Seattle: 83-76
Texas: 86-73

SUMMARY

14-5 against Oakland this year. Makes up for our combined 15-20 record against Anaheim and Texas thus far. 

With the sweep, we've move back into unprotected draft status, currently standing at the 17th overall pick next June. One team of the Minnesota, Seattle, Tampa and Chicago (N) foursome will land that precious 15th overall slot and right now all four are within a single game of each other. Having finished with the worst record in 2008 out of the group, we hold the tiebreaker, so all things considered...

I believe in my guarded optimistic mind back in March, I figured the Ms were a low 80-win team. After two seasons of completely whiffing (to either side) on their projected win totals, I find it a little odd to have them nearly hit the exact mark this season, even if they haven't quite deserved all the wins.

It's been a good and entertaining season, thanks for sticking around folks.

GAMES

Game 1: Ian Snell vs. Brandon McCarthy
Game 2: Ryan Rowland-Smith* vs. Tommy Hunter
Game 3: Felix Hernandez vs. Scott Feldman

The Rangers run out three righties to finish our season which is important for two reasons. One, it might mean a couple starts for Michael Saunders. More importantly, it likely means three more DH starts for Junior. What will happen in 2010 we can worry about in a week and regardless of how you felt about it seven months ago, he's here, potentially for just three more days. If you had any attachment at all to the player that help put Seattle on the baseball map 15 years ago, I'd suggest paying some of those respects.

Also, Felix!

Seattle: 80-76
Oakland: 75-81

SUMMARY

Oakland has quietly done well for themselves the past couple months. From June through August, they were just five games below .500, a far cry from their awful pace at the beginning of the season and so far in September they're a remarkable 17-8. A few days ago we were talking about maybe trying to play for 2nd place with the Rangers. If the Mariners blow this series like they blew the last three games, we'll be staring a possible 4th place finish in the face.

With last series' 1-3 mark, we've "fallen" to the 15th pick in next year's draft. Protected!

GAMES

Game 1: Felix Hernandez vs. Trevor Cahill*
Game 2: Brandon Morrow vs. Clay Mortensen
Game 3: Doug Fister vs. Brett Anderson*

Trevor Cahill is still bad, Brett Anderson is still good, but who's this Clayton Mortensen fella?

Well, he came over from St. Louis in the Matt Holliday trade and was called up when Russ Springer went down for Oakland. Until then, Mortensen had been kicking it in Triple-A for his second consecutive season and doing much better this time around, throwing considerably more strikes and missing more bats. He's a ground ball pitcher who in the minors this year could also generate some league average strikeout rates, but so far in the Majors has not.

Seattle: 79-73
Toronto: 69-83

SUMMARY

Two game series are annoying in some way to me. Maybe because, as we just witnessed, a 1-1 split leaves you feeling unsatisfied. I bet it's no fun for the players either since it means more frequent travel. It's not like Tampa and Toronto are that close to each other. Thanks, schedule maker(s).

10 games left. That's it. For what it's worth, we currently stand to pick 17th in next year's draft.

Among teams with a winning record, we are the only one with a negative run differential.

Toronto's differential is 68 runs better than ours.

GAMES

Game 1: Felix Hernandez vs. Ricky Romero*
Game 2: Doug Fister vs. Roy Halladay
Game 3: Ian Snell vs. David Purcey*
Game 4: Ryan Rowland-Smith* vs. Brain Tallet*

Remember that fortnight or month or so when we had an all left-handed rotation aside from Felix and no southpaws in the pen? And now we have an all right-handed rotation aside from Hyphen.

We could clinch .500 this series with a split, but that might no be an easy task. For one, Toronto is probably a better team that us. For two, the three lefties we face, Romero, Purcey and Tallet are all pretty decent, ranking slightly below average. Halladay is pretty good so I've read. At least we'll get to see plenty of the red hot Mike Sweeney this series. At least, y'all will, or those that watch the games anyways.

Seattle: 78-72
Tampa Bay: 77-73

SUMMARY

So we took two out of three from the Yankees. You want another example of why the postseason is random? If this past series was a first round matchup, we would be up 2-1 and have Felix Hernandez available to pitch in one of the two remaining games. We would be something like 70% favorites to knock the Yankees, the best team in the American League by far, out of the playoffs.

Baseball has reached a decent conclusion that it takes roughly 162 games to determine whether a team deserves to make the playoffs or not. So much of that is because individual games are so largely influenced by non-deterministic factors and the individual pitching match up. NFL games, as a contrast, contain about ten times more information about the team's relative strengths as an individual baseball games. Which is why they play about 1/10th as many games. It's not the only reason of course, but each major sport generally settles at the number of games and playoff berths that produces the same probabilistic equations for standard deviation and variance when it comes to playoff qualification. It's just one of those things.

