Speed Helps

Thursday night the Seattle Mariners got their first win of the season over the Houston Astros to salvage something out of the series.  The positive side was that they were in every game though the offense struggled through the series. I guess you can give the Astros pitching some credit though we probably agree that the Mariner offense was poor throughout the series.

Thursday night going into the ninth inning the game was tied 2-2. Another tight game we saw hoping that the Mariners would finally come away with a victory. The Mariners Valencia was able to get a walk and catcher Ruiz was hit by a pitch. In both cases they were replaced by pinch runners. Taylor Motter pinched run for Valencia which will be happening a lot this season when he isn’t starting a game. Guillermo Heredia pinched run for Ruiz. The speed that both runners have they both scored easily on hits. It is something that the Mariners did not have much of last season except near the end of the year. With so many games that the Mariners will have close this will help them out dearly.

In this series against the Astros we have seen the speed work well defensively in the outfield most of all. Jarrod Dyson made several catches that last year would have dropped in for hits. These catches have not been fantastic in the most part they have looked more like routine. Whether this is true or not it certainly has helped out the defense.

The series in Houston showed us that the Mariners will be scoring more runs by small ball instead of home runs. Minute Maid Park in Houston is a home run park which we saw the Astros demonstrate. The Mariners on the other hand did not. Mitch Haniger who showed us his hitting in the series hit his first home run of the season in Houston in game four. We did not see a home run out of Nelson Cruz or Kyle Seager or Robinson Cano. We did see some hits out of Cano who hits well in Minute Maid Park. In fact he hit better there than any visitor did last year. He hit a nice double on Thursday that helped the Mariners score one of their first two runs along with Haniger’s homer.

We hope the signs show that the Mariners will get out of their hitting funk in Anaheim against the Angels over this weekend. Yovani Gallardo will make his Mariner debut against the Angels. We hope that he follows suite with the other four starters than what he accomplished during spring training. It is important that he doesn’t struggle in the first inning especially facing Mike Trout who has been giving Mariner pitching a handful. Trout last year was almost the whole offense for the Angels against the Mariners.

I can see the Mariners winning two out of the three games this weekend especially if the pitching continues to hold up and the offense can come alive to some extent. At least they have the speed on the base paths to make a difference in close games. Go M’s.