Series Preview: Cleveland Indians (52-46) vs. Seattle Mariners (46-52)

Probable Starters

• Ubaldo Jimenez (7-4, 4.56 ERA, 4.35 SIERA)  vs. Aaron Harang (4-8, 5.38 ERA, 3.98 SIERA)

I hate Aaron Harang’s chin hair so much. It just makes me uncomfortable. I’m glad he doesn’t pitch for Cleveland becuase I’d have to see it more AND suffer his bad pitching. The 35-year old is in the midst of the worst year of his career and bizarrely he’s pitching worse at home than on the road. Lefties are killing him, slugging .538 against him so I expect Lonnie Chisenhall to tee off on him, as well as the Great Kipnis. Last time out Harang got hammered by the Red Sox for seven runs in five innings, then probably spent the All Star break getting hammered to forget.

The last month has not been kind to Mr. Jimenez – five starts covering 25.1 innings with 12 earned runs and a 1.89 WHIP. He’s still striking people out but he’s walking them nearly as much. Perhaps Safeco will be kind to him, though his only other appearance there he lasted 5.2 innings and gave up two homers. The man has a certain set of talents, that’s for sure. Oh, and in correlation not equaling causation news, the Indians are 7-2 in the last nine games Ubaldo has started. So there you go.

• Zach McAllister 4-5, 3.43 ERA, 4.59 SIERA) vs. Erasmo Ramirez (0-0, 13.50 ERA, 5.63 SIERA)

This will be Erasmo’s second start of the year, he missed a lot of time with an elbow problem.He got shelled the last time out, seven earned runs in 4.2 innings with a handful of walks. He was pretty good in the minors though – 3.16 ERA in 103 games, 97 of them starts for a total of 586.2 innings. In 2012, his first year in the majors, he logged a 3.36 ERA in 59 innings with a 3.55 FIP and a comforting 3.61 SIERA. Never a ranked prospect, Ramirez is still only 23 and could turn into a viable, solid starter for Seattle. I figure they’re a year or two from contention if Taijuan Walker proves to be legit (he’s got a .86 ERA in AAA right now)  and Ramirez returns to form of a season ago. He hangs in the low 90’s with his fastball and has the usual slider, cutter, two-seamer and change. Occasionally a curveball shows up.

THE RETURN OF THE ZAC-MAC-ATTACK! AKKKK! Pardon me, I’m quite excited to have McALlister back though. By all reports he’s back to full health, his finger sprain healed and he can throw the all-important curveball again. I’m filled with a somewhat irrational and extreme level of confidence if McAllister can come back and perform like he had been pre-injury, and it’s a perfect place to come back. Safeco really helps pitchers and the Mariners aren’t good offensively, so McAllister can ease back in.

• Scott Kazmir 5-4, 4.30 ERA, 3.94 SIERA) vs. (Joe Saunders 9-8, 4.28 ERA, 4.49 SIERA)

Between Saunders and Harang, the Mariners have two of the most depressed looking players in the majors, judging by headshot. It’s not that Saunders is having a bad year, he’s just not that great a pitcher. He’s striking out only 5.09 batters per nine innings though he does have a career high ground ball rate at over 50%. Hopefully this will be a game Mark Reynolds can get going again – righties are slugging .534 against Saunders and he’s got a 12.4 % home run per fly ball rate this year, a couple points above his career average. For all the pitching the Mariners seem to have, the Indians do a good job of avoiding it this time through.

Kazmir was spectacular against the Twins last time out and should have had a no-hitter through five if the official scorer hadn’t been so generous to his team on a booted ball by Chisenhall. What more can I say about Scott- he looks like he did back years ago.He;s still not going to last much more than six innings, but every K, every shutout inning, is found money for this team.

Final Thought

The Indians need to actually play defense with their gloves this series. They lost two games in Minnesota because they didn’t field well, and considering I just wrote a piece last week about Kipnis’ improved defense, I sure look like an idiot. So it’d be nice if they did me a favor. The Tribe avoids the big guns of Hernandez and Iwakuma so it’s a good chance for a series win. Considering the Tigers are going to Chicago for a few days, the Indians can’t really afford to lose ground here.