A week in and the season looked almost lost for the Seattle Mariners, but the team stopped finding new and unique ways to lose and have since gotten back on track, climbing the AL West standings. The next team on the path to the top is the Oakland Athletics who they’ll take on head-to-head in a four game weekend series. Seattle couldn’t quite get over the hump last year, missing the postseason once again, but that wasn’t because of their play against the A’s who they beat in 12 of their 19 meetings.
This series will be contested from Thursday, April 20, 2017 through Sunday, April 23, 2017 at the O.co Coliseum in Oakland.
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Pitching Matchups
With 21 straight scoreless innings to open the year, right now, southpaw James Paxton can match up with anybody and gives Seattle a clear advantage on the bump in the series opener over Cesar Valdez who will make his first major league appearances since 2010. He looked good in a couple Triple-A starts before getting the call.
As we roll into the weekend, the pitching matchups get a bit more interesting. Friday night will feature the aging Hisashi Iwakuma against the young hard throwing lefty Sean Manaea.
Manaea has already given up 12 runs—10 of them earned—in his three starts, spanning 16.1 innings. He’s done well in allowing only eight hits, but he’s already walked nine batters while hitting four more. Those four hit-by-pitches already equal the total he allowed in 25 games last year.
His control has been the issue for the youngster. He’s thrown a ton of pitches and hasn’t been able to get deep into games. He’s hard to hit when he’s in the zone as evident by his 20 strikeouts, but he hasn’t been in the zone with any consistency and that’s got him in trouble.
Iwakuma, on the other hand, has also had some struggles and has walked six and hit one in 15 innings. He’s not a strikeout pitcher like Manaea and pitches to contact so the walks are even more dangerous as he’s allowed 13 hits as well. He lasted just three innings in his last start, giving up six runs to Texas. While that’s bad, the first two starts where both quality starts, coming to go 12 innings, giving up three runs.
Moving onto Saturday, the matchup will feature Ariel Miranda and Jharel Cotton. Miranda wasn’t supposed to be part of the Mariners’ rotation, but all he’s done since coming over from Baltimore for Wade Miley has been to impress. The 28-year old southpaw is coming off a seven inning, scoreless outing against Miami. He pitched well in his only appearance against the A’s last year, too.
Cotton is coming off a rough outing, giving up five runs to Texas, but he does have his own seven inning scoreless performance on the year.
Lastly, these two teams will send Yovani Gallardo and Andrew Triggs to the hill in the series finale.
Both were acquired by their respective teams out of the Orioles’ organization. Gallardo was gotten after a terrible, injury-plagued season in Baltimore and he’s yet to find his footing in Seatle with 11 runs and 24 hits allowed in three starts spanning just 16 innings. He’s also walked six and given up a pair of homers. Triggs, however, was acquired out of the O’s minor leagues and was very good last year, earning himself some starts as the team got desperate for innings. He did enough to open in the rotation this year and has been lights out. He’s 3-0 and hasn’t given up an earned run in 17.2 innings. He’s not one to go deep into games, but he’ll give you six solid which is more than can be expected from Gallardo who is also a five-to-six inning pitcher at this stage of his career.
Who's Hot?
When Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager were all a bit slow coming out of the gate, it was Mitch Haniger that came out red hot.
The Mariner right-fielder was the lesser known part of the Jean Segura/Taiwan Walker swap with the Diamondbacks over the offseason and he’s been a huge part of this team early.
Yes, Cano and Cruz and even Seager are swinging the bats better now and with those three doing their thing, this team is always dangerous offensively, but Haniger just serves to lengthen the lineup.
The 26-year old has scored 15 runs, batting at a .323 clip with four bombs and 15 RBIs. With most of the rest of the lineup starting slow, he and Taylor Motter—in for the injured Segura who will be back soon—are the only others providing protection and support for the big three in the middle.
While the A’s are floating around .500, the positives—outside of guys like Triggs in the rotation—have been limited.
Khris Davis is a beast again. He’s continuing to get better and carry this team offensively. He’s already belted seven home runs while spending half of his time in the cavernous coliseum in Oakland. He’s hitting .321 with a 1.087 OPS which tells you that he’s swinging well, but also he’s not drawing walks as he’s swinging away. He’s also only got 11 RBIs with his seven homeruns driving in just four A’s other than himself. That illustrates what little else he has to work with.
Who's Not?
Most of the A’s lineup is not hot. Matt Joyce is struggling as is Rajai Davis. Both are showing why they’ve traditionally been platooon players and part-time options in the past. They’re getting over-exposed.
Meanwhile, Marcus Semien who at least has some pop that can protect Davis is out while Trevor Plouffe and Stephen Vogt are producing below average numbers so far.
The bullpen is also not particularly hot. The overall numbers from the group have been okay, but this was supposed to be the strength of the unit with a number of closers in the back, but injury have already regulated Santiago Casilla to the closer role after losing the same role due to inefficiency with the Giants last year.
Of course, when it comes to cold bullpens, it’s hard to be worse than Seattle. Edwin Diaz still has dynamic stuff, but he’s been a bit off with location and suffered for it with a really bad outing. As a whole the team’s pen has a 5.69 ERA and they’ve already cycled through a few different relievers from the minors.
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