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=== Michael Saunders ===

After he hit his two dingers, he went on the postgame and said that he's getting his swing back to where it was in the first half, after "the last few weeks" getting out of synch again.  

It's not clear to me why it's so tough for this amigo to get this one lesson through his thick skull.  He comes to the plate armed with the 1-wood already.  He doesn't need to open those hips up like a long-drive champ.  Just arm-swing for left-center and he'll get him his 25-30 jacks.  When this guy's knees vector at the shortstop, he can hit in the big leagues.

For the last month, he has scored a 1 on a scale of 10 for Shortstop Knee Vectorage.  On the first HR tonight, he scored maybe a 7 (and you'll notice that the ball traveled over the SS's head).  On the second home run, probably a 5.  Slap me silly I wish the guy would just turn the front knee in, or something, and keep that lead hip home.  

Minor light bulb on Saunders:  when he's going bad, his knees go at the second baseman.  When he's going good, they go at the shortstop.  When he's going mediocre, like now, he goes SS on way outside pitches and 2B on other pitches.

Good news is:  this is a guy who can carry a team when he's right.  As he did, for example, Monday, winning our "#5 Starter Game" all by his ownself.  He's got 3 walks vs 2 strikeouts this last week, so maybe he's right again.

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=== Eric Thames ===

He looks like .350 standin' still, like they used to say about Dave Parker.  He lets the ball get deep in the zone, takes a real good look at it.  His launch is snake-tongue quick and the ball jumps off his bat.  Tonight he cleared deep right-center with ease.

So, what's the holdup?  He watches the fastball, watches it, watches it, FIIRRRRES the bat beautifully and ... swings right through it.  Sure enough, his run values on everything below 90 MPH are off the chart, and his run value on fastballs is pathetic.

Bo Jackson used to be like this.  His hand-eye coordination just wasn't MLB-caliber, so he made his living off breaking pitches and 89 MPH fastballs.  (You can hit 30 homers doing that.)  Either Thames will wind up like that, or it's just a case of his being very early in his career.

I know you guys don't want to hear this, but I don't like his chances.  The fact that he has so much trouble with good velocity, despite such a quick bat, that says "hand-eye problemos."  Hope I'm wrong.

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=== John Jaso ===

Another day, another walk.  And a rifle shot to deep LF, the other way.

At the moment, he is one of the best players in organized baseball.

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=== Justin Smoak ===

Is indeed quicker at the plate; he's swinging the pitching wedge from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock.  He's totally lost the flowery, blossomy followthrough, so he's more agile at the plate.  Teddy Ballgame's first rule:  Be quick - quick.

Teddy's second rule:  hit it up the middle.  Have you seen the shift on Smoak?  It says here that the only missing ingredient, now, are the doubles into the left-center gap.  Does anybody remember those during his rookie year?

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=== Trayvon ===

You probably already saw, someplace, that Trayvon had 10-11 putouts or something.  One of them was on another rib-smash against the stands.  At the park, he came up next inning and played "I bee-leeeeeve I can flyyyyyy" and Trayvon was laughing too hard to hit.  Didn't know the P.A. guys could also make rookies carry pink backpacks?

Last year, Trayvon had a revolting hole in his swing, that being offspeed stuff at the knees.  He's just about solved that, and now his strike zone coverage is quite solid.

He's feeling his way, not hitting the ball real hard, but he's leaped a plateau.  Could get interesting real quick here.  Not that the Mariners aren't playing an exTREMEly makeshift outfield during this run.  Did you realize that the 1977 expansion Mariners had a more credentialed outfield than Eric Wedge is using right now?  They did.  I was there, and that 1977 team would have declined to field an outfield of Robinson, Saunders and Thames.  It wanted a more MLB(TM) lineup than that.

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=== The Ballclub Generally ===

For 70 years, people thought that Wrigley Field was an extreme hitter's park.  Then, in the 1990's if we recall, STATS Inc. discovered that it's two parks -- at one time of year the wind blows out, and at the other time of year the wind blows in.

Looks from here like the wind currents have changed, and with them the M's hitters' attitudes have changed.  What are they, 13-1 at Safeco lately?  ... Geoffy worries that a strong finish will mean that the Mariners will not pursue next winter's Prince Fielder.  Dr. D worries that an offensive revival in summer will mean that they forget about closing the roof next April and May.