Mariners Preview

The Losing Streak hits the road for three in the Pacific Northwest.

THE MARINERS

If there’s a team the Royals can win at least one from, it would have to be the Mariners. Seattle is coming off a sweep at the hands of the Angels and has dropped nine of their last 13.

Seattle is actually the one team in the league that the Royals look equal to, at least on the offensive side. Seattle is dead last in the AL in basehits, total bases, AVG, OBA and SLG.

Here’s how the two teams look:

Team	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Royals	.261	.317	.399	.717
Mariners	.255	.314	.392	.706

This is a team that went out in the offseason and spent millions adding Richie Sexton and Adrian Beltre. Money helps, but you have to know how to spend it.

It’s the pitching that’s keeping the Mariners in the ballgames. Their team ERA is just below the league average at 4.73. And, of course, they have one of the top “closers” in all of baseball in Eddie Guardado. Actually, given their offense, if the Mariners had pitching like the Royals, their record would probably be like…the Royals. Duh.

THE MATCHUPS

Mon – Runelvys Hernandez (8-10, 4.93) vs. Feliz Hernandez (1-1, 0.69)
Tues – Zack Greinke (3-14, 6.09) vs. Joel Pinero (4-7, 5.69)
Wed – DJ Carrasco (5-6, 4.37) vs. Jamie Moyer (9-4, 4.34)

We're happy to see Royal-killer Ryan Franklin will not be making a start in this series.

THE PLAYERS

Another series, another hot slugger is waiting. Richie Sexson has been en fuego since the month of July when he finished second in the player of the month balloting. (I didn’t know they kept track of second place finishes. Maybe he got a nice plaque.) Since July 4, Sexson is hitting .309 with 11 home runs and has hit safely in 24 of his last 35 games.

Ichiro! Is Ichiro! A base hit machine, although he just endured an 0-22 slump at the plate. Since Ichiro! Is supposed to hit about .350 and collect over 200 base hits, this cannot bode well for the Royals pitchers. We see a couple of multi-hit games in his immediate future. Like Monday and Tuesday.

Raul Ibanez has reached base in 37 of his last 43 games…Willie Bloomquist has raised his average almost 80 points since early July. He was at .197

ROYALS TO WATCH

We’re not sure you really want to watch the Royals at this point.

Remember the time, Zack Greinke made Richie Sexson look foolish on a 61 MPH curve? Maybe he’ll do something like that again.

That’s all we’ve got.