James Paxton, Seattle Mariners (photo by hj_west, via Flicker).
The Seattle Mariners are barely six games into the season and sitting at .500. It’s still very early. For those that are looking for a reason to sink the Mariners, they don’t have to look far. Also, for those who have analyzed the schedule, you knew this week would be a hard one. The White Sox and Twins represent two of the five teams expected to compete for the American League Championship at the end of the season.
Who had April 6th in the James Paxton injury pool? Congratulations. It was already going to be a tough week, and now it’s about to get harder. Big Maple went down last night with a forearm issue on his throwing arm.
According to some sources, this is similar to the injury that he sustained while with the Yankees last year, but it’s not as severe. In 2020, he was attempting to return from a back injury sooner than he should’ve and suffered the arm injury after a relatively ineffective season.
Paxton is coming off of an incredible spring where he struck out 50 percent of the batters he faced and was well on his way to a possible dominant start Tuesday Night. With one out in the second and a runner on via walk, Paxton suffered the injury. He is likely to end up on the IL for the ninth time in eight seasons. For those of you that played our “over/under” game, it would appear that the under was the safe bet.
Nick Margevicius is a likely replacement for Paxton in the rotation; however, he looked terrible at points last night. He gave up the three-run home run to back-up catcher Zack Collins, then he settled down and cruised for a couple of innings. In the fifth inning, he gave up a two-run home run to Luis Robert to put the White Sox ahead for good.
Margevicius will still get the first shot at replacing Paxton, but LJay Newsome will be on stand-by, with the possibility of Logan Gilbert waiting in the wings?
Losing Paxton means the M’s lose one of two upper 90s starting pitchers (Kikuchi) they have. That leaves Seattle with a lot of soft-tossing lefty pitchers. Strategically it doesn’t make sense to bring Margevicius in after Sheffield and before Dunn.
The “win-now” faction will start the chant for Gilbert to join the big club sooner-than-later and rightfully so. It’s a six-man rotation; he’s not going to burn out his innings. They should get Gilbert up and see what he can do over the course of the season. If the Mariners aren’t in it in September, they can shut him down.
Jake Fraley is off to one of the weirdest starts in Major League history. He has been on base 10 times in 19 plate appearances for an over .500 on-base percentage. Only one of those times was a hit. He’s 1 for 10 (.100) with eight walks and a hit-by-pitch.
Unfortunately, on a diving catch in left field, Fraley strained his hamstring. This is going to make the next set of roster moves very interesting. The player replacing Fraley on the roster is Braden Bishop, who was already on the 40-man roster and part of the travel squad (though they are at home right now).
Seattle put him on the taxi squad for the purpose of replacing players that might be impacted by COVID-19. This isn’t COVID, but it is a roster opening. Even though Bishop is the replacement, M’s fans can’t help but wonder when Kelenic gets the call. More on that shortly.
For Mariners fans, waiting for Kelenic has been like waiting for Christmas. They have to be patient just a bit longer. He is nine days away from resetting the service time clock, which gets the Seattle Mariners an extra year of control over his contract.
With Kyle Lewis and Jake Fraley already on the IL, the M’s are running out of outfield options. Kelenic’s time is coming. Hopefully, his debut will come soon enough to make a difference.
While Taylor Trammell has a ton to gain from the Fraley injury, mostly some breathing room, his start to the season is absolutely atrocious. He is 1-for-13 and has struck out nine times. While Trammell has walked four times so far, it’s those nine strikeouts that make him look so bad and outmatched in the early going. He has a great attitude, but even the best attitudes would have to be put in check by being overwhelmed by major league pitching.
The Fraley injury does give him some job security, even when Lewis returns. It does make it more obvious that Kelenic is an easy replacement decision on April 16th. His positive attitude only gets him so far in the meritocracy that is Major League Baseball.
Mitch Haniger and Ty France continue to shine offensively, while the rest of the team is off to a brutal offensive start. Seattle needs a spark and in a hurry. One player who can do that is Trammell. If he can turn it around quickly, it will go a long way to making the team successful.
As of now, getting Kyle Lewis back from injury and calling up Jarred Kelenic might be the only answers at this point as only Haniger and France are batting over .200 (from those that qualify).
Joe Swenson is a lifelong Seattle Sports Fan, president, writer, director, producer of Broken Arts Entertainment, co-host of the sports podcast In The Clutch.