Mariners Week in Review: June 5-12

Hoo-wee. That was a pretty good week. 6-1, with the Monday win against KC, 2 of 3 from the Twinks, and a sweep of the Angels in Anaheim.

The M’s offense was very good, hitting 295 and slugging 500 for the week to raise their season long numbers to .268 and .414 respectively. They are a decidedly middle of the pack offense at this point. The M's are 9th in runs scored at 315, but closer to first than last. 10th in Ops, 9th in SLG, but 11th OBP. The Angels have passed them in the last month in SBs to put them in third and their percentage has fallen off from early in the year to a middling 70%, right near or slightly below the sabermetrically accepted cut-off points for efficiency.

Ichiro was unbelievable this week, hitting 559/571/794. Two homers to go with 19 hits. Zowie. Ibanez, Yuni and Reed also had good weeks, with OPS'’ north of 1.000. The not-so-much all star for the week is Jurassic Carl, who put up a 174/240/304 . His OPS of 544 is lower than Ichiro'’s batting average for the week. Kenji, Beltre and Sexson all had tough weeks, though for AB and Sexson they weren'’t nearly as awful some of the April bad weeks.

On the pitching side, the hurlers had a 3.60 ERA for the week, 52 K’s with 23 walks. We are 6th in runs allowed at 313. The M'’s lead the AL in Ks, but are 6th in walks and 8th in Hr'’s allowed. Gil Meche had one great start and one mediocre start, Washburn had a nice start and the King is back in a major way, with 16 ip and 14 Ks for the week, 2 wins and a sparkly 1.69 ERA. Moyer was eh and Jo-el was bad. Putz and Soriano are still studs, with 9 Ks in 8 innings between them. Mateo and Woods both had a good week, Sherrill had control issues in his brief stints, and in the 12th man saga, Sean Green and his 11.57 ERA for the week were replaced by Emiliano Fruto'’s 16.20. Wouldn’t it just be awful to have another bat off the bench or a backup outfielder who is an asset defensively? Yuk. Lets keep that spot for the guys with double digit ERAs. Eddie only pitched in two games this week, not sure where we are going with him at this point.

The M's finished the week at 31 and 34 only 3 games out of first place. Winning 9 of 11 has quieted the Hargrove Death Watch, though he is no better a manager than he was two weeks ago. There is still room for optimism on the offensive side as some guys are still playing below expectations (perhaps balanced by Yuni and Lopez playing over them) and the pitching is what it is at this point. Jo-el and Meche are going to give you some bad start and some good ones, Washburn and Jamie more good than bad, and Felix has a chance to be dominant. The pen is an asset, the bench not so much. The M's are still a player in this division to be sure.