SEAside Thoughts: Mariners Opening Weekend in Review

SEAside Thoughts: Mariners Opening Week in Review

“It is not that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.”

– Sir Francis Drake, Sea Captain

• Damn, it sure is good to have baseball back!
• The Mariners have now played at home on Opening Day for just the third time in fourteen seasons. That’s ridiculous considering the Mariners have a roof. And yes, I know they were scheduled to start at home, it’s still lame.
• Robbie Ray is a Seattle Mariner. That’s awesome, and something we shouldn’t take for granted. I believe that Friday was an average, to slightly below average day from the Cy Young winner. We saw the walks, we saw the long ball. What we also saw was seven innings of fantastic pitching, without the ability to rack up the strikeouts. There will be worse days from Ray, but far more better, and that’s a level of pitching we haven’t seen since prime Felix. I looked forward to more Ray Day Celebrations!
• Through the three games this week, Mitch Haniger has been the main source of offense. He is hitting .250 with a double and two home runs. That’s who he is. A solid hitter that does real damage when he makes contact, while providing excellent leadership. I hope Seattle pays him.
• Mitch Haniger can’t be the best player on this team. If Seattle wants to make the postseason, they need other guys to step up, and be consistently great. Through three games, Haniger has five of our ten RBI’s. It’s early, but Haniger can’t be the main actor of this movie.
• Seattle’s 5-6-7 hitters, which involve Suarez, Toro, Kelenic and Rodriguez, went 2/35 with 16 K’s through the weekend. Again, the season is insanely early, but considering how important all four of these players are to the season’s success, this start has been incredibly disappointing. I look forward to talking about their bounce back next week.
• The “Hustle Doubles” by Julio Rodriguez and Adam Frazier were great moments where being aggressive and attacking can win, or in this case, steal you the ballgame. We saw it not work with Winker getting thrown out at home on a perfect relay on Sunday. That play was made possible by the best defensive shortstop in the game, Carlos Correa. Make dudes that aren’t as gifted as him make those plays. I hope to see this style of play continue.

• Flush Marco’s start. The dude’s our bulldog and he’ll be fine.
• Ty France is gonna mess around and win the batting title isn’t he? With better health and guys like Frazier and Crawford hitting before him throughout the day, France is going to get close to 100 RBI’s this season. He hit 18 home runs last season. If he can push that closer to 30, he’s going to force his name into some MVP conversations.
• Seattle is 2-1 with a -4 run differential. The fun differential last year was cute and cool, but to be honest, I’d love to not have that stat looming over the club all season. It gives off such a negative, “you’re not really good” vibe, and this is a good vibes only club. I look forward to Chris Flexen coming out today and building off of last season. Let’s see this offense explode and get out of Minnesota at 3-1, a fantastic start to the season.
• This week’s “Mariners Music Mojo” is On My Way by Avi Kaplan.
• Enjoy the new season and journey my friends, and as always… #GOMS