Prior to last night’s game, the Seattle Mariners had scored 16 runs in their first ten games.  Last night, Jeremy Bonderman gave up 10 runs (and Brad Thomas one run) by the end of the fifth inning.  That’s not very encouraging after a solid first start for Bonderman.  Velocity was once again the problem.  By the second inning, some of his fastballs were clocking in at 86 mph.  He did dial it up against Milton Bradley in the second (92 mph then he punched him out with a called strike slider).  He touched the low 90s after that but rarely did he get above 90 mph.  This is a guy who, in 2006, had the sixth best average fastball for starters in the AL  (thank you Bill James Handbook) with 93.3 mph and in 2005, he was second in the AL with 03.2 mph.  Now he’s lucky to touch that in a game, much less average it for a start (or a season).  I’m going to write more about this and my thoughts on why Jeremy Bonderman is where he is (I’ll give you a hint, it has to do with 2003).

Miguel Cabrera doubled and drove in two to lead the Tigers at the plate.  The Tigers struck out ten times and nine of those were at the hands of Felix Hernandez.  The Tigers also made three errors and that brings their season total up to eleven and that’s the most in the American League. Scott Sizemore is already up to three errors and he’s struggled at the plate.  Just something to keep an eye on because that’s not helping out the pitching any.

Justin Verlander goes for his first win tonight against Ryan Rowland-Smith.  Also look for some more original content this week.  Tax season is over with and I have the writing bug and I’ve had a couple of column ideas.

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