Mariners majesty

From the previous site I know that the chances of finding fellow Mariners fans is probably about as likely as Norwich winning the Premier League but if there are any of you out there feel free to get in touch. I think when I last checked, the only AL West interest was Tijani with the Angels.

Quite a season so far. Can't believe the way the season has gone to date. Granted, the mediocrity of the league probably outweighs our performances but when you've probably got the worst offense in MLB and you still win a series against the Phillies these are indeed halcyon times. I nearly fell off my seat when checking scores on my work lunch break and finding we were .500. Now if Ichiro's bat came back to what we've come to expect, Peguero decided what to have a go at, Olivo could catch the ball, a team came in for Figgy - I could go on......

Happy days anyhoo - we even get on the telly now and again (when not bumped by NHL ). Let's just hope the Rangers carry on being a touch inconsistent and the Angels don't come good .

Last tiem I checked the A's and Rangers were in the AL West!

True Hamzen and Dirkster (Rangers) haven't been around for a while, and no A's fan other than me has been sighted since the start of the season, but we are here.

The M's and Halos are pretty much waiting for the Rangers to kick it into gear and disappear into the distance, but the longer they coast along it gives some hopes to their fans, A's fans have long been resigned to finishing third at best.

When Hamilton and Cruz returned that was when the Rangers were supposed to get going but they haven’t managed to do that so far. Now Ogando who started off great has started to struggle and they are talking about not letting him pitch as much as he has been. It hasn’t been going smoothly for them this season. It’s also very different being the defending champions with everyone looking to beat you. I could see a few things going right for the Rangers and them running away with the division but the same could be said for the other teams.

All four AL West teams have to play each other a lot between now and the end of the season and those match-ups could determine who wins the AL West.

The Mariners biggest decision will be with Pineda and how they manage him over the next few months as they will need him to be available if they are still in the race in September. It pains be to say this but they need to bench Figgy.

Sadly I fear that if the Rangers don't pull away then te division could be decided by who wins the most games against the Athletics. I still don't believe the Mariners are legit, not this season anyway. The Halos need to make a good trade with an out of the race team, the problem is that the best possible trade will be with the A's, and no one likes trading within the division.

The problem this season is that very few teams look like they will be out of the race when we get to the trade deadline and that means that prices on players will be very high. Winning games against the A’s pitching is easier said than done and the same goes for the other teams in the AL West. There could be a lot of good pitching match-ups over the next few months.

The Mariners are a difficult team to judge as the pitching was always going to be good and the offence was always going to be poor and that is what has happened. Some of the pitchers have performed better than expected but Felix Hernandez has been a bit worse than expected. They do still have 18 games against the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays which is a lot of difficult games compare to the Angels who I believe only have 6. The A’s and Rangers also both seem to have 13 games left against those teams.

Well our pitching can certainly keep us in games normally, but out inability to score enough runs on a regular basis is likely to keep us out of contention. There is a possibility that could change if we manage to get within striking distance before the trade deadline however.

With Harden due to make his first start on Friday, and McCarthy almost ready to return we have a serious overstocking problem, I'm not even sure which of our current starters is likely to be short changed on Friday, and given how well all of them have been pitching it will be rough on whoever gets sent down.

The question is who needs pitching enough to give up what we need? Please god we don't trade for Swisher!

Just been looking at the stats, and strangely enough, in theory, we match up best against the Rangers. If that holds true then there is an opportunity for the Angels if they can improve their hitting, not sure how they can do that though. The Mariners seem to reverting to early season form, I really can't see any chane o them sustaining any sort of sustainable charge.

As if things weren't going badly enough for Seattle:

Bedard, Gimenez head to disabled list

LARRY LARUE; Staff writer

Seattle – All major league teams like to talk about depth in their system, and the Seattle Mariners are testing theirs behind the plate – where they have now gone five deep.

Miguel Olivo had a magnetic resonance imaging test on his left thigh and was unavailable to play Wednesday, and backup Chris Gimenez was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a badly strained left oblique.

