Mariner’s Second Half Begins

We know that starting Friday it is the unofficial second half of the baseball season because the Mariners have 73 games remaining instead of 81. What we now look as fans for the remaining of the season as though we are the general manager or manager.

Sometimes it is real easy as a fan what the team needs and we know that the Mariners management knows the same thing as well. Foremost the Mariners rotation needs to improve and we know that both Felix Hernandez and TaiJuan Walker should be back within a couple weeks. Friday night Felix is making a rehab assignment with the Triple A Tacoma Rainiers. The crowd has been announced as a sellout. The King is expected to throw seventy pitches or five innings and everything goes right he will start next Wednesday. James Paxton who is starting tonight for the Mariners will probably make his next start against the Blue Jays in Toronto next Friday. How the rest of the rotation will be announced since the Mariners have an off day on Monday July 25 and Thursday July 28. With three off-days between now and the end of the month it will be interesting how the Mariners starting rotation will go. Having the 25^th off most likely Felix will start his second outing on the 26^th followed by Paxton. My guess would be that TaiJuan Walker will make his first start off disabled list on the following weekend against the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field.

Now we look at the Mariners going forward for these seventy-three games. I am sure over the four day break Dipoto and Servais discussed what will happen. I am sure Servais has gone over in his head what changes he may make in his manager style now that he was managed over a half of a season.  First thing will be the starting rotation followed by the bullpen. The Mariners having one of the top offenses in the American League there probably will not be a lot of changes happening in the lineup. It will be interesting to see how much Leonys Martin and Ketel Marte will be at the top or the bottom of the lineup. The most important thing is make sure they are getting on base in front of Seth Smith or Franklin Gutierrez, Cano, Cruz and Seager. It would be nice to get another athletic outfielder to play either left or right field to be in the mix as well. Having a legitimate leadoff batter for the Mariners would be great or going with Martin or Marte. In either case I see Smith or Gutierrez hitting second in the batting order though I like Marte in that spot.

Another question will be in the regular lineup whether Adam Lind and Dae-Ho Lee will be back to platooning all the time at first base or will Nelson Cruz play more right field and that they share first base and designated hitter against right handers. Also I see a couple other possibilities if the Mariners don’t go out and get another outfielder. One would be that Aoki is brought back up which would not surprise me though could be in a couple weeks. Another would be that Daniel Robertson and Shawn O’Malley share left field. It is hard to know how much offense will come out of them however the defense would be better and the Mariners would have more speed. In this case they are at the top or bottom of the order. The ideal would be that Martin would be on fire and leading off though either of them could lead off or bat second. Nothing in the regular lineup would have to be different than left field.

Besides Felix and Walker coming back into the rotation  we hope to see more consistency from Paxton, Miley and Iwakuma. We may see Montgomery or LeBlanc in the starting rotation before Walker returns. Not sure what happens with LeBlanc if he is not in the starting rotation while we know Montgomery will go back into the bullpen. Also this will depend on Paxton and Miley’s performances before the return of Walker. The Mariners need either or both do well in the second half of the season. LeBlanc if still around could take one of their places too.

The second question is the bullpen and that relies a lot on the starting rotation as well. The bullpen should be fine three of the guys in the rotation are going at least six innings on a consistent basis. At this point Nathan Karns will be the primary guy coming out of the bullpen first and be able to go a couple innings. This will be Montgomery’s job to if and when he returns to the bullpen.

The back of the bullpen is the big question at this point. Will the Mariners stick with Steve Cishek as the closer the rest of the season or will Dipoto go and trade for a closer. If this is the case than I see Cishek moving to pitching either the seventh or eighth inning; in this case Edwin Diaz will be the main guy in either of those innings. I don’t see much of Benoit pitching in the second half of the season if he is still on the staff by August. Nick Vincent should be a big player when he comes off of the disabled list. This would be the same for Charlie Furbush who right now is on rehab assignment. Depending of the hitters I would not be surprised if Vincent and Furbush share the seventh inning.  Cishek and Diaz the eighth inning and the closer the ninth; either could close when the closer would need a rest. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple weeks and the rest of the season. Go M’s.