Series Preview- M’s vs. Royals 4/26-4/28

The baseball gods reward the Mariners for a difficult weekend in Chicago with a trip to Kansas City.  The Royals are 7-11 on the year and are being carried offensively by Jose Guillen and Scott Podsednik, which can’t last.  The pitching match-ups aren’t great, but this is a series the Mariners should win.

Who’d You Rather Have

C:  M’s Rob Johnson    KC Kendall

1B:  M’s Kotchman    KC Billy Butler.  This one is tough.  Kotchman is having the better season so far and is better with the glove, but Butler hasn’t been terrible, was better last year, and will likely be better going forward.  I usually pick the guy I’d rather have for the series, so I’ll go with Kotchman, but if I had the chance to trade Kotch for Butler, I’d do it real fast.

2B:  M’s Figgins    KC Alberto Callaspo.  It’d be really nice if Figgins would start hitting, though.

3B:  M’s Lopez    KC Alex Gordon.  Lopez finally started hitting a tiny bit.  Gordon is getting on base some but not hitting much.  From my distant vantage point, he’s looking more and more like a huge bust.

SS:  M’s Wilson    KC Yuniesky Betancourt.  Hehe.

LF:  M’s Bradley    KC Podsednik.  Here’s where I’m going to be a homer and go against what I said about the first basemen above.  Podsednik is hitting like crazy, but I’ll still take Bradley.

CF:  M’s Guti    KC Mitch Maier.  This one’s really close though.

RF:  M’s Ichiro    KC David DeJesus

DH:  M’s Griffey    KC Jose Guillen.  Guillen’s bat is exactly what we could use right now: a guy on an incredible hot streak who’s hitting home runs.   Extremely unlikely to last, but I’d be happy with a series like that from anyone on the Mariners.

That’s 8-1 Mariners, but three spots are close due to either two guys playing pretty well (first), one guy hitting incredibly and his counterpart slumping (left), or a huge battle of suckiness (catcher).  Know what doesn’t suck?  The Beach House album I’m listening to.

Pitching Match-ups

Monday:  M’s Felix  vs. KC Kyle Davies.  Unless Halladay gets traded back into the AL, I won’t be picking against Felix all year.  For the only guy close, see below.

Tuesday:  M’s Snell  vs. KC Zach Greinke.  Greinke hasn’t been quite as dominating yet as he was last year, but that doesn’t mean much.  Bad match-up here.  Snell needs to be pretty excellent to avoid the bullpen, from the sounds of it.

Wednesday:  M’s RRS  vs. KC Gil Meche.  Meche has been pretty bad so far, so hopefully he’ll keep that up, but I don’t feel good about RRS at all.

Closer:  M’s Aardsma  vs. KC Joakim Soria

That’s 3-1 Royals.  Two of the starting match-ups look as lopsided as they could get, and anything could happen in the third.  I’m hoping for two out of three, and if we somehow beat Greinke, that’ll be pretty alright. 

In other news, Lee apparently was great in his rehab start in Tacoma yesterday, and will make his M’s debut Friday.  Also, the Phillies signed Ryan Howard for 5 years and $125 million today.  I’m no expert, but that doesn’t seem like it’ll end well. 

Enjoy the series!