AL West Pitcher's Duel On Tap For Saturday

Rangers vs. Mariners, 7:15 ET

There comes a point in every team's season where they have to make a judgment call on the future of the club for that year. We are at the halfway mark of June and that leaves somewhere around 45 days for the teams to decide if they want to go for the playoffs this season, or call it a year and go for next year's campaign. I don't quite think either of the teams in today's game are going to pack it in. One, the Texas Rangers, really needs to get healthy, and the other, the Seattle Mariners, needs to find a way to create some offense to go with a really strong pitching staff.

The Rangers are a sub-.500 team, but like many in the MLB, they are only a couple of games under, meaning that one good series, or one nice stretch of play can catapult them over .500 and into both the division race and the Wild Card race. This team hasn't hit quite as well as it did last year, but they are still batting .241 for the season which leads me to believe they will eventually turn it around. The bigger concern is that they on;y have 293 runs and 68 homers, both of those numbers are far lower than last season. The pitching for the club has been about in line with what I thought they would be as they have a sub-4 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP. They need to cut down on the walks in order for them to take the next step, but for now they are managing to get out of most jams. Tonight they have their best active starter, Nathan Eovaldi, on the hill. Due to injury, he is making just his 11th start of the year, but he has a solid 2.68 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP. Since coming back from the injured list he has thrown 15.2 innings and allowed five earned runs. I would say that most of the damage done against him this season is the result of the long ball. That isn't exactly the calling card of the Mariners, but they do have some pop. Eovaldi is coming off one of his best starts of the season as he went seven innings against the Giants. He's also been historically good against the Mariners with 11 hits allowed in 58 at-bats. Only four of those hits have gone for extra-bases. 

Nathan Eovaldi has pitched well for the Rangers, but he's not the best pitcher in this game. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

The Mariners are essentially one broken arm from falling to the bottom of their division. Their offense is terrible but the pitching staff has been so good, that it really doesn't matter what the offense does. Don't get me wrong, the Mariners are leading the division right now and are 2-1 against the Rangers in the three games they've played. Respect where respect is due, but I also can't sit here and say the Mariners are a true threat in the game, because the offense has struggled. As a team, they have a .220 batting average, .298 On-Base Percentage, and .366 Slugging. None of those numbers are what you'd expect from a team that is looking to make the playoffs, and not anything you'd expect from a team that is almost 10 games over .500. Again, the reason they are successful is due to great pitching - they have a team ERA of 3.48 and a WHIP of 1.07. They have issued about 420 fewer walks than strikeouts this season. Tonight, George Kirby takes the hill for them. He is sporting a 3.81 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP for the year. He has been very good at home, going 4-1 with a 2.72 ERA and over half of his strikeouts. It hasn't been a perfect year for him as he has had four stinkers of games in 14 outings, but the other 10 games have been rather impressive with only one of those seeing him allow more than two earned runs. He did not face Texas in the first series between the two clubs this season. Asa team, the Rangers are 23-for-101 against Kirby with just four extra-base hits. 

I think this game should be an under. Even when the opponent hits today's starter, we see that both of them are pretty good about limiting it to singles. We know the Mariners are not a good hitting team, and the Rangers offense isn't quite what it was last year. I would lean toward the under for the first five innings, but I think both bullpens are good enough to not allow too much so I'll back the full game under. 

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