Kuzul

Jesus Montero is one of the most valuable players in the Seattle Mariners organization, but he has a ways to go and grow before he's recognized as one of the most valuable players in the entire league.The M's paid a lot to get him, giving up Michael Pineda, the flamethrowing Dominican, and Jose Campos, a younger pitcher with high potential, but they also received right-handed starting pitcher Hector Noesi.At this point, the Mariners appear to be the big winners, with Campos still in the minors, Pineda on the disabled list and Noesi and Montero combining on April 14th for a nice Seattle win (Noesi went eight innings, allowing no runs on five hits, and Montero batted in three of the team's four runs.)While Montero has looked pretty nice at the plate thus far, he hasn't seen a lot of time behind the plate, which is where he can impact his ...

The Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics will kick off the 2012 MLB regular season in Tokyo on Wednesday, March 28th at 6:10 AM EST.The AL West division rivals have spent the last few days in Japan, hosting baseball clinics, visiting tsunami relief sites and playing exhibition matches against Japanese ball clubs.The international tours for the M's and A's will culminate in a two-game series that will mark the beginning of the regular season. The A's are listed as the home team, though there obviously isn't any home-field advantage for either club.While these two teams aren't the best that the MLB has to offer, they do generate quite a lot of buzz in Japan due to the presence of countrymen Hisashi Iwakuma, Munenori Kawasaki, Kurt Suzuki and most of all Ichiro Suzuki, who is idolized in his home country.Both teams are looking to improve a bit from last year with key ...

The Seattle Mariners haven't had the start some fans were hoping for: just four wins through 13 games, but there's no reason for worry.  They've had several inauspicious factors working against them early, and there are a couple of key elements that we'll see come out as the season develops.They have had a few difficult series matchups [(1) the young, talented Oakland A's, (2) the 2010 AL Champion Texas Rangers, and (3) the Cleveland Indians, who were coming off a sweep of the World Series favorite Red Sox] that definitely hindered their ability to break out of last year's slump. Another possible contribution to the Mariners' sub-par opening is a lack of chemistry in the starting lineup. The nine guys who we usually see hitting for the Mariners don't have the necessary trust that we often see in a winning team. Most fans and analysts have labeled 2011 as a rebuilding year ...

The Seattle Mariners need to learn from their mistakes as they prepare for their 2011 home opener.  After being swept by the Texas Rangers, they sit at 2-4 and in third place in the AL West, which is shaping up to be a difficult division. The Rangers have the hottest bats in baseball, so for Seattle's pitching to hold them to an average of 5.7 runs per game was pretty good. Boston pitchers allowed 8.7 runs per game in their three-game series with the Rangers, and the Red Sox are AL East favorites. Erik Bedard looked great for his first start in more than a year. He had good control of his pitches and they were effective for the most part. Rookie Michael Pineda had an impressive start. Giving up just three runs to the stacked Rangers' batting order in six innings is pretty good. His pitches were crisp and we can expect a lot out of him as ...

This afternoon, to our dismay, we saw the Mariners revert back to last year's style of play: low run production, a shaky bullpen and carelessness at the plate. We should probably admit to ourselves that this is the way the season will progress, but it's easier just to make legitimate excuses that could possibly explain the woes of the Mariners. We can attribute today's loss to a couple of things. One, an unfavorable pitching matchup. Two, an improvement in the A's' play. As opposed to the first two pitching matchups, this one heavily favored Oakland. In the opener, we saw the Cy Young-winning Felix Hernandez against the relatively young, but talented Trevor Cahill. Felix's complete game versus Cahill's early exit demonstrated the lopsidedness of that matchup. The second game had the potential to be a lot closer, but Jason Vargas looked great, like he did at the end of last season, and while Brett Anderson ...

Going into opening day for the Athletics and the Mariners, most people were expecting a pitching duel between Felix Hernandez (13-12, 232 K's, 2.72 ERA, Cy Young winner in 2010) and Trevor Cahilll (18-8, 118 K's, 2.97 ERA).  The first three innings didn't exactly live up to these standards. Cahill was up to 65 pitches after three and the Mariners hitting was effectively working the count on him.  He looked a little shaky, throwing several pitches way out of the zone and walking in a run. Felix looked a little more steady, even after letting up a two-run shot to one of Oakland's newest players, Josh Willingham. He retired seven in a row after the minor foible. Before the game, Felix said that if he could work through the first inning without too much trouble, he would be able to lock in to his shut-down mode for several more innings. The biggest factor ...

Every year the Mariners come out with a new set of five or six commercials in which they feature their most exciting players.  This year we got to meet Larry Bernandez and watch Ichiro hit tic-tacs.  The marketing team always comes up with something pretty clever.Here's a look at some of the best:Begin Slideshow

Every year, there is a lot of buildup for the first Yankees/Red Sox matchup.  Whenever the two AL East powerhouses meet, excitement is sure to ensue—whether it's a brawl, an extra-inning thriller or a pitching duel.  These two teams have been dominant forces in the league for as long as anyone can remember—the Yankees, with their 27 World Series' titles, and the Red Sox, constantly lurking in the shadow of their evil empire rival.  The last time that neither team was in the playoffs was in 1993, when only two teams from each league were selected for postseason play.  Since then, after the creation of the divisional series in 1995 (there was no postseason in 1994), New York and Boston have been cruising into the playoffs year after year. Throughout the '90s, the Yankees were mostly the better team, winning three world championships.  But after the turn of the century, we began to ...