It's biweekly guest blog time for me over at Brock & Salk, and the topic in this edition is Franklin Gutierrez now, as compared to Franklin Gutierrez in 2009. It's a bittersweet post, of which the first two paragraphs are pasted below:
In case you hadn't noticed -- or even if you had -- the Mariners have provided an awful lot of reasons for hope, lately. Aside from getting continued contributions from guys like Felix Hernandez, Michael Pineda and Dustin Ackley, the M's have seen Mike Carp supply power from the left side. They've seen Casper Wells supply power from the right side. They've seen Trayvon Robinson do everything in his first cup of coffee. They've seen Kyle Seager catch absolute fire. And they've seen Franklin Gutierrez show legitimate signs of life.
Just about six weeks ago, Gutierrez went into the All-Star break with a .187 average. Worse, it was an empty .187 average, as his OBP was .218 and he was slugging .227. For a good amount of time, Guti was Guti in the field, but he was Chone Figgins at the plate.
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