From Stem to Stern: Recapping the Rangers Series

The Mariners got swept by the Rangers, managing to score only 2 runs over the 4 game series. It’s hard to describe this series as anything but ugly. Nothing went right. Even the pitchers faltered. Any hopes the Mariners had of staying in this race officially ended ended with this series.

Captain: Franklin Gutierrez (the only player to post a positive WAR)
Walkin the Plank: Ichiro Suzuki (.099 wOBA in the series)
Impressive: Jeff Grey (3.1 IP, 3Ks, 0 Hits, all after not pitching for almost a month)
Depressing: Greg Halman (3 strike outs in just 9 at-bats)

Vargas gets whacked
Jason Vargas had his one of his worst starts of the year, giving up 3 HR to the Rangers in just 6 innings of work. Vargas has been been either brilliant or bad this year (mostly on the brilliant side of things), and the bad version of Vargas showed up to start off this series.

As you can see, he missed a lot in the center of the zone. You just can’t do that against a good hitting team like the Rangers. Vargas is a pitcher without dominating stuff. He has to have good control to be successful. When he pitches like this, he gets hit hard.

30 consecutive scoreless innings

The Mariner’s offense ran up a streak of 30 straight innings in which they didn’t score, dating back to before the all-star break. It wasn’t until game 3 of the series when Chone Figgins (remember him?) hit an RBI single to score Franklin Gutierrez from second, that the Mariners managed to score a run in this series. It would be the only run they’d score that night, and they’d manage just 1 more run in final game of the series.

Every night, it seemed like the Ranger’s pitchers were flirting with a no-hitter, and this isn’t a particularly dominant pitching staff. They’re 23rd in the league in team FiP. Even Ackley had a bad series, going 2 of 16 (.125), with 4 strikeouts.

Jeff Grey Shakes Off the Rust

The most well rested pitcher in all of baseball actually remembered where the pitcher mound was when he finally got called on to pitch, and that in of itself is amazing. (Ok, not really. I should probably back off the sarcasm a little.) Grey doesn’t get an opportunity to pitch very often. He pitched twice in this series, and still only has 3 appearances since June 12th.

The best part of this was that he was surprising good. His line for the series was 3.1 IP, 0 hits, 3 strikeouts. Pretty impressive if you think about how rusty he should have been. It makes you wonder what he has to do to get more playing time, especially with the recent ineffectiveness of David Pauley and Jamey Wright.