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Fizzler:  2nd Place Standing

G-Money sez in the shout box,

Them's the breaks of a .500ish team. You win half and feel good, and you lose half and get grumpy. Gotta get one tomorrow.

Just so.  There isn't any amount of prose text that would change a baseball fan's feeling after dumping the first three games of a series in baseball's most dreary city.  You know what would change the feeling?  Watching a victory or two.  Earl's Fourth Law:   Momentum is as good as that day's starting pitcher.  Iwakuma locks down the Indians, all is forgotten.

There's a city the M's stayed in for a little while, between Seattle and El Paso:  they were a competitive team before they were a great team.

Billy Beane's proverbial first two months aren't up yet, the months in which you gauge what you have.  The M's have a long summer to go here, gentlemen.

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Sizzler:  Brandon Maurer

Previous debates aside, let's just talk about the last game in a vacuum.

It was probably his most bubbly from my vantage point on the overstuffed couch in front of the good old 70" high-def.  In this particular game, he looked like the Best Bet kid again.

• Facing a stacked lefty lineup, that two days later KO'ed one Felix Hernandez
• Threw a dangerous high fastball right by the lefties
• Setting up a FEATURE slider that froze the lefties, or had them out in front
• Quality start, 6 K's ... despite having terrible command (almost 50% balls) and behind in count all day
• Third and Fourth pitches poached strikes and outs

He had them "in between," and that's because the arm action on his slider was screwing them into the ground.  There are sliders like Noesi's, and sliders like AJ Burnett's, and sliders like Cone's ... When Maurer's fastball and slider were working like they did this last time, it creates a Michael Pineda effect.  

The slider is in effect a changeup for Maurer.  He even threw it INSIDE to lefties.

Hey, listen.  The kid has a hot fastball.  He's got great arm action on the slider.  He's got four pitches.  And you can't chase him out of the strike zone.

He didn't shut the Indians out, but he did beat them, fair and square -- and he did it without his A game, did it without command or even control.  The kid is going to be good.  There's a reason that Wedge and Co. keep repeating it calmly:  "The kid has great stuff.  He just needs to learn."  The reason they keep saying that, is because the kid has great stuff, and just needs to learn.

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Sizzler:  Raul Ibanez

If you saw Raul and didn't know his age, you'd think he were 31.  He doesn't seem to cheat with the bat at all.

I don't get it.

It has to be said that Brendan Ryan and Michael Morse are the two other Mariners swinging the bat great right now (with Rauuuul and Smoak).  Ryan actually is seeing the ball and covering it.  Huh.

Think Ryan will ride this hot streak for two more days, and the SS position will implode?  Or you think he'll hit for a month, and get his OPS+ back up to 70-80, and salvage his status in baseball?

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Fizzler - Michael Saunders

Michael Saunders can't hit a batting practice pitch with a paddle, and it's killing the Mariners.  So far in 2013, we go as Michael Saunders goes.  Make of that what you will.

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Sizzler:  Hector Noesi

His changeup and slider are MUCH better -- up from "high school standard" to "AA standard."  He's taken on sort of a Freddy Garcia hitch, and gets more out in front it seems like, and the arm action just has a lot more sharpness and deception to it.

He's always had the easy velocity.  Against the Yanks he had a change that he could throw, well, even high up in the zone and compete with hit.  He threw the slider to break off the plate a couple times.  My considered opinion was that he looked like a AA pitcher.  (With a major league plus fastball, and a-lot-more-than-AA experience and pitch sequencing, of course.)

I'd say he's 50% of the way to where he needs to be, but that's an important 50%.  One day he could be a impactful #3 starter in the bigs.  Not yet, but his career is alive.  He showed progress that he needed to show.

My $0.02,

Dr D

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