Another Mariner Road Trip

The Seattle Mariners just finished a home stand where they went 3-3 against division rivals the Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Angels. It would have been nice to have gone 4-2 which they had the chance especially after the last road trip where they went 7-3.

We are hoping on this road trip where they can win at least four games in seven games. They start in Toronto Tuesday playing the Blue Jays before going onto  Detroit Tigers over the weekend and then do a makeup game with the Minnesota Twins on Monday before returning home. The next home series will be two against the Texas Rangers and then four against the Tigers.

The Blue Jays are like the Mariners where they have won nineteen games and are in third place in the American League East behind the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. The Red Sox and Yankees are doing so well that the Blue Jays are six and a half games out. This series will be important to them as much as it is for the Mariners so it should be quite an exciting series. I look at Dee Gordon having a good series because of the field in Toronto. It isn’t as fast a field as it once was but should still benefit Gordon. James Paxton will go on the mound the first game after pitching seven innings with sixteen strike outs unfortunately the Mariners lost the game.

The Blue Jays will have Marcus Stroman going in the first game. He is 0-4 so far in the season in six starts with an era of 7.52. It will be really good if the Mariners can get to him early on in the game. Wade LeBlanc will take the mound on Wednesday for the Mariners. Last game he pitched four solid innings in his first start of the year so hopefully he will be able to go at least five innings. If Paxton can go at least seven innings with a good lead than the Mariners’ bullpen should be in good shape to relieve LeBlanc.  The third final game of the series Mike Leake will go for the Mariners against ex-Mariner Jay Happ who has been pitching well since going to the Blue Jays. It will be nice if the Mariners can win the first two games before facing Happ.

They key in the series is not only to have the starters to be able to go at least six innings except LeBlanc who  probably go only five innings because it is only his second start that the top of the lineup continues what they have  been doing while the bottom of the order do a better job. First baseman Ryon Healy has been doing well as of late but the Mariners need to have Mike Zunino hit more consistently though he did hit a home run in the win on Saturday against the Angels in the only win of that series. Also Ben Gamel needs to get going. He will likely start Tuesday night’s game however the remaining two games the Blue Jays will start two lefties so Guillermo Heredia will likely start them. Though is batting average has gone down recently since being called back up from Tacoma he still is batting .289. The thing about Heredia is he is able to hit the ball and willing to take walks along with not striking out much. He has seven walks in 42 plate appearances and has struck out four times which is pretty good I have to say. He still continues to be in on any rallies that Mariners have especially late in the game. His defense still continues to do well. Since he has been activated Mike Zunino has a batting average of .180 with thirteen strike outs. He is striking out about half of his at bats. He does have four home runs but he has only walked three times. If he continues to struggle it would be nice to put in Freitas at least one more time per week. My suggestion would be rest Zunino two games in a row. This way he can work on his hitting in practice without having to worry about catching.

It is important that the Mariners can win a fair share of games on this road trip to stay with the Angels and Astros. The Angels are playing the Colorado Rockies on two road trip inter-league play before going home to play Minnesota Twins Thursday thru Sunday followed by Houston and Tampa Bay next week. The Astros besides playing the Angels next week they currently play the A’s in Oakland winning 16-2 on Monday while playing again Tuesday and Wednesday. They will go home for a three game series against the Texas Rangers before going to Anaheim. So that is how things going on right now for the Mariners, Angels and Astros.