The Mariners are moments away from gracing my tv with regular season action, so I figured its time to remember my password to this thing and write some words down.
First, let me address my absence. I wish I had an awesome story like my wife had a baby or I went to prison, but I don't. I was just burnt out from school and didn't feel like writing. It started as me just being pissed off about the Lockout, then eventually morphed into me being disgusted with what I was seeing from the Blazers.
I'm glad I wasn't writing during February, could you imagine the type of vitriol that would've been shot at fat ass Felton? I used to light a candle for my soul everytime I watched him play. It was like God was punishing me for something.
That being said: at this moment, I'm on a break with the Blazers. Following the Celtics 30 point and the Knicks 40 point loss I was out. Why would I give a shit when they clearly didn't?
I did enjoy the moves they made at the deadline. Lots of cap and two potential lottery picks for this years draft? I'll take that as a consolation prize, thank you.
Now on to the men of the hour.
The 2012 Mariners don't look too different than the 2011 Mariners that blew goats once they got to July. So why am I optimistic? Because that team was young. They still have lots of potential.
Remember, Ackley has only played 90 something games last year.
Their core four players, Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak, Jesus Montero (brought over for Michael Pineda from the Yankees) and Mike Carp all have the potential to be good hitters. Will it happen? Ackley will, I'm confident in that. Smoak should, he was batting .263 with 12 home runs before taking a ball off the hand that derailed his season. And Jesus Montero by all accounts has Mike Piazza power.
As you can tell I'm crossing my fingers.
On the other side of the frame, it's easy to be excited about any team that sends Felix Hernandez to the mound every five games. The 2010 Cy Young winner was 14-14, but more often than not a Felix loss is on the Mariners offense, not on his production.
Fun little Felix fact: the King struck out 222 batters and only walked 64. Thats insane.
The Game is about to start, so I'm going to run down some quick season Keys:
- Obviously, the first one is we need some offense. I wouldn't be opposed to someone batting .300 this year and maybe somebody hit 30 home runs. I don't think I'm asking much.
- Felix needs to be Felix.
- Ichiro needs to either get back over 200 hits, or he needs to put 20 balls in the seats. He is batting 3rd this year, so I wouldn't be opposed to him showing more power.
- Figgins needs to not be shitty. The Mariners have made a point to say that Chone is more comfortable at leading off. I hope they are right, because I'm not sure how much more of Figgins I can watch before I mail him anthrax.
- Michael Saunders needs to not suck. He was as productive as a Ghost Runner last year and ultimately lost his job to a sick Franklin Guitierez. Guti is hurt again, so Mike gets another shot. During the spring he was beating the crap out of the ball, so lets hope that new stroke wasn't just because he was teeing off guys who moonlight as gas station attendants.
- It wouldn't hurt for one of the 3 amigo's to get called up and do a Michael Pineda impression. The Mariners have 3 pitching prospects starting in Double A Jackson that are worth knowing. Denny Hultzen, Taijuan Walker and James Paxton.
Like I do every year I have talked myself into this team. I'm on board with Ichiro and the Baby Mariners. I think they could build on what we saw for the first 2 and half months last year. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm previewing the Seahawks in June.
Time will tell. And speaking of time, fuck 3 am baseball games. Damn I'm tired.
First pitch time. Let's see what 'Operation Chone Leading Off' has to offer.
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