Few things in life can rival the anticipation of a new baseball season. The reason is because everything is lying ahead of us, the great seasons, the great games, the great plays, poetic tragedy, the jubilance of victory and the agony of defeat. Every season is unique and beautiful in itself but also through the continuation of the great history of the game.
The Mariners (8-5)
Thirteen games into the season, few people could have expected a record better than 8-5. Even though the team has lost its last two games, it remains a promising start to the season. The offense has been scoring over five runs a game on average, and Bedard and Hernandez look as though they can finally pitch up to their expectations. Washburn has been outstanding thus far this season, and the Mariners have the best starting staff ERA in the game in the short season.
It's no secret that everyone with any baseball sense picked the Mariners to finish in the cellar in the American League West this year coming into the season. And while the great start to the season is reason enough to be joyous given the attention it has given the city around baseball, still the common opinion seems to be that the M's will inevitably fade back into their fourth place dwelling in our division.
Perhaps. However, I am willing to offer reasons to believe that the Mariners will be better than expected this season. The first is the great start that the pitching is off to this season. If Hernandez and Bedard give us the performances they are capable of, the 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation will prove to be an effective "stopper" of losing skids, a necessity of any contending team. It's true that the back end of the rotation could provide problems. however, Washburn and Silva have both provided great seasons for previous teams in the past, therefore we know that the capacity to pitch well is present, it just remains to be seen if it materializes into anything. Rowland-Smith and Jakubauskas are loaded with potential, but they are large question marks as to what we will get from them this year. The thing with new starting pitchers with little track records is that if they can exceed the minimal expectations, they can be an outstanding asset at the back of a rotation, even if only for a season such as Aaron Small a few years ago for the Yankees. Pitchers like Small have been known to crop up and have brilliant seasons or half-seasons, then fade like a great firework. Hope springs eternal, and the potential is certainly there.
No question loomed (looms) quite as large as the bullpen this year, with no left-handed pitcher in sight and only three recognizable names (Batista, Lowe, Morrow). Initially, I was disappointed in Morrow's decision to remain in the bullpen and be the closer because I thought he would be more valuable in the rotation and I thought Lowe showed the capacity to close games for us. However, having a pitcher like Morrow to nail down games can prove invaluable if he can only manage to keeps the walks down and the fastball (and strikeouts) up. Just like with the young pitchers such as Rowland-Smith, it is simply difficult to make a guess one way or the other as to how they will perform because of the lack of a track record. The default position seems to be to keep expectations low (perhaps with reason) but don't be surprised if newly emerging pitchers surprise and draw attention. The young season has already shown instances where that is happening in the Mariners' pen (Aardsma and Kelley).
The biggest element of the Mariners' game which concerned me going into this season is the offense. I have mentioned to many people before that there does not seem to be a prevalent offensive philosophy. There is no identifiable method or strength that the Mariners' will lean on in order to produce runs consistently. Offense is baseball is the biggest fluctuating factor on any team (whereas defense and pitching are much more stable and easier to expect) and with a team with so little identifiable "punch" the risk of falling into the offensive doldrums is frighteningly high. However, early on that does not seem to be much of an issue, though the series with the Tigers has certainly heightened my attention to it. Simply put, the question remains "who is going to score?" and "who will drive them in?" Chavez is exceeding expectations early on, and Gutierrez looks as though he could emerge this season. Although I am still expecting very little from Griffey, if Beltre and Ichiro can perform as they are capable and Betancort and Lopez develop on the right track (both can move closer to hitting .300 with emerging power), then perhaps this team will score more than people thought they would. Branyan may hit for some power, but if the previous free agents with some (any at all) power coming to Safeco field to hit for the first time is any indication of what Branyan will do this season, then it is not promising (Aurilia, Spezio, Beltre, Sexson, Vidro, the list goes on...). If this team expects to score runs, then it would be prudent to lean on an offensive philosophy that Mike Scioscia has enacted in Los Angeles, primarily to run (a lot), go first to third at every given opportunity and play fundamental baseball to perfection. The Angels have endured power outages in the past few seasons, yet still they score (enough). The Halos do it with pitching and a lights out bullpen also. However, they score, and so will the Mariners if they can draw walks (much more than last season), bunt runners over, hit with runners in scoring position, move first to third and bring runners on third in to score with less than two outs at a 70 percent or better rate. In order to do this, we need to be a contact hitting team that runs at every given moment and forces other teams into mistakes with untamed aggressiveness. In my mind, this is the only way the Mariners will score this year, since sitting back and waiting for the three-run home run simply will not work.
The offense may prove to be a problem all year (as it has been since about 2002), but it is a largely unknown factor. I will be paying special attention to identifying our on-base percentage, walks, steals and hitting with runners in scoring position in order to determine our effectiveness. I am concerned at our ability to score four or more runs a game to give our solid starting pitching a chance to win, but also I am concerned about the percentage of innings in which will be scoring (we put up runs in only about four innings in the Tiger series out of 26). An effective offense can score early to take pressure off of the pitching while also retaining the capacity to score in several inning throughout the game to build a lead rather than hoping to put up a crooked number in one (maybe two) innings in a game.
To summarize, in order to contend this year, everything needs to go right for the Mariners to win even in a weak division. However, after seeing what the Rays did last season, I now truly believe that any team is capable of winning in any given season. The starting pitching woes the Angels seem to be having early this season can only be good for the M's, who need to play the American League West much, much better this season than we have played them the last few seasons. Even though I have exhausted all the promise I can see with our team this year, we are essentially a house of cards. If one element of our team fails, the other parts are not strong enough by themselves to hold the failing element up for very long before we endure a catastrophically long losing streak just like at the end of the last two seasons.
But for now, we are 8-5, and in first place.
Go Mariners!
No comments:
Post a Comment