Series Preview: Oakland Athletics @ Seattle Mariners

Casper Wells in left field, probably mostly full time means Mike Carp at DH probably mostly full time and that means there's suddenly less of an opening for Wily Mo Pena to jam his massive body in the way of. The door isn't shut of course, but certainly less ajar. The roster is in a very fluid state right now with players like Greg Halman, Casper Wells, Mike Carp and Wily Mo Pena showing some promise at deserving more playing time, but a limited amount of spots to give it to them. Maybe one of them can learn to play third?

Mon 01 Aug 19:10
BLAKE BEAVAN	TREVOR CAHILL

Blake Beavan suddenly has more of a burden on this team. I figured Bedard was due to be traded, but Doug Fister had filled a compartment in my brain as that of a reliable starting pitcher. Fister's shortest outing so far in 2011 has been 5.2 innings. Since he coupled that with not being bad, Fister was a good chunk of what helped keep bullpen usage low. In certain lights, Fister and Jarrod Washburn elicited similar emotional feelings in me on their game days. Obviously Fister was neater because he didn't ride in on a stupid contract and was generally just far more interesting of a pitcher to dissect, but on their actual performances, they gut-felt similarly. I'd tune in, he'd throw some pitches and then it would be the seventh inning.

Blake Beavan may reach that point as well. He possess that sort of je ne sais quoi that's difficult to pin down, but is needed to become one of those Washburn-type pitchers. We cannot be without one for very long. It's been years. Blake, you need to step up and become unremarkably decent.

Tue 02 Aug 19:10
FELIX HERNANDEZ	RICH HARDEN

We have some degree of thanks to offer Billy Beane and Rich Harden for the trade return from Erik Bedard since Harden appeared to be Boston's first choice and if Epstein and Beane had consummated that deal, who knows where, for what, and even if, Bedard goes. On the other hand, now Rich Harden gets to pitch against the Mariners and probably hold them to zero runs while walking seventeen with forty-nine strikeouts.

Wed 03 Aug 12:40
?	GIO GONZALEZ*
No data available

I have no confirmed information on who the Mariners starter will be Wednesday. Charlie Furbush looks like a logical guess, but he hasn't started much this season and we've heard that Wedge wants him out of the bullpen for a bit. More likely, in my opinion, is that we'll see a roster move to bring up a starter from Tacoma. The current Mariners active roster has 11 pitchers on it, which is fine and dandy when five of them are reliable starters. That scenario no longer exists so my gut feeling is that the team will go back to carrying seven relievers.

Also, the team only has 24 men on the active roster at the moment and there's 39 on the 40-man, leaving room for the callee to be anyone in the organization or even outside the organization if there's a filler body floating around waivers at the moment. Anthony Vasquez was supposed to start tonight for the Rainiers, but has been pulled from that slot with Erasmo Ramirez getting a call up and start instead. So begin your speculation machines.... 

now!