Seattle: 28-50
Padres: 32-47

GAMES

Game 1: Jarrod Washburn vs Randy Wolf*
Game 2: Carlos Silva vs Cha Seung Baek
Game 3: Somebody vs Jake Peavy

Randy Wolf is posting the highest strikeout rate of his recent career while lowering his walk rate from 2007 while tossing more innings than every pitcher on the Mariners aside from Felix Hernandez. Randy Wolf was signed on a one-year deal for under $5 million guaranteed. Too bad nobody thought of that last winter.

The results don't show it, but Chasizzle has done himself quite well in San Diego so far with a fantastic 3.24 tRA in the rotation and a 2.84 FIP. This team gave him away for nothing because they saw more value in Miguel Batista. Incredible. I'm glad this team fired Bavasi before he traded Adrian Beltre to Baltimore for Melvin Mora citing Mora's higher RBI totals as proof that he performs in the clutch.

Everyone has fluke performances, it's not limited to just average or worse pitchers. In fact, there's really no one true dominant pitcher out there anymore who is far and away above everyone else like Pedro was a decade ago or Johan was a few years ago. To that end, take someone like Jake Peavy. Peavy is legitimately awesome, one of the best pitchers in baseball, but his 2007 was flukey just like Washburn's 2005 and this season has seen his core stats return to their established levels. That still leaves him a fantastic pitcher, just not the dominant one he was last season.

Likely Starters:
C Michael Barrett/Josh Bard^
1 Adrian Gonzalez*
2 Edgar Gonzalez
3 Kevin Kouzmanoff
S Khalil Greene
L Scott Hairston
C Jody Gerut*
R Brian Giles*

With Manbeast Gonzalez this is a decent lineup. They were terrible but have, gasp, made changes to rectify some of that. They are getting decent offense from Jody Gerut and Edgar Gonzalez and Brian Giles somehow still manages to produce. There's also Chase Headley(!) and overall they're running a 96 OPS+ after starting the year with a team OPS of .633 as of May 1st. They're still not scoring runs, but they're getting closer to that general area.

CONTEXT

Make no mistake of it, not only is San Diego our heated natural rivals, inflamed by our shared Spring Training complex during which I'm sure the Padres play overly cruel practical jokes on the hapless and bewildered Mariner players, but they are also one of our main rivals for Stephen Strasburg.

He's their hometown boy, their Tim Lincecum (ARGH!!!!!!!) and they surely won't (ARGH!!!!!!!!) make the mistake (ARGH!!!!!!!!) or passing him over (ARGH!!!!!) given the chance. Let's not give them a chance! Let's step up this series and say "Not this time! Not here! Not now!" Let's let them know who's winning this thing and it's going to be us! Let's get out there and get swept! Yeah! On 3!

One

Two

Three

SWEEP US!!

THIS SERIES BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

Stone Brewing. Escondido, CA

Stone doesn't make a bad brew and it would be impossible to pick any single one to highlight, so here you go. Every single one of these deserves your attention.