Although I'm sure many of us east coasters probably haven't really cared to know what's going on over there in the AL west, but from what I've seen so far, its a very intriuging division. Indeed, with the Angels pitching a mess and not looking like the 100 win team from a year ago, the Athletics, with their pitching being so young and unexperienced are full of question marks, all of a sudden the Mariners are sitting atop the standings at 7-2, 7-2? This is the same team that lost 100 games last year, right? Well it's a new year and after getting Ichiro back last night, having a healthy Erik Bedard and a new closer, the Mariners are starting to turn some heads.
Of course its still very early and its hard to make a substative claim about the team from such a small sample size, but I didn't see them being any good. Sure as a baseball fan I was happy to see Ken Griffey Jr. back with the team, but you'd be crazy to think that he was going to make a 100 loss team with a whole lot of holes that much better. After getting rid of closer Putz they picked up light hitting Franklin Guiterrez and Endy Chavez to go along with the rest of their lousy hitters like Kenji Joijima, Betancourt and the rest of them, there wasn't much to like. However with their front two, you could argue they have the best starting pitchers right now by virtue of Bedard and King Felix alone each striking out guys at a very impressive rate of 10 per nine innings. For sure, early on there's a lot to like from even the front three with Jarrod Washburn, who's sporting a 1.29ERA after two starts with a very tidy .71WHIP. Throw in a not absolutely horrible start by Silva and all of a sudden there's a lot to like on this team.
The numbers alone are pretty good, but even watching them yesterday it feels very much like a different team. With a packed stadium there to see the Kid, who hit his 400th homer as a Mariner, a healthy Ichiro back hitting a grand slam his first game back behind another stellar performance by Washburn, at least in the time I watched them, this is a confident team, a team that more importantly isn't afraid of the Angels. I still don't love this team, Washburn I think is pretty medicore, but pitching and defense win championships and they have a fair amount of both. It's early, but there's a lot to be happy if you're a mariner fan these days.
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