Can Opposing Pitchers please stop hitting Mariners Ty France

I’m tired of it already. The Mariners either never get that many things, or don’t know how to treat them once they have them. This time around, can we figure out a way to stop having Ty France get hit so often? Please?

It’s not just that he gets hit a lot. If he got hit, and it never affected him, then it wouldn’t be as big of a deal. When it affects your productivity and even causes you to miss time, that’s when it starts to bother me. It’s what happened earlier this season during May. Remember? France went out, and the Mariners team average fell to .197.

Ty France needs to be protected, as he is being hit at an all-time rate.

If you think this happens fairly often, well, you would be incorrect. Guys don’t get hit like this. Unless you are Brandon Guyer. He was hit 31 times in 345 plate appearances in 2016. That almost seems like you want to get hit. The same goes for Ron Hunt, who was hit 50 times in 638 appearances in 1971. Adding in Don Baylor’s 35 in 1986 and Biggio’s 34 in 1997, and no one has been hit more in the last 110 years.

If you project France out as getting about 4.2/4.3 plate appearances a game for the rest of the season, he will end up getting hit 12 more times. That would put him at 28 HBP on the season. Wanna know who’s been hit that many times since the year 2000?

• Anthony Rizzo – 30 in 701 PA
• Craig Wilson – 30 in 644 PA
• Craig Biggio – 28 in 717 PA
• Fernando Vina – 28 in 554 PA

That’s it. That’s the list. Those are the only players since 2000, including Guyer who was mentioned above, who have been hit 28 or more times. France is on pace for that. Personally, I would like it if the guy who might just be our best hitter could not get hit that often.

Again, if it was just him getting hit, maybe I could get around that. It’s the fact that it messed not just France, but the Mariners offense up as a whole, that really bugs me. Here’s the Mariners offense pre-injury + once he came back, compared to France being hit, injured, and going on the DL. That time frame that he was hurt/out was 4/29-5/23.

• Mariners pre-hurt France (25 games) – .211/.288/.370, 1.72 2B & 1.04 HR per game
• Mariners with hurt France (22 games) – .187/.266/.307, 1.27 2B & 1.18 HR per game
• Mariners with healthy France (53 games) – .234/.306/.398, 1.25 2B & 1.36 HR per game

We can look at the same time frame for Haniger as well. From April 29th, the day after being hit, to May 24th, the day he came off the IL. Then, everything else.

• Hurt France – .071/.188/.095, 42 AB, one 2B, 0 HR, 0 HBP
• Healthy France – .314/.387/.512, 328 PA, 21 2B, 9 HR, 16 HBP

You can see that having a healthy France makes a huge difference, not just in his play, but in how the team plays. He’s one of the best hitters in baseball when he is healthy, and the team turns into an average offense with him.

Please, just let us have something nice as Mariners fans. A healthy Ty France makes everyone happy, and I’ll whisper this next part, but if I could have one thing at the trade deadline, I would love a healthy Ty France.