Mariners F5 RL (-.5 +105) FG (-129) (Straily / Iwakuma)

Why would I not want the best chucker going tonight in his home park with a rested and refocused offense behind him? At the pace he is going Iwakuma will soon be laying the kind of chalk at home that Felix Hernandez is. He has already beaten the A’s in Oakland one this year with a 6 inning, 1 er, 8K vs 0 BB performance. I said last year that without Mike Trout’s runaway performance Iwakuma would have been a viable ROY candidate. I meant it then and feel no differently about his prospectus now. The A’s are slumping with only 2 wins in their last 8 versus righty (5 innings) and have dropped their oera to 3.65 per nine in that stretch. The Mariners are not much better off with 2 wins and a push and a 3.88 oera over the course of their last 8, but Iwakuma over Straily is the difference.

That is it even though it is Friday night with a full card on tap. There are some interesting series this weekend but I am going to have to see what kind of start some of them get off to. I don’t think it is wise to regulate the number of plays you make based on the size of the card. Opportunities either exist or do not on any given day and I might have three games on a short card or only one on a large card. Just the way I feel about it.