2018 Seattle Mariners regular season thread

[Hawk-Lock]

Diaz is fine. The guy is one of the best closers in the game and we are asking more from him. Obviously if he had a third pitch that would be great, but a lot of closers only have two pitches. When you throw heat like he does, you don't need a third pitch.

 

[Shanegotyou11]

Go Ms.

 

[sutz]

Good start for Felix. Fly ball, ground out and a K. 10 pitches. Most of it with breaking pitches and his change.

About time he admitted he has to change his style. :2thumbs:

 

[Sports Hernia]

This meltdown tonight is why Diaz needs a viable 3rd pitch. Hitters are “sitting”’on pitches. If Diaz isn’t laser sharp with location he is hittible. The leadoff walk didn’t help things either.

Uhm, Diaz was turned into a RP because he couldn't develop a viable third pitch.

Hmm, I thought it was because he can touch 100 on occasion and had a good slider?

Also he was supposed to be working on a third pitch last year.

It’s not that hard to come up with a new third pitch, I know a current highschool pitcher that didn’t like his circle change, and successfully started throwing a palm ball, to go with his average fastball and great curveball. If there is a will there is a way. :2thumbs:

Then you would be wrong. Diaz began as a starter and was turned into a reliever because of his inability to add to his arsenal of pitches. Besides, adding a pitch in HS is a lot different then adding one in MLB, don't you think? The quality of hitter may be a bit higher.

You completely missed my point if you thought I was comparing a highschool pitcher to a mlb pitcher.
I was showing that if a HS pitcher can learn a new pitch in an offseason certainly a MLB pitcher can. Then re-read my last line.
We will have to agree to disagree on the first point.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Good start for Felix. Fly ball, ground out and a K. 10 pitches. Most of it with breaking pitches and his change.

About time he admitted he has to change his style. :2thumbs:

He threw ZERO fastballs in that first inning according to ESPN. He threw change ups, curveballs, and sinkers.
His fastball is by far his worst pitch. He shouldn’t total abandon it, but he needs to throw it less than he normally does as hitters are “sitting on it”

 

[sutz]

Good start for Felix. Fly ball, ground out and a K. 10 pitches. Most of it with breaking pitches and his change.

About time he admitted he has to change his style. :2thumbs:

He threw ZERO fastballs in that first inning according to ESPN. He threw change ups, curveballs, and sinkers.
His fastball is by far his worst pitch. He shouldn’t total abandon it, but he needs to throw it less than he normally does as hitters are “sitting on it”

Yeah. He needs to pitch more like Moyer and less like the Felix of old. Got in a little trouble in the 2d, but got out of it with no runs scored.

 

[sutz]

And our hitters are sleepwalking. I thought we rescinded the "no hitting when Felix pitches" rule.

I mean 6 K's to start the game? Oh boy. :34853_doh:

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Yeah nice start by Felix. Got himself out of a little jam there in the 2nd. Now if only we could make contact on offense.

My dad is a baseball writer and met with Ryan Divish, who covers the M's with the Seattle Times and he said that the book on Felix is to not swing at anything belt high or lower because most stuff that starts out belt high will likely drop out of the strike zone. Sit on middle and high pitches. Divish also said it isn't the speed of his fastball he is struggling with but he can't command it. He also said the M's are stuck with Felix, so don't expect to see him to get bounced out the rotation. Also said Felix doesn't have the crazy offseason workout patterns that a lot of these MLB pitchers have.

Some other tidbits he shared with my dad:

M'a really want Zunino to hit .230.

Span was basically a throw in. The trade was originally just for Colome but Tampa insisted on us taking Span.

M's are playing over their head. Likely will come down to earth. Law of averages say that we will start to lose some of these one run games. There is a math formula that tells you how many wins you should have, and that formula says M's should actually only be like three games over .500. If you look at our run differential as opposed to the Astros there is a huge discrepancy. He said even though we are in contention for first, we will likely be playing either Boston or the Yanks on the road in the playoffs. He also said Angels have a ton of problems, particularly their weak bullpen and injuries to starting pitchers. Head to head with the Angels will be key this season.

Cruz is the nicest and most personable guy on the team that he has met.

 

[Sports Hernia]

Good start for Felix. Fly ball, ground out and a K. 10 pitches. Most of it with breaking pitches and his change.

About time he admitted he has to change his style. :2thumbs:

He threw ZERO fastballs in that first inning according to ESPN. He threw change ups, curveballs, and sinkers.
His fastball is by far his worst pitch. He shouldn’t total abandon it, but he needs to throw it less than he normally does as hitters are “sitting on it”

Yeah. He needs to pitch more like Moyer and less like the Felix of old. Got in a little trouble in the 2d, but got out of it with no runs scored.

Looks like ESPN was a bit wrong on some of the pitches which means Felix’s fastball is topping out at 88, yikes!
Still like the way he is pitching today. :2thumbs:

The kid from Shorewood is pitching well against us so far, 6K’s in 6 batters.

Need to be aggressive from the first pitch in the AB as a hitter when a guy is dealing.

 

[Sports Hernia]

One good thing is Snell’s strikeouts is his pitch count is getting high quickly, need Felix to keep putting up zeros and maybe they can out last Snell.

 

[TransGenderHawkFan]

Rally in the 8th

 

[Thepeelsessions]

Great win today! Felix with a super solid outing, clutch hitting in the 8th, Diaz with with save. All great to see. This team is becoming a well oiled machine. Not only are they 1st in the AL West, but they have the 3rd best record in the league. I never expected this going into the season. They need to keep it going with this tough June schedule coming up.

 

[Crizilla]

M's are 26-12 since being blown out by the White Sox on April 23rd

 

[sutz]

Who else was scared spitless when Felix trotted out there for the 8th? :laugh:

To Hawk-Lock:

1 Z..no kidding. You'd think a catcher would have a better eye. He tends to try too hard.

2. Agreed we need to score more runs. This probably won't work in Houston or the East Coast.

3. I was wondering how good the Angels really were. Apparently not good enough to overcome their injuries. We know the feeling after last season.

Felix needs to continue to ignore the "K" chants and pitch to contact. We have a great D, if he's getting those grounders and lazy fly balls we can hold most any team at bay. He made very few mistakes today. There are quite a few pitchers around the league with sub-90 fastballs. They can still be productive if they can hit the edges of the zone and vary speeds.

 

[Sports Hernia]

GREAT outing by Felix. He needs to continue pitching that way. Less fastballs the better.

Snuck a couple of runs across late, going to have to score more against the upcoming tougher schedule.

All in all it’s good currently.

Hats off to Snell, a dominating performance for the local kid.

 

[Maulbert]

This is the latest the Mariners have been in first place in 15 years.

I'm going to stay negative. Anytime they've given me hope in the last decade, they've imploded.

 

[Sports Hernia]

This is the latest the Mariners have been in first place in 15 years.

I'm going to stay negative. Anytime they've given me hope in the last decade, they've imploded.

You know your role, that is good! :2thumbs:

 

[Shanegotyou11]

Refuse to lose part 2.

Im enjoying the ride.

 

[sutz]

Last season, we weren't out of the playoff hunt until late in the season. We're obviously better this year.

June is gonna tell us a lot, and the next two games could be a bit of a statement.

 

[Bobblehead]

Not to worried about the Astros, I think they are overall a better team and in the end will be the division winner.

It's just a matter as to whether or not we can make it a competitive series that will tell us how good we are.