade engineered by the mastermind genius Bill Bavasi. (I know it's hard to establish sarcasm in written form but let me point out I was laying it on pretty thick in the last sentence.)

The Mariners receive a left-handed strike-out, ground ball pitcher who goes on to post an 11-6 record working 146.2 innings in a little under a year and a half with a 3.07 ERA. In those 146.2 innings he has struck out 137 batters and walked only 59. Not bad stats but obviously the glaring issue is the 146.2 innings pitched, roughly half of what he should be at.

Let's take a look at what the guys the M's have given up have done. The centerpiece of the deal, Center Fielder Adam Jones has gone on to post a .296/.341/479 with the Orioles. It's nothing earth shattering but if you also remember that 2008 was his first full-year in the majors and that the kid is only 24 years old, it hurts more than a little bit.

The other major league piece of the trade, George Sherrill has only saved 43 games for the Orioles in just under a year and a half. Hmm, I'm sure the M's would have loved that kind of production out of their closer last year and early this season.

Not to mention Tony Butler Chris Tillman instantly became one of the Orioles' best pitching prospects and looks to get called up later this year.

But what's done is done, right? Let's look to the future. As I was telling Garbs, if we didn't have Franklin Gutierrez in Center Field, arguably a better defender than Adam Jones by about 3 runs this would be a harder pill to swallow. The only reason I'm holding my head high is because I emphatically believe Jack Zduriencik is the man who can right the ship after this debacle of a trade and we have already seen how he can turn situations into positives for the M's.