Wilhelmsen And Cortes The Shining Stars In Mariners Victory

There are a lot of things to look forward to as a Seattle Mariners fan.  As of 9:00 P.M. tonight, Danny Hultzen is a Seattle Mariner.  In 2010, Hultzen finished the season with a 10-3 record, posting a 1.59 ERA in 96.1 innings.  This year, Hultzen made 18 starts, holding a 12-3 record and posting an ERA of 1.37.  The Mariners are stockpiling arms.  Taijaun Walker is climbing the ranks – with 113 strikeouts this year, his stuff is looking great, and scouts are starting to take notice of this up and coming star.  The Mariners are stockpiling arms.

Tonight, the Mariners showcased two of their flame-throwing-arms in Tom Wilhelmsen and Dan Cortes.  The lowly prospect Michael Pineda couldn’t fend off the feeble Tortonto Blue Jays, giving up five earned-runs in five innings.  Wilhelmsen and Cortes had to hold down the fort.  And they did.  They made it look easy.  With such giant arms as Wilhelmsen and Cortes, it’s easy to see that, yes. The Mariners are stockpiling arms.

All is well in the world of the Seattle Mariners.  If baseball is an arms race, then the Seattle Mariners have secured the best weapons.

I’m not sure what’s going on with the Mariners.  I suppose this is regression.  They are showcasing their talent left and right, and it’s entertaining to watch.  It’s more than entertaining – it’s a glimpse of the future.  The Mariners battled against a power-slugging team.  This is what we’ve been talking about!  The Mariners need to battle, and they did.  Unlike the fool who brought a knife to a gun fight, they brought their bats to a ball-game.  Although, that fool could just throw the knife at the gun-wielding enemy.  That would probably scare them off.

Michael Pineda had some good stuff tonight.  He was generating swinging strikes, his velocity was great after the first inning jack to Eric Thames.  His command was in question.  I mean, it wasn’t in question.  It was the problem, definitely the problem.  In the third, Adam Lind blasted a changeup that Pineda left over the plate.  As many have mentioned before, Pineda needs to hone his changeup.  And if it takes getting shelled to do it, I’m all for it.  Aces need a changeup.  Pineda needs a changeup.

Most people will be talking about Mike Carp and Casper Wells tonight.  That’s perfectly fine, as they should.  Mike Carp extended his hitting streak to 15 games, and he did so via the long-ball.  His slash line during this streak is an nice .368/.400/.544.  Mike Carp, ladies and gentlemen!  I wonder if people are already comparing him to Mike Trout – two prospects that can rake.  Not their ceiling, I mean their names.  Carp, Trout.  Get it?

It’s fun to watch the youth in action.  It’s fun to watch back-to-back homeruns!  It’s been a while, and I’ve heard around the twitter-verse that it’s been since May that the Mariners went back-to-back with Justin Smoak and Miguel Olivio.  It’s finally nice to see some pop.  I still don’t get the Wells swing, though.  It’s a combination of Joe Mauer and Adrian Beltre.  It’s short, compact and quick like Mauer, but he sort of does that swing-and-knees-hit-the-floor thing that Beltre does.  I don’t get it, but as long as they keep leaving the yard, I’m a happy camper.

I wanted to emphasize the roles that Wilhelmsen and Cortes played.  The back-end of a bullpen is important.  We know this.  As much as we’ve all been enjoying the success of Ackley, Carp and now Casper Wells, we also need to look at the growth of the young pitchers on this roster that aren’t named Michael Pineda.  To be perfectly honest, Wilhelmsen and Cortes didn’t look great.  But they didn’t look horrible, either.  The stuff was great – Wilhelmsen was touching the 97 mph while Cortes was touching 98 mph.  The command was so-so.  If those two can locate their breaking balls for strikes, I’ll be excited to see what the bullpen will look like then.

• Felix Hernandez has a big mouth.  As soon as Wells hit the go-ahead run, he was one of the people yelling the loudest.  They showed the dugout in Ultra-mo.  Felix Hernandez and Dan Cortes have really big mouths.
• Mike Carp’s 15 game hitting streak is impressive, and just to show up everyone who’s doubted him, he goes and hits two solo homeruns as his only hits of the night.  Forget one bag with a single, pssh.  I’ll collect eight tonight, please, he says kindly to the Blue Jays.
• The climax of the game came to a match-up between Jose Bautista and Brandon League.  Bautista grounded weakly to Kyle Seager, so, we won?  Anti-climatic finish for the win.

The Seattle Mariners play a baseball game tomorrow.  If they win said baseball game, they will have won four baseball games in a row.  Mmm, streaks.

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