Today Dave Cameron has an optimistic viewpoint on the Mariners up on Hardball Times, which is an amusing read.
Unfortunately, a non-amusing Reed broke his wrist and may be out 6-8 weeks. I guess that trade for an extra outfielder may work out after all, huh. Sadly George Sherrill, for whom the Thornton trade practically guaranteed a bullpen spot, may also be sidelined with bursitis. Ack.
Jamie Moyer will be the Mariners Opening Day starter, which is really no surprise to anyone. However, astute observers -- that is, those of you who can count to five -- will notice that in the first four months of the season, if Jamie pitches every fifth game, 15 out of his 22 starts in that time period will be at Safeco, for a whopping 68%. The team goes on the road a bit more in the last two months and the overall total tapers off to 20 out of 34 -- but if the rotation "accidentally" shifts a day or two that could rise to 22 out of 33. He may become the inadvertant "home starter" after all.
Speaking of Opening Day, the day before it will be a USSM Feed which sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I'll be there for my country. Will you be there for yours?
The funniest article of the week, to me, was this one about the A's - Diamondbacks game featuring a swarm of bees. There's a good Astros joke in there, I'm sure, but I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader. Theories are that Conor Jackson walloped a home run that knocked a beehive loose behind the left-field wall to start the swarm. Nick Swisher wouldn't go back out to the field, and Eric Byrnes quipped, "I thought Swisher stayed strong. I'd be halfway up the bleachers."
Marc Normandin from Beyond the Boxscore had the SB Nation AL West bloggers get together and do a roundtable of how this season looks for the division's teams. They're all up now, so links:
Texas Rangers roundtable - Lone Star Ball
Seattle Mariners roundtable - Lookout Landing
Oakland A's roundtable - Athletics Nation
Anaheim Angels roundtable - Halos Heaven
It's always interesting to hear different viewpoints on your team, even Rev Halofan's.
The posted starting pitchers for today's Marines-Hawks game are Kubo for the Marines and Saitoh for the Hawks. Ichiba gets the nod for Rakuten while Kanemura starts for the Fighters. Kawagoe will start for Orix while Nishiguchi takes the honor for Seibu (Matsuzaka will start on the 28th). Michael Westbay will be doing his "live" broadcast in English of the Fighters-Eagles game.
And on a final and completely random note, today is/was George Sisler's birthday, so says my desk calendar. Cheers to the man who set the record that made Ichiro's 2004 achievement so amazing.
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