So then, it strikes me as weird how baseball willfully accepts such a flukey playoff system. And then it struck me as weird that we as a culture so readily accept the idea of playoffs at all. I would hope that most people acknowledge that the team with the best regular season record is most likely the most talented team that season.* So why playoffs? Entertainment is not logical.

* Exceptions made for blithering idiots who subscribe fully to "clutch", "getting things done when it counts", and other such drivel that belongs aside phrenology and alchemy.

GAMES

Game 1: Ryan Rowland-Smith* vs. Jeff Niemann
Game 2: Brandon Morrow vs. TBA

Two game series. Apparently the second game seems likely started by either Wade Davis or Andy Sonnanstine, but whatever, Brandon Morrow is starting for us, so tune in if you like three ball counts.

Seattle: 76-71
Chicago: 94-53

SUMMARY

True story: I forgot to write this preview not because of residual jet lag from my trip but because I legitimately momentarily forgot that baseball is still going. With Ichiro's stuff out of the way there is no meaningful aspect left to this season and we're not seeing post-season play and frankly, the crop of teams that are bores the crap out of me. The NFL has kicked off, the MLS is heading into their own pennant drive, of which our local 11 still factor and hockey is about to drop the puck on games that count. I cannot believe I still have to write about baseball for another month.

Note that the preceding sentence was one of fascination, not whining. I am not angling for sympathy from the readers, after all, if I wanted to stop, I just would. It's just one of those weeks where my wherewithal is not up to snuff. I had been mentioning to some people before I left how I had forgotten what I do with myself Monday through Friday nights when baseball is in its offseason and there is no longer a sporting game 95% of the days to watch. I think I just discovered the answer.

Anyways, Yankees, much better than us, et cetera, et cetera.

GAMES

Game 1: Felix Hernandez vs. A.J. Burnett
Game 2: Doug Fister vs. CC Sabathia*
Game 3: Ian Snell vs. Joba Chamberlain

Did anyone mention during the offseason the the two marquee pitches the Yankees brought in via free agency both go by initials? It's an almost interesting note.

If you have the chance to go tonight, do. Not because it's the Yankees, or because it's a nice Friday evening or whatever peripheral excuse you can come up with. Go because it's Felix. And it's Felix in a, to him, a big game and that's when Felix can be the most fun to watch. But even beyond that, go because it's Felix and looking at the remaining schedule, I am not-so-subtly saying that this might be the penultimate chance for you to watch him live in Safeco wearing a Mariner uniform. Go.

Seattle: 74-70
Chicago: 71-73

SUMMARY

Just another series where we play a team with a worse record and a better overall performance. It's rather remarkable just how poor Chicago's position players have been this year; where the Mariners have at least been able to catch the balls hit at them, the White Sox haven't been able to hit or field, with the result being a group worth something like nine or ten wins below average. What's been able to keep them on the fringes of the race is an outstanding pitching staff led not by a few stars, but by a lot of guys who're average or better. Among them is Matt Thornton, who ranks near the top in pretty much every meaningful reliever metric. How I wish I could have a do-over on that one. Sorry for blasting you so much, Matt. I was young. I was stupid.

The Mariners are playing for pride and a .500+ record. The White Sox are still trying to squeak into the playoffs, and though they're 6.5 back, they still have six more games against Detroit, so not all hope is lost. It's not much, but realistically, this will probably be our last chance to play spoiler, so here's to making a difference. Let's give Chicago as dull a final few weeks as ours.

GAMES

Game 1: Freddy Garcia vs. Ian Snell
Game 2: TBA (Carlos Torres? D.J. Carrasco? Daniel Hudson?) vs. Ryan Rowland-Smith *
Game 3: Gavin Floyd vs. Brandon Morrow

Garcia was a workhorse for Chicago from the minute he got traded, throwing nearly 550 innings over two and a half seasons and helping the Sox win a World Series. He then got sent to Philadelphia in December 2006 and promptly came apart. He's only made 19 Major League starts in the three years since, but he seems to have worked his way back, and in the early going so far he's been pretty difficult to hit, with a 74% contact rate and what Fangraphs lists as a five-pitch assortment. The velocity isn't really there anymore, and he has a difficult time breaking 90, but he should nevertheless have the advantage in a matchup against Ian Snell, who gets rattled when he tries a new cereal.

Chicago hasn't yet officially announced a starter for Wednesday. Two of the candidates are interesting. Three of the candidates could own us.

Thursday brings us a matchup between a guy who's finally learned how to pitch and a guy who's still trying to. Floyd's strikeout and contact numbers are significantly better than they've been in the past, and as a result he's actually somewhat earned his shiny ERA. The four-year contract he signed in March looked kind of stupid then, but looks terrific now. Morrow, meanwhile...God, whatever.

