Seattle Mariners Must Exact Revenge on Team That Did Them No Harm

Seattle lost the series (again) but did decisevely destroy Chicago in the better hot dog contest with a measly -- surely error-prone -- 17% voting for Chicago. And since a google search of baseball yielded 610 million results while food returned 3.5 billion. So a hot dog contest is roughly six times more important than any silly baseball game and the Mariners' city trounced the White Sox's city in that.

Hey, remember those Twins that the Mariners just recently faced, and swept? Well, they're back. Almost all of them anyways, since Nick Blackburn got demoted after his attempt to corral the wild and free Mariners and now some other dude will take his place and try. Fat chance.

Wait, "fat chance?" That is saying the chance is big. That phrase's usage is entirely sarcastic and I never noticed until just now.

P/PA = pitches per PA [avg~3.8], nBB = uBB + HBP, Sw = swinging [avg~45%], Ct = contact [avg~81%], Qual+ = a measure of quality of batted balls [avg=100, higher is better]

Hell yes, the ding-dongers are back!

A majority of us would have preferred Justin Smoak got more time in Tacoma to collect his swing from the many pieces it had broken into while we got to see if Mike Carp is anything worth anything. The injury god would not allow us that for now, but at least Smoak hasn't looked as usually awful since his return.

If you believe in and factor in the defensive ratings with the more established hitting ratings, the Mariners position players would be about 50 runs below average instead of 95 and last. I don't yet know where that -50 mark would place them on the rank of Major League teams, but surely better than last. It's important to remember the defense not just because it's overlooked and the whole run saved ~ run earned thing, but also because when you advocate replacing a player's weak bat, you also have to replace that player's glove and sometimes that's an excellent glove (Brendan Ryan)

Liam Hendricks is not good and Felix Hernandez is very good. Having the Mariners blow out the Twins tonight would go a long way to helping erase the memories from the weekend, which were probably not fun, based on the scores. I spent the time during Mariner games this weekend hiking, working outdoors and playing soccer so it was a good weekend for me!

Will Franklin Gutierrez start tonight or will he be held out to start against the lefty Scott Diamond? It probably depends on how Michael Saunders feels, but either way, Guti is back y'all! Catch him while you can! On the ol' TV or radio or internet I mean. Do not physically catch him as you'll probably break him if you do.

[Late update]: Guti will start tonight and bat second.

A 10am start time! I love it and it's not even on a Sunday either.

Str% = strike rate [avg~63%], Ct% = contact rate [avg~78%], GB% = groundball rate [avg~45%], Qual- = a measure of quality of batted balls [avg=100, lower is better], LI = leverage [avg~1.2]

Carter Capps looks exciting, but he still has work to do on honing his control. If he can get that up to even average by relief pitcher standards then he has the stuff to become quite a fearsome pitcher. For now, he's too often behind in the count. Of note is that at least a couple times that I've watched he's appeared to be around the edges of the strike zone and just not had any calls go his way.

How does Jeff Gray get the most usage in the last month? That alone might be worthy of firing a coach.

Series Drink: Speedway Stout
This is not the time of the year especially suited for stouts and this is a monstrous stout, at 12% ABV. Doesn't matter; this is among the world's best and it is finally creeping its way into Washington retailers.