Lookout Landing

Seattle: 28-29
Baltimore: 24-33

SUMMARY

I love playing a team that we just played because I always have new and fresh things to say about them! It has been awhile since we played a team that we rated better than though. That is exciting and new.

It was a tough week for our defense which fell over three runs and three places down to 10th in the league. Our defense manages to combine the fourth best Range and best double play rate with the league's worst error rate. Stop committing stupid errors and this defense goes back to being top five. I'm looking at you, infielders except for Russell Branyan.

Honestly though, this entire series is going to be dominated by the three days of the draft and there is a non-zero chance that most of us will have commited varying levels of ritualistic suicide at approximately 3:30pm pacific time anyways. I hope Jason Vargas does not take that personally.

GAMES

Game 1: Jason Vargas* vs. Brad Bergesen
Game 2: Felix Hernandez vs. Jeremy Guthrie
Game 3: Garrett Olson* (?) vs. Koji Uehera

Ryan Rowland-Smith was expected to start Thursday, but that plan was shelved after Rowland was shelled in Tacoma. We threw three lefties at the Orioles last time to great success, especially from Garrett Olson, so I would not mind seeing him step in here in the series finale.

Speaking of lefties, the Orioles can stack them in the line up so oh man, this could be a frustrating Felix outing if he does not flash good command of his fastball and remains too stupid to realize how good his changeup is. Please learn, Felix. Please learn.

Brad Bergesen is a 23-year-old righty probably from Sweden or Denmark that we faced last time around. Hold on, let me check. No, he's from California. What a let down. Anyways, he has not pitched since he faced us and was shallacked to the tune of two runs allowed over seven innings while inducing 17 ground balls. Wait a minute...

Jeremy Guthrie is the sort-of-not-quite-league-average pitcher that populates the back end of rotations on successful teams and $12 million rotation slots on teams run by GMs who would lose a chess match to Deep Blue if Deep Blue was made of legos instead of computer processors. At least, he was until this season when he took 7% of his balls in play and sprinkled suck dust on them, turning them from ground balls to fly balls. Predictably, his tRA rose a bunch and now he looks on paper like any one of our random left-handers if you looked at them in a mirror.

Koji Uehara has come into the Major Leagues and thrown a ridiculous amount of strikes and missed bats as well. Among starting pitchers with at least 50 expected innings to date, Uehara's 68.6% strike rate ranks 5th and his 11.2% swinging strike rate ranks 11th. That's really, really good and a big reason why his strikeout to walk ratio is pushing 4. There is a minor issue on Koji's batted ball profile, which is fly ball heavy, but hey, nobody is perfect. There is a major issue on Koji's endurance however so far. He's topped out at 105 pitches and exceeded 94 just twice all season. Seven innings is the longest he's gone. If the Mariners line up can take some pitches and work his pitch coun... right, nevermind. Come on, rain delay!

THIS SERIES BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

Double Dog Double Pale Ale
Flying Dog Brewery. Frederick, MA

This pale ale pours with a slightly orange body and a head just a few shades off white. The head was thin, but left some minor lacing suggesting the hops involved. If the visual doesn't clue you in, the aroma certainly does with a big hop nose. Taste is bitter, but not powerfully so and it is well balanced. It also turns out to be around 11%, so be advised because it can be hard to tell just from the taste.