obviously 5 games is a small sample, but is anyone else seeing a lot of things we were missing last year? Here are signs of the club moving in a positive direction: - leadership: having griffey and branyan in that lineup is really helping out this squad. not to mention they can still hit the bat. And hey, Griffey can actually still hit against lefties.. - Gutierrez: woooooow, if he keep this up, the mariners can possibly have 2 outfield gold glovers (other being Ichiro). - Pitching, pitching, pitching: 3x better than they were last year. Whenever Washburn shows us that he can still alow loess than a run in a non-simulated game, that's a plus. Bedard is exceeding expectations so that's always good. - Jose Lopez has been awfully erratic with his bat thus far. He's swinging at the inside-low balls and doesn't keep the count in check, he should pick it up as the season progresses. I'd like to see how we stand after a month to get a better indication of how good (or bad) this team is...
The M's have been exciting so far and all of this has been without Ichiro...hopefully they can keep up the good start and they now have one of the best defensive squads and pitching staffs in MLB if they can stay healthy. Only place I would like to see them upgrade is 1B...I wouldn't mind the Big Sexy (Richie Sexson) despite how bad he was.
Maybe we really don't need Ichiro? I agree that this team has exceeded my expectations so far. Keep it up! Go Mariners!
