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By Sea or By Air: Mariners Series Preview

TORONTO BLUE JAYS vs. SEATTLE MARINERS

Friday July 22nd – Sunday July 24th

Written by Sean Addis and Joshua Howsam

The Toronto Blue Jays open a nine game home stand with three against the Seattle Mariners. It will mark the return of former Blue Jay Adam Lind, who spent nine years with the Blue Jays prior to being traded to Milwaukee last year for Friday’s starter Marco Estrada. It will also be Michael Saunders’ first game against the only other team he has ever known.

The Mariners and the Blue Jays are two teams going in different directions. Seattle had a record of 30-21 on May 31, and were second in the American League West a half game behind Texas. Since then they are 18-26 and have fallen to third place and sit 6.5 games behind the Rangers. Based on activities this week it seems the Mariners might be sellers at the deadline, trading away their best reliever left-hander, Mike Montgomery, for prospects.

The Blue Jays continue to be one of the hottest teams in the month of July with a record of 11-4 and 26-16 since May 31st. It is expected Toronto will make moves to improve the roster and make a strong push for a long run in the playoffs.

Pitching Matchups:

Friday, July 22 – First Pitch 7:07 PM ET

Marco Estrada vs James Paxton

He’s back. Or is it his back? Either way, Marco Estrada returns from his brief DL stint to take on the Mariners. His last outing showed an extreme dip in velocity and he had to come out after just five innings, so it will require a careful eye to see just how he responds physically. If he is healed (or healed enough that he doesn’t have mechanical issues), Estrada will look to continue his magical season. He leads the majors in opponents batting average and infield popups (two things that are very much related). If he’s on, the Mariners will have trouble.

James Paxton was actually once drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays, but the Scott Boras client failed to come to terms with the team and returned to school (where he was actually banned from playing thanks to comments from Paul Beeston). By watching his work in Seattle, it’s clear why the Jays had interest way back when. The lefty has a big time arm, bringing a fastball that averages 97 mph and will occasionally touch 100.  He backs that up with a cutter at around 92 mph, and will throw his curve and change sparingly. His overall numbers (4.56 ERA in 53.1 innings) leave much to be desired, but they can be rather misleading. He has decreased his walk rate and increased his strikeout rate from last year, and he gets groundballs at a rate greater than 50 percent. He also doesn’t give up many home runs. The only reason he is struggling this year is because he is allowing a .391 batting average on balls in play, which will almost certainly regress. This is a tough matchup.

Saturday, July 23 – First Pitch 1:07 PM ET

R.A. Dickey vs Hisashi Iwakuma

It will be interesting to see how Dickey responds to his latest start where he got clubbed around by the Oakland A’s. The start continued a trend that has seen Dickey give up a whole lot of home runs. Even with a 3.20 ERA since May 1, Dickey has still allowed 20 balls to leave the yard in just 96 innings, or 1.9 per nine innings. That’s bad. The Mariners make it worse. The only team with more home runs this year than Seattle (138) is Baltimore (142). They have a lot of thunder in their lineup, so Dickey will have to do his best to limit the home runs to solo shots.

Hisashi Iwakuma is the type of guy that drives hitters crazy. In fact, think of him as the Seattle Marco Estrada. He doesn’t throw hard, but he has excellent movement and control, andhe mixes his pitches so well (he doesn’t throw any one pitch more than 25 percent of the time) that it’s very tough for hitters to handle him. He works heavily to the bottom of the zone so as to make his splitter more effective, so the Jays are going to have to make him get the ball up or they’re going to have a tough time.

Sunday, July 24 – First Pitch 1:07 PM ET

J.A. Happ vs TBD

We’ve definitely seen a bit more of the Pittsburgh J.A. Happ lately, as he has been racking up the strikeouts, but at the same time elevating his pitch count. As a result, he has failed to get out of the sixth inning in either of his last two starts (though he also took two comebackers off his body last time out). The outings have still been impressive though. Were it not for Jesse Chavez’ complete inability to strand runners when he comes in with two outs, Happ would’ve likely only allowed the one run, which would have been the third straight start where he allowed one or fewer runs. This will be Happ’s first start against he Mariners since being traded to Pittsburgh, so there could be some emotions in play, but look for the stoic Happ to get things done once again.

The Mariners have yet to announce their starter for Sunday’s game. When that happens, this space will be updated.

