Game 23, Mariners at Blue Jays

marc w · April 29, 2012 at 9:36 am · Filed Under Mariners 

The rubber match of this series in Toronto features a moderately interesting pitching match-up as Jason Vargas squares off against Henderson Alvarez. The hard-throwing righty faced the M’s in his 2nd MLB start last year and much of what I said then still applies. There are some out there who think he could take a step forward and become something approaching an ace – velocity that touched 97mph and a lot of ground balls tends to inspire rosy projections. But he’s still not missing many bats, and despite the flurry of worm-burners, he’s yielded 5 homers in 23 innings so far.
Jason Vargas is an almost perfect inverse of Alvarez – lefty, instead of righty. Fly-baller instead of GB guy. Tops out around 88 and often works slower than that. If only Vargas got more whiffs….
With the day game after an afternoon game after a night game, the M’s are actually starting John Jaso. This doesn’t mean Olivo gets a day off, however. The M’s have their lefty-heavy line-up in, minus Justin Smoak who’s apparently getting a “mental” day off. This means Alex Liddi gets his first start in the clean-up spot, right-handed starting pitcher be damned.

1: Figgins (LF)
2: Ackley (2B)
3: Ichiro (RF)
4: Liddi (!) (1B)
5: Seager (3B)
6: Saunders (CF)
7: Olivo (C)
8: Jaso (DH)
9: Kawasaki (SS)
SP: Jason Vargas

Game time is 10:07am

The other news of the morning is that George Sherrill’s likely done for the year, as he’s slated to have elbow surgery soon. This isn’t a huge surprise, but I feel bad for Sherrill, who’s always been one of my favorites. With Lucas Luetge’s solid start, the M’s aren’t likely to suffer from Sherrill’s absence, but it’s never good to see an injury like this.

Comments

157 Responses to “Game 23, Mariners at Blue Jays”

  1. jephdood on April 29th, 2012 12:54 pm

    Accountability, Wedge. ACCOUNTABILITY. Right? Wait, what? Only for certain guys? Doesn’t apply to your favorites? Hmm.. that’s not what you said before. I’m sorry, but could you quantify “grit”, “guile”, and “bulldog”? Some of us don’t get how that translates into run production or run prevention.

  2. groundzero55 on April 29th, 2012 12:55 pm

    I had a nightmare that The M’s traded away Jaso. I’m not even kidding.

  3. Westside guy on April 29th, 2012 1:03 pm

    Okay, we can put the blame for this one squarely on Jeff Sullivan. From his note about George Sherrill, earlier today…

    “Also, this’ll only cement Charlie Furbush as a lefty reliever. At least he’s a good lefty reliever.”

  4. stevemotivateir on April 29th, 2012 1:05 pm

    This was the ideal time to have Jaso catch. RHP on the mound for a day-game. Glad we still gotta see Jaso’s bat, but Wedge’s decisions are just flat-out nuts.

  5. The Nickster on April 29th, 2012 1:14 pm

    Thanks Westy. It is comforting to know that I’m not the only one sitting on my couch thinking I’m in some kind of Bizarro Seattle.

  6. Westside guy on April 29th, 2012 1:18 pm

    Nickster, you may be onto something! If we start thinking about this as some sort of Bizarro world, it starts to make a certain kind of sense!

    I’m taking off now – Hello!

  7. WTF_Ms on April 29th, 2012 3:29 pm

    I completely missed this game, so I was shocked when I saw that both runs were results of Figgy and Miggy…And Wedgie, did it again.

    Something’s gotta give here in the next few weeks. All the issues that are glaringly obvious, need to be fixed, or at least an effort made.

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