Series Preview: Tampa Bay Rays @ Seattle Mariners

Seattle: 11-14
Tampa Bay: 18-7

Reeling a little bit we get to welcome the Rays into Seattle in a classic mismatch.

In wacky movie land this is where the team would rally behind their positive outlook and come out kicking butt in the first game. Then the Rays would regroup behind a menacing montage and would even the series in game two. The odds would look long for the scrappy Mariners and the audience would be further prepared for defeat by being given a sneak look into the Rays behind the scenes devising an unethical plot to make sure they won the final and deciding game. Alas, things would go awry and at the last second the foil, moved by the pluck of Seattle, would change sides and the Mariners would win and hooray cake and ice cream for everyone!

In the real world, oh god oh god oh god we are so bleeping screwed. Just lie back and think of England.

Also, this is just a three game series in May that decides nothing.

Tue May 4, 19:10: Jason Vargas* vs. James Shields

Wed May 5, 19:10: Cliff Lee* vs. Matt Garza

Thur May 6, 19:10: Ryan Rowland-Smith* vs. Jeff Niemann

Cliff Lee! Wooo!

We are tossing three straight lefties at the Rays which plays our strength against their weakness. Of course their "weakness" is like a slightly off colored cuticle to our gasping for breath while buried alive "strength". Meanwhile, they counter with three straight righties which gives us a very quick glimpse into seeing if Wakamatsu will actually utilize Ryan Langerhans in left to give Milton Bradley time at DH. While that might sadden those in the Griffey challenge, people who should be preparing for the inevitable zero home runs this entire year anyways, it would be potentially beneficial to the team. 

Of course, James Shields' best pitch is his change up and the change up is a pitch best thrown to opposite-handed (read: left) hitters so it's not like we're scoring runs off him no matter which lefty DHs and which lefty plays left field.

Matt Garza is only partially jealous of how much Doug Fister relies on his fastball, but Garza's version actually misses bats so we're pretty screwed there. He also has a wicked slider which would be bad news bears if Adrian Beltre were still on this team but instead we have the better-glove, worse-bat Jose Lopez at third now so he'll pop out instead of strike out. Yay?

Jeff Niemann doesn't do anything particularly noteworthy except have a pulse but double blind studies have shown that to be enough to avoid giving up runs to the Mariners and RRS gets to face Evan Longoria so I'm expecting to lose this game negative 3 to 14.