A Quick Solution To The Fastball Issue

I’ve got like five different blog posts that I want to work on but I just read Geoff Baker’s blog and being that it mentions a few things that I have in the works I wanted to get a quick word in edge wise.

"Tonight’s loss was easy to dissect. The Mariners couldn’t hit a Derek Holland fastball to save their life. Two-thirds of his pitches were fastballs. Miguel Olivo had two of Seattle’s five hits and both were on offspeed stuff.The Rangers? They hit the Vargas fastballs. They hit a change-up of his that was at shoelace level into the right field bleachers. They hit other stuff as well.Fastballs were the least of the Rangers’ problems. Good teams can hit fastballs.“You’re going to get fastballs to hit,” Wedge said. “The kid’s out there throwing hard and you’ve got to be ready for it. It’s the same thing we’ve been talking about. Until these guys understand that you’ve got to take some risks, get out there and work the barrel off the ball…we’re going to struggle.”"

The Mariners have been the worst hitting fastball team the last two years and they need some help. It’s partly why I think Greg Halman has shown some early success, all he was seeing was fastballs, now it appears they are mixing it up again and he’s not looking like the same hitter.

If the Mariners aren’t looking for a long term fix and are biding their time until the great out field crop of 2013 then one suggestion would be that of Reed Johnson. He doesn’t provide much in the way of power and much of his 2011 line is BABIP driven but he is a solid fastball hitter, something this team needs, and wouldn’t require much in the way of length in terms of a deal or cost.

Just a random Friday morning/noon thought.