wufners

I suspect Joel maybe too eager and overthrow a bit. Still, the Mariners have regained a little bit of swagger over the past few days and its having a positive affect on all of their pitchers. I call it a pick'em.

I'd like to see Felix Hernandez up NOW. There's no call to have Aaron Sele in your rotation when you got a kid like that in your system. But I digress. . . I think he'll be up this year. So far in two starts at AAA he's only given up one unearned run in 10 innings. His curve which was a little flat in the spring is starting to snap again, but he still needs to get a little better control of his fastball. Since he took all winter off, he's still cracking off some of the rust, but I betcha he's at full strength pretty soon. There seems to be some political wrangling withing the Mariners FO to keep him down for a little while. The image conscious Mariner managment doesn't want to risk making a mistake with him. But everyone who saw him pitch seems to agree he has the best stuff of any Mariner pitcher right NOW. If he tears apart AAA and one of the Mariner starters struggles (Sele) or gets injured (already happening), I expect we could see him as early as June. Otherwise look for him as a late season call up. The Mariners are being extra cautious, and have stated they will keep him to 175 innings this year. That includes AAA AND spring training. So if he does come up, he'll be on an extremely short leash.

The Garcia trade was definitely good for the Mariners. Our catching cupboard is pretty pathetic and Randy Wynn just wasn't cutting it as a centerfielder. I dont' think Garcia had much interest in resigning with the Mariners either. I think there's some bad blood there. A year or so back, they had a kind of ugly arbitration hearing with him in which he won. The difference in money was less than a $million, but the PR savy Mariners came out and cried that because of Freddy we can't afford to improve the team at the trading deadline. Freddy can be a bit of a headcase too. His stuff is great, but for some reason he can develop a mental block that prevents him from pitching well. With some of the problems he had with Mariner management (they also traded away his buddy, Carlos Guillen) I doubt he would have ever pulled his head out for them. Looks like he's put it together for you guys so far this year, eh? Were his performances as good as his numbers look? Sunday should be a fun game. The Mariner's starter tonight was thinking about staying at Freddy's house during the the series. With any luck for you guys, he'll be showing up at today's game with one heck of a hangover. Looks like a tip top place y'all got here. Your emoticons are much more violent and drunk then the ones we have. I dig. By the way--did you enjoy Ben Davis?

QUOTE(quickman @ Apr 15, 2005 -> 03:28 PM) this is great info, I have informed another mariner fan, he will jump on soon. I like this very much. The key is keeping ichiro off the bases. AJ will never be able to throw him out. Mike Hargrove has definitely made the running game a bigger priority for the Mariner than it has been in awhile. If the Mariners scouts did their homework, they may indeed try and exploit Pierzynski's arm. What's the deal with his arm anyway? Is it just weak? Inaccurate? Both? That said, I get the feeling Ichiro doesn't like to run. After that first season in 2001, he's really put the breaks on his running game. Heck, with as much as he's been on base this year, he's only attempted 4 steals (he's been caught once.) Someone once suggested that the reason Ichiro doesn't steal as much as you think he would is because he doesn't like to fail. If he doesn't believe he can steal the base, he won't attempt it. There may be some truth to that.