Mariner Report
The M's had good week at 5-1. I'm sure you'll all be surprised that the one loss
was thanks to Freddy Garcia, who seems to be the only Mariner not pulling his
weight. I don't hate the guy or anything, but he's supposed to be the ace and
he's been far from that. The A's and Yankees helped us look good this week. The
A's went 3-3 and left the M's with a 2-game lead in the division, and the
Yankees went a miserable 1-5 leaving the M's with the best record in the AL.
Kazuhiro Sasaki has looked very good since coming off the DL - in four
appearances he hasn't allowed a run and he picked up the save on Friday and
Saturday. It's hard to say hop difficult the schedule will be for the next two
weeks. Next week we have the Royals and Twins at home then the same two teams on
the road the following week. These are the best two teams in the AL Central, but
I'm just not convinced they'll be able to handle the M's or the other AL West
teams. I'll be satisfied is they go 8-4 over the course of the 12 games. I've
got conflicting reports about the M's starter for the first game against the
Royals. The M's website says Ryan Franklin, but USA Today says it's Garcia.
Regardless we'll be facing Royals rookie ace Runelvys Hernandez. Regarding last
weeks discusion about the M's #2 hitter: maybe Carlos Guillen is the answer.
He's batting .297 and hit a homer out of the 2-hole today.
Mariner of the Week: There are a lot of contenders this week - Joel Pineiro won
2 games, Edgar had 3 homers in 3 consecutive games, Bret Boone had 4 homers and
9 RBI's, but I have to go with Ichiro. As ESPN's Dan Patrick would say, Ichiro
has been nothing short of en fuego. Over the last two weeks, he's raised his
average from .260 to .318. His line for this week: 17 for 32 (.531), 5 runs
scored, 1 homer, 2 stolen bases.