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The M's Win the Pennant!

Let's figure out the Wild Card elimination bracket

Posted by

jemanji

8/9/17

Several pleasant things occurred on Tuesday night:

Mariners defeat Orcs, check √
Royals and Jason Vargas get greased 10-3 by crosstown NL rivals, check √
Rays luxuriate in the Sale-Kimbrel experience, are shut out with 2 hits and 16 strikeouts, check √
Even Balmer gets chewed by the pesky rodent Angels, check √

And so here is a big, bright, beautiful standings page with the Mariners firmly IN a playoff slot! Ohhh yeaahhhhhh. We had 'em all the way, baby.

Just before those various and sundry nice things happened to us, Mo' Dawg had opined:

I think I might throw Gallardo out of the pen the rest of the year. He was a rock in that role. As far as the WC is concerned, the best thing we have going for us is the fact that all the other teams in the WC hunt are more deeply flawed than we are:

KC is running on Vargas fumes right now (and KC was destroyed in his game Tuesday - Dr. D). Duffy, Hammel and Kennedy are a combined 16-24 this season, although their BP has been lights out. Hosmer, Merrifield and Moustakis have been great all year. They are good but slumpable.

TBR has Archer, Cobb and bupkis in the rotation. They do bring a 4-potent bat lineup, with Morrison, Souza, Dickerson and Longoria. But they play in the dog-eat-dog East. A tough road, late in the season.

Ditto Baltimore. Add the fact that Wade Miley is their #3 and that the legal firm of Schoop & Mancini are leading the offense and you don't tremble when you look at them. Were Machado to go nuts, they would have a better shot, but that is true if you talk about Cruz, Seager or Cano going nuts.

The WC race promises to be, well, wild. The Mariners have holes, but perhaps not as deep as TBR or Balt. KC's pen (natch) and the big three bats make them a tough nut, but they may well watch their chances crumble as the starters wear out the pen.

The M's addition of a big vR bat at 1B gives perhaps gives us a turbo boost opportunity. Valencia has been beating up LHP all year. It is his calling card. But he's sub-.700 vs. RHP. tough to get that variety production out of 1B. Now we have an .850+ bat to fill that role.

That'll do for us too. Well, no it won't; since when can you shut Dr. D up. We can all list things we don't like about this Mariners team, and by "things" we start with our rotation. Outside Zeus. Zeus is ours and the other Wild Card teams can't have him.

4 Marco, 5 Erasmo Ramirez and 3 Ariel Miranda -- my scores for them -- are coming off dubious starts (stretches) but this is nominally Dr. D's blog and he gets to offer this: those three young pitchers have talent.

2 King Felix' arm hurts, as most pitchers' do in August, but we've got a goal. Which is to get him going in time for the --- > Playoffs! Baby!

....

Baltimore has a -50 run differential. Kansas City has a -21 run differential. Tampa has merely a +2 run differential. Hey, did you know the Yankee$ have only a +15 run differential? The M's RD isn't super great but that doesn't count, 'cause I like the Mariners.

Okay. So we got 48 games left and everybody's back to even steven. Let's play some baseball.

Enjoy,

Jeff

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Comments

The Yankees have a +115 RD, not +15

The difference is notable. :)

And the Yankees added two bullpen aces and a starting pitching ace at the deadline. And a slugger for third base.

Did you know that, in the Yankees bullpen, no one there now has an ERA higher than 3.60 (in a hitter's park), and no one other than swingman Bryan Mitchell has an ERA higher than Aroldis Chapman's 2.87 (that would be their power closer...who has the HIGHEST ERA in the group...WOW)

Yeah...they're gone...forget about the Yankees...no one is going to be catching them.

Exactly.

You just have to hope to surprise them in a one-game knockout. At least we've got the SP for that job...

Ah! +115

That would explain more than a few things. That's okay. Zeus has more fun judging heroes than peasants anyway.

HA...indeed.

The one-game play-off will almost certainly be against either Boston or NY...and we have Paxton to pitch it...that would be a fun game if we got there.

It doesn't seem like they're that uncatchable

Since July 1st, the Mariners bullpen have a virtually identical FIP (2.99) compared to NYY (3.01). Aaron Judge is hitting a lot more like Mike Zunino over the last month, Aaron Hicks is about to return from the same injury that derailed Mitch Haniger's season, and Bret Gardner & Didi Gregorious have thus far managed new and striking career highs in ISO that seem unlikely to survive the season. The starting pitching, I admit has been one-sided in the Yankees favor, but if Marco would just turn into Alex Wood already, everything will be fine...

We'll see...I don't like our chances at all.

I actually think it's more likely we catch Boston than NY.

Marco Wood

I'm a big fan of Marco, but I'm not sure he will be all the way back and confident of it until next year. But then, if he gets caught up in a pennant chase, maybe he'll go after it - he's been there before and knows the rush of winning. Some *experts* thought his ceiling might be a #2 when he first came up with St. Louis, and the consensus was a very good #3-4. If, as you say, he gets the confidence back AND confidence in Zunino/Chooch/Baron/Marjama that the dead-fish really befuddles after well-located 93 - and he can maintain 93 into the 7th (he couldn't past the 5th last outing) - well, Paxton & Marco *could* be the saviors for the month until Felix gives the Ms a real rotation.

And yet

We are a mere two games behind the Yanks. And equal in the number of wins. Very strange.

Very unlucky for them.

They're playing like seven games under pythag or something.

they have more blowout wins than blowout losses...a more inconsistent and potent offense and consistent pitching?

KC and Perez

You also forgot to mention KC lost Perez for the next 4-6 weeks. I'm expecting KC to lose a lot more of those close games due to Perez being out. Perez is practically impossible to run on, and since he went on the DL have you noticed KC is having a difficult time winning games now?

If the rumors are true and Detroit is offering to pay the remaining portion of Verlanders 2017 salary, Mariners would do well to pull this type of move off now!

Would love to see Verlander in here.

They'd have to eat some of the money from 2018 and 2019 though...those are some large dollars.

Verlander

About 1 more four of clubs drawn from the SP deck and you could see Jerry Dipoto sorely tempted ....he's in BJOL's top 10 right now. Verlander, that is, not Dipoto.

Matt also mentioned Perez' impact on KC. That was a triple-thick shake over KC's head, wasn't it? Few players in the league I'd be more anxious to have on my team.

He Who Has Pitched Well Since June

Don't Look, but HWMNBN is pitching another mediocre two or three run five n' dive to propel the Mariners to another typical victory. Dare I say that you know who is the most trustworthy arm behind James Paxton? We should revisit this issue at the +3 post mortem tomorrow.