Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 04, 2007
West Coast Roundup

The Mariners and Angels joined five other teams in starting the season 2-0. (Only one of eight series that have gone two games ended in a split so far). Seattle showed it could win with offense last night:

Richie Sexson slugged his second home run in as many nights, and this time the rest of the Mariners offense jumped on board with a four-run explosion in the seventh inning that included a two-run blast by Yuniesky Betancourt and a run-scoring triple by Ichiro Suzuki.

My opinion coming into the season was that Seattle's offense was a big underrated, so we'll see if this shows up. The Oakland staff did some things right, as they did not issue a walk in the game, and starter Joe Blanton struck out seven in six innings. Twice, however, they allowed two-run homers. That's the problem for the staff in the first two games. Despite doing a good job of keeping the opposition off base, the three home runs allowed drove in seven runs.

The combination of Gary Matthews, Jr. and Vlad Guerrero is proving to be a deadly one. Gary reached base four times, scoring twice, and Vlad collected four hits and three RBI in an 8-3 win over the Rangers.

Vladimir Guerrero still wields a big, ugly stick and he is still willing to beat the Rangers silly with it. From the first pitch he saw in the first game of the season right on through Los Angeles' 8-3 win Tuesday, Guerrero hasn't let up on the Rangers one bit.

How bad has it been?

Guerrero, whose RBI total in the first two games has matched the entire Rangers' lineup run production, entered the season with a .431 career average against the Rangers. It's gone up.

It's pretty amazing. In 56 games against the Rangers, Vlad failed to get a hit just twice.

The most positive thing to say about the Rangers offense right now is that they are working pitchers. They forced Escobar out of the game last night after 5 1/3 innings by getting him to throw 103 pitches, and worked Lackey the same way on Monday. Eventually, they'll do that to a team with a poor bullpen and score some runs.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:56 AM | Games | TrackBack (0)
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