Minor League Wrap (7/26-8/1/10)
After Sunday’s game, the Mariners are on pace to score 526 runs this season. Incidentally, this is three fewer runs than the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who lost 134 games and were famously dismantled prior to the season in an effort to provide players for the St. Louis Perfectos, a conflict of interest stemming from the owners being responsible for two teams at once. The Spiders played eight fewer games than the Mariners will and the designated hitter rule wouldn’t appear for another seven decades. The good news is that the M’s aren’t going to be contracted from the league.
Well, let’s get to it, shall we? If you didn’t get down to Tacoma last time Pineda was up, DO IT TONIGHT and print your tickets BEFORE you go.
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Minor League Wrap (7/19-25/10)
This one is on time! I don’t really know about the ones in the coming weeks… Well, let’s get to it, shall we?
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Minor League Wrap (7/12-18/10)
Pineda started on Sunday, which means that his next turn up in the rotation would be the beginning of the homestand, Friday night at 7 pm. Can you think of anything you’d rather be doing other than watching him and Ackley? I can’t.
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Minor League Wrap (7/5-11/10)
I’m still waiting to hear anything at all w/r/t international signings. It’s been a big deal this year with a few top prospects going down with identity or steroid issues. Whoops. At least Walker and Wiswall debuted this week.
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Minor League Wrap (6/28-7/4/10)
I’m flying back to NYC on Monday, so I won’t be in to answer various questions until Tuesday probably. Also, I’ll be writing up what international signings I know of next week. Nothing has yet gone official for the M’s.
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Pineda/Rainiers Game Thread, 6/28/10
Since Tacoma is having issues with their radio stream, you can tune into the Sacramento River Cats feed, where Curto is co-broadcasting with Sacramento’s usual guy.
What you’ve missed:
Rainiers taking a lead a two-run shot by Tui.
The first inning: Pineda striking out leadoff man on six pitches, then fly out, and then another strikeout on seven pitches.
Lineup:
SS Woodward
LF Tuiasosopo
1B Nelson
RF Winfree
DH Carp
C Moore
2B Hannahan
CF Halman
3B Mangini
P Pineda!
Minor League Wrap (6/21-27/10)
The awkward cousin to the draft, the July 2nd opening of the international signing period, will come this week. I don’t know how much I’m going to have to say about that immediately, but I’ll cover what I have next time around. Let’s just say that the Mariners are planning on spending a lot of money on interesting players, as usual, and probably won’t break any records with their bonuses while they’re at it. In the meantime, the wrap is now more than 50% longer, because really, it was way too short in its earlier incarnation.
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Monday’s Report from Everett
Did anyone expect the Aquasox to start the season 7-0, breaking a few franchise records along the way? Because I sure didn’t. There were some vets on the roster, true enough, but I wasn’t thinking they had quite the talent required to take it to this level. Here are some notes I have typed up from my trip to Everett Memorial for Opening Day. Remember, you can still catch them tonight at seven with the Mariners out of town, if you are so inclined. It will be the last game of the homestand before the team heads over to Spokane.
Minor League Wrap (6/14-20/10)
Everett did indeed start play on Friday, but you won’t see them below here because three games is just not enough to work with, so I’ll do a week and a half of Aquasox next week and most of a week of Pulaski, which starts on Tuesday. I’ll have a roster preview for them when I get it. Peoria starts today, but if you weren’t around last season, I just update some interesting statlines for the week rather than looking at individual games because the climate is too much of a mess to make any meaningful conclusions about what’s happening.
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Pineda to Tacoma
I could have held off until tomorrow, but it might as well be mentioned now that RHP Michael Pineda is in Tacoma according to Mike Curto and will be taking the mound in the Salt Lake City series.
From a practical standpoint, it makes sense because the Rainiers are going to be playing six games in a four-day span thanks to some earlier weather cancellations. We can also justify it from the Mariners’ perspective because the first half is over for the D-Jaxx and Pineda will probably be part of the team’s near-term future, so they might as well keep a close eye on him and give the local fans a taste of what’s to come. If it all goes well for him and he doesn’t run into any trouble or pass any alarming innings milestones, there’s a chance he makes a few appearances with the Mariners in September, since he needs to be added to the 40-man in the offseason.
From a fan standpoint, you should all go see him. Pineda is the best starting prospect we have in the system by a pretty good margin. He throws a low-to-mid 90s fastball, has a good grasp of what do with his change-up (though he doesn’t use it enough), and even without a tremendous slider, he was still leading the D-Jaxx with 78 Ks in 77.0 innings. His command is so good that he’s only walked four in 26.2 innings this month. When he’s healthy, he’s really, really good.
Since he started on Friday, the usual five-day rest schedule would put him on pace to take the mound again on Wednesday, barring any decisions on the Rainiers’ part to throw him in for one of the doubleheaders to lower expectations in his first outing. I’ll keep you posted if that changes any.