Additions and Subtractions

Seattle Mariners made a number of moves on Wednesday. They recalled outfielder Norichika Aoki and Mike Zunino from the Tacoma Rainers, and traded lefty set-up man Mike Montgomery and a prospect to the Chicago Cubs for two prospects, one of whom the Jays could see in this series, Dan Vogelbach. They also activated ace Felix Hernandez who pitched on Wednesday, as a result, the Blue Jays will not see him in Toronto.

The Blue Jays expect to have both Michael Saunders and Ezequiel Carrera back in the lineup to open the series. Saunders left the team in Arizona to deal with a personal matter and Carrera has been out since July 16 because of soreness in his left Achilles. Jose Bautista is expected to begin a three day rehab in triple-A Buffalo starting on Friday. He likely won’t be back for this searies, but if everything goes well he should be able to return to the team on Monday. This will make a lineup that has been firing on all cylinders even more dangerous.

There will be at least two other roster moves on Friday. One is the reinstatement of Estrada from the DL, which will require someone going down. The other may or may not affect the big league roster. Franklin Morales’ 30-day rehab stint is up, and he cannot be optioned. As a result, the Blue Jays will either need to add him to the big club or release him.

UPDATE:

The Blue Jays have activated Estrada (as expected) and Morales, and optioned Andy Burns and Aaron Loup.  The full details of the moves can be found here.

KEEP AN EYE ON

Marco Estrada’s Back

Marco Estrada is a key part of the Blue Jays rotation and will be needed to help this team defend it’s American League East division title. He has battled back discomfort for most of the season and will be making his first start since July 2nd against the Cleveland Indians. As the non-waiver trade deadline is in just over a week, this start could have some implications on the direction this team pursues to upgrade the team. The performance will be important, but what will be of greater importance is how Estrada’s body responds after this start.

Big Time Offenses

Toronto and Seattle are both ranked  in the top ten in the American League in many offensive categories. The Blue Jays are second in runs scored (478), third in OPS (.773), and third in home runs (137). The Mariners are sixth in runs (451), fourth in OPS (.767), and second in home runs (138). As with the Blue Jays, Seattle’s middle of the lineup is especially dangerous. Robinson Cano (22 HR, .304/.358/.539), Nelson Cruz (23 HR, .284/.370/.533), and Kyle Seager (18 HR, .283/.361/.521) are all capable of doing serious damage and a good counter to the Blue Jays trio of Donaldson/Encarnacion/Saunders. If the pitching isn’t effective for either team, both these offenses are capable to make this series a slugfest.

Blue Jays Bullpen

The Blue Jays are continuing to look for consistency out of the bullpen. Roberto Osuna has dominated as the closer all season and John Gibbons seems to have found a set-up man in Jason Grilli (he has been on fire in July with an .056 OBA and 0.5 WHIP in six appearances), but the rest of the bullpen has been inconsistent at best. Jesse Chavez has pitched well this season, but for some reason has struggled with inherited runners, allowing 13 of 29 to score. Brett Cecil continues to struggle since returning from the DL, while Aaron Loup and Drew Storen seem to have lost the confidence of John Gibbons and are sporadically used.

There is some hope, however, as Bo Schultz and Joe Biagini have had excellent months of July. Schultz has stranded every inherited runner and has not allowed a run in four appearances spanning seven innings.  Biagini has bounced back this month after struggling in June with a 2.84 ERA over 6.1 innings with 10 strikeouts.  John Gibbons might be inclined to give them more opportunities in high leverage situations in this series against the Mariners.

Probable Lineups

Seattle Mariners

Toronto Blue Jays

Norichika Aoki – LF Ezequiel Carrera -RF
Seth Smith – RF Josh Donaldson -3B
Robinson Cano – 2B Edwin Encarnacion -DH
Nelson Cruz – DH Michael Saunders -LF
Kyle Seager – 3B Russell Martin – C
Adam Lind – 1B Troy Tulowitzki – SS
Leonys Martin – CF Justin Smoak – 1B
Chris Iannetta – C Kevin Pillar – CF
Ketel Marte – SS Devon Travis – 2B

via Roster Resource

Final Thoughts

Toronto has an opportunity to take advantage of a Seattle team that has been mediocre over the last two months. The Blue Jays are one game behind Baltimore, who are playing the American League-leading Cleveland Indians, and Toronto sits only 1.5 games behind first place Boston, who are playing the last place Minnesota Twins. On paper Toronto should win the series, but a sweep would be really nice.

Lead Photo: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

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