Seattle: 72-69
Texas: 79-60

SUMMARY

"How the hell are we winning this season series?" he asked himself about the Mariners and Angels a few days ago. Well, that righted itself in a jiffy. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, Texas can't be too mad that we took 9 of 19 from LAnaheim, especially since we're just 4-9 against the Rangers, but even so, that sweep could not have been timed any worse. On the plus side for them, at least they can also focus on the wild card.

The last time these two teams met, they were pretty evenly matched. Since then the Rangers have gone 20-16 with a +31 run differential while the Mariners have gone 18-18 with a -13 run differential. While Seattle's only bright spot over the past ~month has been defense, Texas has been about average or better at everything, turning itself into a more legitimate contender. They've been able to stay with Boston, and while no one would tell you that Texas is the better team, it's no longer a laughable suggestion, and the completely retarded decision to drop John Smoltz (and Brad Penny) and add Paul Byrd didn't do the Red Sox any favors. Even if the Angels maintain their buffer zone, the Rangers have plenty reason to hope. They've made up two games in nine days, and with a lot of Seattle and Oakland left on the schedule, they could rocket up in a hurry.

GAMES

Game 1: Brandon Morrow vs. Kevin Millwood
Game 2: Doug Fister vs. Derek Holland *
Game 3: Felix Hernandez vs. Tommy Hunter

The Mariners may not be a lot of fun to watch right now, but at least all of their starters are interesting. There's no telling what we should expect from Morrow, and my inclination is to suggest that he'll still be the same inconsistent conundrum he's always been, but on the other hand Millwood kinda sucks, so the first game isn't totally hopeless. I can't tell you how nice it would be to have Russell Branyan back. Jose Lopez should never be a team's biggest power threat. It's a shame about Griffey's sorry carcass.

I'd say game 2 should be Fister's greatest test, but then he did already take care of the Yankees, so who knows. It won't be easy. Opposing him is the 22 year old Holland, who's put up good K and BB numbers as a starter but gotten slaughtered by dingers. A quick glance at his splits reveals an oddly better K/BB against righties than lefties but also an extraordinary righty home run rate, so I'm not yet sure what to make of his changeup. I bet it's "presently inconsistent but promising." As a man who makes his living standing on a hill and throwing balls at another man in a mask, he should have what it takes to toss six or seven strong innings.

Tommy Hunter's a big sweaty fat guy who spends a lot of time in the high 80s. Though right-handed, his numbers across the board are a virtual carbon copy of Jarrod Washburn's. Well isn't that something.

Seattle: 72-66
LAnaheim: 81-55

SUMMARY

Never having written one of these before, holy crap, this team really isn't good. Hooray defense and all that (fun fact: we're second-worst in errors and by far the best in range), but defense is the least important of the three big skills, and we've been lousy at the other two. Also, hey, the gap between these two teams has widened by 15.8 runs since we played the Angels last week, and by 87.4 runs since we played them at the end of May. Though the Angels have overachieved, we have, too, and for the ten thousandth year in a row, the fact of the matter is that they're quite a bit better than us.

These aren't your grandpappy's Angels, either. Games featuring the Angels have averaged the highest number of total runs scored in baseball (10.50), narrowly edging out the Yankees (10.47). There are still elements of classic Angels baseball in there, of course - stolen bases, infield hits, balls in play, and so on - but where losses to them used to be met with frustration, now they're met with profound understanding. "Oh right they bludgeon now." It seems the Mariners are the new team that when you lose to them you don't get how it happened. I'm glad we've become a worse version of my least favorite team ever.

How the hell are we winning this season series?

GAMES

Game 1: Felix Hernandez vs. Scott Kazmir *
Game 2: Ian Snell vs. Jered Weaver
Game 3: Ryan Rowland-Smith vs. John Lackey

Well this is an intimidating trio to face. Kazmir wouldn't be much but for the fact that he, like so many other pitchers, recently whupped our ass. There are ways to recommend that a normal baseball team beat a pitcher, and there are ways to recommend that the Mariners beat a pitcher. For normal teams, you beat Kazmir by forcing him to come into the zone. For the Mariners, you beat Kazmir by hoping Felix throws a shutout. I imagine we'll run out a lineup with a ton of righties tonight, but the last time we did that against Kazmir we got three hits.

We used to call Jered Weaver overrated. He was. He's not an ace. But he's been pretty much exactly the same pitcher he was a year ago, and a year ago he was a good pitcher who threw strikes and missed bats while surviving an extraordinary fly ball rate. He can be exposed against lefties, but his changeup is good enough that it's not a huge concern. Snell's going to have to be on the top of his game, or more realistically he'll have to be on the top of someone better's game.

John Lackey is going to be really rich soon. Remember when he was struggling? I think he got mad.

The Angels are five games better than Texas and have something like an 85-90% chance of taking the division. If we are to do anything about that, we have to start now.