Series Preview: Seattle Mariners @ Tampa Bay Rays

(Note: this is Jeff, filling in some blanks in a pre-written Matthew preview. I do not have access to all of his numbers, so you get the incomplete stat box above! That'll show you for taking Matthew for granted.)

Mariners current draft spot: 4th

Well that was a lot of runs! Lordy, I haven't seen such a raining of spheres since that weekend I modified my bathroom so that instead of water, my shower spat out playpen balls. The recent outburst of offense this month can lend one to start considering the offense next year. If Justin Smoak just gets back to his hot self, then we have Dustin Ackley and Brendan Ryan isn't bad for a shortstop. Casper Wells is hitting it in left, Mike Carp can be our DH and so forth. I recognize that line of optimistic thinking from myself this past winter and the winter before that. Things can and will change. The team could come together for next season and it's nice that so many of the players doing well of late are young ones, but I've been burned too recently to take that path again.

Mind you, that doesn't mean I'll swing the other way toward pessimism (all too easy with the Mariners as well. Just look at catcher, third, center, right), but rather I'm simply going to refrain from obsessing about it. What happens will happen and there seems to be lots of movement coming this winter with some legit money coming off the books and a plethora of AAA-MLB outfielders they need to sort through. So I'm going to try my best to stay in the present and hope that Wells and Carp keep hitting and that Gutierrez and Ichiro show some life.

Fri 19 Aug 16:10
FELIX HERNANDEZ	WADE DAVIS

Before Jeremy Hellickson was the Rays hot starting prospect, there was Wade Davis. And David Price and like twelve others. Honestly it is difficult to keep track of since the Rays stole the code for the Twins pitcher cloning machine and then actually hired some programmers to tweak it to produce guys with stuff instead of a bunch of generic strike-throwers. Like we weren't going to notice, Minnesota? We noticed! It just turns out we didn't care all that much because you're all the way in Minnesota and by the time we get there to bitch about your illegal clones we're all tired and jet lagged and then you have to be all nice and polite. You caught us totally off guard! No fair being such accommodating human beings.

Where was I? Oh, right, the Rays. So the Rays stole the Twins thingy and then improved it but lucked into an even better situation than Minnesota because nobody actually watches the Rays so they've been able to reproduce a never-ending stream of pitching prospects. Hey Tampa, you have this cloning technology, why don't you just clone some money? You're making this way harder!

Oh yeah, and Wade Davis is bad now.

Sat 20 Aug 16:10
CHARLIE FURBUSH*	JEREMY HELLICKSON

So now the Rays turn to Jeremy Hellickson, who was getting him-or-Pineda comparisons before the season began. Yeah, I am also satisfied with our guy so far.

Sun 21 Aug 10:40
MICHAEL PINEDA	PITCHER

Uh oh! Matthew didn't write anything here, and we don't yet know who's going to start for the Rays on Sunday. So uh...so Michael Pineda has faced the Rays one time this season, and he threw 6.1 innings, allowing one hit. What's interesting about the Rays' recent years of success is that they've had all this success despite being no-hit or one-hit in 65% of their games. Their pitchers really know how to pitch to the score. Will Unannounced Sunday Pitcher be able to pitch to the score in the event that the Rays' offense gets shut down again? Stay tuned to find out!