When Jack Zduriencik signed the veteran Russell Branyan this off season, he and the rest of the organization were probably expecting a solid defensive first baseman who could put up some decent power numbers in the middle of the order. It appears that what they got was a lot more.
Everyone already knew that Branyan had a great power upside, but he has performed well above expectations over the first two months of the season.
Not only is he doing a bang-up job at first base, but he’s near the top of the league in homers with a batting average above .300.

Branyan [...]

The general consensus is that the American League West is the weakest division in baseball. I would have to agree with this. Not only does the division have just four teams, but it is also lacking a powerhouse team that most other divisions possess. In a lot of ways, this is a good thing – namely, it gives average teams like the Mariners a chance to compete, as it’s rare for anyone to walk away with the division. It can also be frustrating, due to the fact that these four teams way out west rarely get much media attention – at least [...]

It’s quite clear that Brandon Morrow isn’t doing well. This much has been obvious since he came off of the DL a little over a week ago.
The burning question, though, is – What needs to be done about him?
Everyone has an opinion as to what the answer of this question is, and one very popular one seems to be “Make him a starter”.
Now don’t get me wrong, no one would be happier to see Brandon Morrow starting than I would, but his career path isn’t up to the fans. Towards the end of spring training this year, Morrow stated that [...]

The way we’d been playing, this recent series against the Sox was a very nice surprise. Personally, against a team like Boston, I wouldn’t have been disappointed with one out of three. Fortunately though, the Mariners obviously weren’t, evident by the way they battled today in the rubber game of the series. Vargas got himself into a lot of jams early in the game, but was able to minimize the damage each and every time. This included a situation in the 5th inning, in which the bases were loaded with nobody out for Jason Bay. In a situation like that, [...]

Fansided.com, which is this blog’s network is growing really quickly. They’ve already added a lot of new blogs. They just launched a great new site last week and it’s now fully functional. Check it out.
http://www.fansided.com

When your team has been playing the way the Mariners have, it’s rarely a good thing to have a series with the Red Sox coming up.
It continued to look pretty bad for the first five innings too, Jakubauskas had surrendered four runs already and the M’s had squandererd several golden opportunities. Our only run had come on a solo shot by Ichiro.
But in the 6th, our luck changed just a bit. With runners on 1st and 2nd, Yuniesky Betancourt (who walked twice in the game!) weakly bounced a ball back to Jon Lester. Lester looked to 2nd base, appearing to [...]

The Seattle Mariners have had a roller coaster start to the 2009 season. Here’s their report card so far.
Overall Starting Pitching: B-
The M’s starting pitching has been pretty solid—aside from the consistently bad Carlos Silva.
King Felix is finally starting to realize his potential.
The finally healthy Erik Bedard is looking like the ace we overpaid for.
Jarrod Washburn has looked fantastic for a No. 4 starter. I don’t expect him to keep up these fantastic numbers (2.68 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, .220 BAA), but his new sinker grip seems to be working well and I have high hopes for the rest of the [...]

The Mariners are not the cream of the crop when it comes to offense. today’s showing was no exception to that recent trend. The Mariners rank 13th out of 14 AL teams in offensive output.
Erik Bedard pitched a good game, and handed the ball to Shawn Kelly, who has been outstanding with a 1.54 ERA so far.
Then that’s where everything started to unwind.
Kelly left the mound with a strained oblique three pitches into the 10th inning. The Mariners had recently won a 15-inning thriller against the Oakland Athletics. They had used a lot of arm power and because of the [...]

Many of you Mariners fans may be wondering why Griffey has been scratched from the lineup for the past three games. I have heard some questions as to why he has not been playing
To quell all uncertainty Ken Griffey Jr has what is called in lamen terms an inflamed colon.
Griffey described it to reporters like this:
“Tell you what: Why don’t you lie down on the floor and let someone kick you in the side a couple of times. That’s what it feels like.”
This is not the 90’s Griffey, and yes, this could be a cause for concern. Griffey had this [...]