“I don’t know how he played the last four innings (Tuesday),” manager Eric Wedge of Gimenez, “but he’s going to miss significant time.”

The Mariners called up both of Tacoma’s catchers, Josh Bard and Jose Yepez, and while Gimenez cleared one spot for them, Seattle added lefty Erik Bedard to the 15-day DL to make room for the other.

“Erik was going to deal with a strained knee, regardless,” Wedge said, though no one mentioned Bedard’s injury after his Monday start.

With all that, the Mariners had to make two more moves, clearing space on their 40-man roster for Bard and Yepez by designating Chaz Roe and Edwin Paredes for assignment.

Either can be claimed on waivers by any major league team interested.

Bard joined the team having batted .301 for the Rainiers this season, then went 2-for-4 against Atlanta.

ACKLEY KID ROLLING

Dustin Ackley’s eighth-inning home run Wednesday was his second, and continued a remarkable 12 games with the Mariners.

He’s not only batting .300 in those games, but he also has a double, two triples (and the two home runs), six RBI and seven runs scored.

“He’s aggressive up there, he works the count, knows what he’s looking for and goes after it when it comes,” Wedge said. “He’s done everything we could have hoped for.”

HIGH ANXIETY

Before landing on the DL on Wednesday, Gimenez caught four innings with a strained oblique muscle on Tuesday, and if he was in the most pain, third baseman Adam Kennedy was the most worried.

Kennedy was the emergency catcher, and Gimenez was playing for Olivo, who had left the game earlier.

“Every time I came in the dugout, Adam looked like he was going to throw up,” Gimenez said. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get through this.’ ”

The problem was, Gimenez could not swing a bat – so Wedge ordered him not to try.

“What are you going to do?” Gimenez said. “Everybody is booing me and I’m thinking, ‘This is friggin’ great.’”

Kennedy was watching every move Gimenez made

Said Kennedy, shaking his head: “From the fifth inning on, I was in full panic mode. I was playing with a lot of anxiety.

“I’ve never caught, any level. In Minnesota, I warmed Brandon League up between innings once and I don’t know what I was thinking. He almost broke my thumb with his sinker.”

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/06/30/1...l#ixzz1QlO2o5AT

We have hit fine on the road so far but we need to improve at home. Wells is starting to play a lot better and Torii has been playing better as well. Trumbo, Bourjos and Conger have all started to make some adjustments. We will not have a great offence but not many teams in baseball do have one.

If the Mariners are going to stay in the race then they need to find a way to score more runs. There are a few people who could perform better but they will probably need to make a couple of trades and I’m not sure how motivated they will be to do so. They have had a good season so far and there aim should be to get some of their young players some experience in the Majors. I do agree that it is very unlikely that they will stay in the race this season but it’s been a strange season so far with several teams doing a lot better than expected.

I hope you are right about the A’s being better suited to playing against the Rangers and hopefully you can win a lot of games against them over the rest of the season.

That is bad news for the Mariners but it was only going to a matter of time before Bedard went on the DL.

Its true there has been some moments to bring a big smile to my face, but I think unless the offence gets better the smiles will be few (but at least they're 3rd not 4th - for now)

The way the A's are playing, finishing last isn't a possibility, but the top two spots look pretty fixed now.

I admit the A's have suprised me this season

Well that statement's looking pretty dumb right now after a four game sweep! First and last games our pitching showed up, but our bats were their usual selves, the middle two we scored some runs but the pitching went AWOL, sums up our season perfectly.

PS I'm referring to my original statement, not Tijani's.

Well that statement's looking pretty dumb right now after a four game sweep! First and last games our pitching showed up, but our bats were their usual selves, the middle two we scored some runs but the pitching went AWOL, sums up our season perfectly.

PS I'm referring to my original statement, not Tijani's.

So far this season you seem to be better matched against the Angels.

The Losing streak is finally over at 17

To think when the streak started they were at .500 and 2.5 games back of the division lead, similar to our long losing run in June, when we were 10 games over .500 before hitting the skids and tumbling 10 games under in the space of 25 games