Series Preview: Cleveland Guardians at Seattle Mariners
The Guardians get their trip to the northwest out of the way early
Isn’t that a fun old photo of Carlos Baerga tagging out Ken Griffey Jr? Maybe we can get a re-enactment with Andres Gimenez tagging out Julio Rodriguez in the coming days.
The Cleveland Guardians come in at 3-1 with a +18 run differential having taken a series from the lowly Oakland Athletics to take on the 2-2 Seattle Mariners with a -4 run differential following their split of a series against the Red Sox who should be a decent team.
So far, Cleveland has the usual early gaudy hitting statistics from most of their lineup, and, minus a home run robbery of Jose Ramirez, it would be their entire lineup. David Fry, Andres Gimenez and Josh Naylor enter seattle with wRC+’s over 200 and the overall team wRC+ is 142.
Seattle, meanwhile, is still waking up the bats with a team wRC+ of 45, with only Josh Rojas at 205 wRC+, Mitch Haniger at 158 wRC+ and Dylan Moore at 121 wRC+ having a particularly good opening series. However, Mariners’ pitching looks solid as always with a 3.72 FIP, led by two excellent starts from George Kirby and Logan Gilbert. Against worse competition, Cleveland’s team FIP is 3.58 with Shane Bieber dominating and the Cleveland bullpen providing excellent relief so far.
Pitching Matchups:
Monday, April 1st - 9:40PM EST: Triston McKenzie, RHP (projected 3.81 FIP) vs. Emerson Hancock, RHP (projected 4.62 FIP).
Preview: This, on paper, would seem like a good game to get for the Guardians, if they can handle second-year pitcher Hancock’s fastball, slider, change and sinker mix and get a solid opening performance from McKenzie who should be stretched out to around 90 pitches.
Tuesday, April 2nd - 9:40PM EST: Shane Bieber, RHP vs. Luis Castillo, RHP
Preview: The Guardians will need to adjust to the highest velocity they will have seen this year from a starting pitcher in Castillo, a perenniel Cy Young contender, as the Guardians give Bieber an opportunity to showcase his newly sharpened changeup and curveballs as well as a fastball the velocity of which was up about 1 mph from last year on Opening Day.
Wednesday, April 3rd - 4:10PM EST: Logan Allen, LHP vs. George Kirby, RHP.
Preview: Kirby is just darn good, with a great four-seam fastball sitting around 95 mph, an excellent slider, solid changeup and average sinking fastball. He’d seem to have a clear advantage vs. Allen, with Seattle’s lineup having a 106 wRC+ against LHP in 2023. But, that’s why they play the games.
Analysis: This series will be a great chance to test the Guardians’ ability to compete against a team that should be a clear playoff contender in 2024. For whatever it’s worth, no Guardians have particularly good stats in Seattle, with Jose Ramirez at 88 wRC+ and Austin Hedges at 84 wRC+ leading the way for long-time Guardians. Time to change that! I think Jose, Kwan and Josh Naylor need to have a great series for the Guardians to take two of three, and they may need a good performance from Bo Naylor, Will Brennan and/or Estevan Florial against the RHP as well. For better or worse, given Laureano’s extensive experience playing in Seattle and career 108 wRC+ there, I expect a heavy dose of him given Vogt’s approach to him playing in Oakland.