Felix Hernandez

This is an open letter to the Seattle Mariners front office with a realistic list of moves that need to be made whether that be trades, call ups, free agent signings etc.

The reason I have included the word realistic is because this will not include dreams like Ronny Cedeno to the Cardinals for Albert Pujols. No, all of the moves will be realistic.

Even as King Felix dominated Sunday's game, the Mariners offense slumbered. It took a crucial mistake from the opposing first baseman to seal a 3-2 Seattle win.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the game tied at two, Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Tony Clark flat-out dropped the throw from third baseman Mark Reynolds on a Franklin Gutierrez groundout.

It wasn't the ideal way to win a game, but I guess it sorta makes up for the one of the Brandon Morrow meltdowns in Texas.

I had no idea that a series win in Anaheim could be this depressing. Nevermind the fact that the Mariners should have completed a three game sweep though, let's look at exactly how they were able to take two out of three from their division rivals, the Angels.

Game One: 5-2 Mariners

After scoring three early runs, the M's took this game pretty easily. Jason Vargas showed once again that he's got the poise to be a Major League starter, and the Mariners offense was able to tally a respectable five runs against the formidable John Lackey.

Today, Felix Hernandez toed the rubber at Safeco Field with some of the best stuff we’ve seen from him since his 17 shutout innings that began the 2007 season. Felix’s stat line may not reflect it completely, giving up seven hits and four runs (though only one was earned).

Hernandez’ two-seamer was running hard to the third-base side, and looked like it had a weight tied to the bottom of it. His change-up, with essentially the same action, had perhaps the best command I’ve seen him have with that pitch, and his breaking ball was adequate.

The Seattle Mariners are currently in third place in the AL west (1.5 GB) and have a 16-16 record.

New general manager Jack Zduriencik said this offseason that the Mariners front office wants to acquire players than can have the team competing now and long term.

Until Monday, the Mariners were rolling.

They were coming off a comeback-riddled series with Oakland, in which they came out on top. Wakamojo was at full force.

Since then, the Seattle Mariners have lost four games in a row, and in a very disheartening manner.

Half of these losses came in the form of a 2 game sweep at the hands of the now division leading Texas Rangers. During the Texas series, we also lost one of our top performing relievers in Sean Kelley. It's looking like he's going to be on the DL for an extended period of time.

It's Thursday, and the weekend is almost upon us. If you're like me, you start looking forward to the weekend on, well, Monday. But before we dig into this full plate of steamy weekend baseball, why not look back and reminisce about the pitchers that flat out got it done last week. These guys are already looking like Cy Young contenders, with stat lines that make baseball fan's eyes go wide upon first view.

AL:

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4/29/09 – The Seattle Mariners finish season series No. 7 in slight disappointment, losing the series 1-2 to the Chicago White Sox. 13-9 is our record heading into the Oakland A’s series after a day off.

Cheer! – Rain outs mean double headers and the White Sox even switch up the rotation to give us a better pitching match up, M’s Chris Jakubauskas vs. the Sox Bartolo Colon and moving John Danks to the night cap to face off vs. M’s Felix Hernandez.

The 2008 Seattle Mariners had the second-worst record in baseball (61-101); it was a campaign of no power and no pitching.

They paid a Carlos Silva $12 million over the season to lose 16 games—almost $1 million per loss.

They gave up five promising prospects for an ace—Erik Bedard—who pitched just 81 innings. GM Bill Bavasi probably thought he was buying job security when he swung the deal, but he was actually ringing up his own ticket out of town.

4/23/09 - Felix Hernandez pitched seven shutout innings against the Tampa Bay Rays. Despite the Mariners netting three errors on defense, having a catcher playing 1st base, and Yuni Betancourt still shading 3rd base instead of playing short stop, the Mariners won the April afternoon game, 1-0.

In the first inning, Hernandez pitched through the order in three outs, striking out BJ Upton looking and Evan Longoria swinging. The bottom of the first was led off by Ichiro hitting a lead-off homer to give the Mariners a one run lead.