I wish I could say I had no major complaints regarding the first half of the season. The Mariners are firmly entrenched in second place and they’re still knocking on the door of the Angels just three games back (and two games back in the loss column). The Mariners even split a four game series against the best road team in baseball. My complaint has been Felix Hernandez. I know he couldn’t help getting injured, but we had about two months of mediocre (or no) Felix Hernandez and it’s nice to see him getting back to his old form.
The Ichiro injury could hurt as well. Ichiro is a tough guy to replace and you can pretty much bank on him getting on base once or twice every game. He’s playing tonight, but for a guy who relies on his speed, a bruised thigh could cost him a base now and then and I don’t see him stealing a lot of bases until it heals up.
Jose Guillen is starting to heat up. He had two homers in the Detroit series and he has a six game hitting streak. He’s had five multi-hit games in his last ten and he’s scored a run in nine of his last ten games. He’s also seen his batting average come up close to 20 points in the past couple of weeks as well.
And the start on Thursday by Felix Hernandez was an encouraging one. The Tigers have the best offense in baseball and Felix held him to two runs. He gave up his share of hits but he also struck out a batter an inning and that made three solid starts in a row.
The Mariners have the Orioles this week and Horacio Ramirez makes his first start since going on the disabled list in late May. The Orioles send Brian Burres to the mound.