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They’re dropping f-bombs in Seattle.

Seriously. Emboldened by the additions of Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva to the pitching staff, an 88 win 2007, and the fun that comes with saying “Yuniesky Betancourt” over and over, the Mariners Nation entered Spring Training full of optimism, but with the sober understanding that in the AL West, the M’s were still playing rhythm to the Angels’ lead guitar. 

Maybe not anymore.  LAA, already without Kelvim Escobar for the first month of the season, will now have to go without ace John Lackey through mid-May, perhaps longer. (I always worry that for pitchers, the triceps injury is the baseball equivalent of a gateway drug.  Sure, Lackey’s only doing pot now, but soon he’ll be toothless and cooking meth in a trailer outside Orange County.)  That means instead of 20 (give or take) starts from two guys expected to lead the rotation, the Angels will get 20 from dudes not expected to make it.  That’s not a good trade.  No wonder Larry Stone of the Seattle Times believes the Mariners should have a little more bounce in their collective step after the Lackey injury:

It marks a sea change in the popular wisdom that the Angels are the AL West chalk, a seismic shift in the tectonic plates of the division.

It’s the opening the Mariners have been waiting for, before a single game has been played. And the early demise of the Angels’ dual aces has left the Erik Bedard trade looking much better than it did a week ago.

Love it or hate it — and the long-term wisdom of this deal could be debated nonstop for a month — the presence of Bedard atop the Seattle rotation has left the Mariners’ well-positioned to seize control of the division.

Swapping emails with Jeff Sullivan, who hosts the Lookout Landing blog up in Seattle, he’s not quite willing to go Stone and use the f word, but comes close:

(It) certainly changes the outlook. I don’t care who you are or what kind of depth you have - when you lose your top two starters for any period of time, you’re worse off for it, and in a division that was probably already going to be tight, this is significant. I’d even go so far as to say that it might just make the M’s and Angels neck-and-neck. I’m not going to call Seattle the favorites, but they’re closer now than they were a few weeks ago. I don’t think that point can be argued.

It’s a role reversal of sorts. All offseason, the Mariners were desperately trying to catch up to the Angels. Now it’s the Angels who desperately need Lackey and Escobar to come back in May if they want to keep up with the Mariners. If either of those two takes his sweet time getting better, then that’ll put LA in a pretty big hole that the current rotation replacement candidates can’t fill.

Neck and neck or Angels slightly ahead (my vote), Sullivan’s point that the race is now a lot tighter indeed can’t be argued.  And it puts the Angels, Mike Scioscia, and GM Tony Reagins in a tight spot.  On the one hand, mid-May targets for both mean it’s too early to make a big trade to try and fill the holes.  On the other, mid-May can become mid-June really fast when dealing with arm injuries.  Escobar played catch on Sunday, but nobody’s making any predictions on when he might be able to even throw at full speed from the mound.  As for Lackey, that projection is already being classified as a best case scenario.  Given that he’s now struggled with trouble above and below the elbow, I’ll forgive anyone who isn’t willing to don the rose colored glasses.   How long can they wait to pull the trigger?  If it becomes necessary, does that mean the Angels are already in a hole?

From a depth chart standpoint, the Angels now will roll with Jered Weaver, Jon Garland (that deal, decent before, looks a lot better now), Tony Saunders, blood pressure wrecking Ervin Santana, and likely Dustin Moseley.  Nick Adenhart is waiting in the wings, as well.  Not awful (certainly the Rangers would take it), but while that bunch may not lose you a bunch of games, they won’t win nearly as many, either.  The Mariners counter with Erik Bedard and Felix Hernandez, at the top of their rotation.  The former, already one of baseball’s best lefties, should get a benefit from pitching at Safeco with a decent team behind him, the latter from experience and improvement.  While King Felixhasn’t just destroyed people like the hype machine thought he might, the righty did finish last season with a sub-4.00 ERA and is barely 22.  Behind them are the reliable Carlos Silva, Jarrod Washburn, and (probably) Miguel Batista.  None of the three are world beaters, all generally give the team a chance to win.

A baseball season is a series of small and large events that pile up as it goes along, some positive, some negative.  No team gets through a season totally unscathed, and the good ones generally get a surprise or two along the way to help boost performance.  At some point, though, too many hits can scuttle even the most well constructed teams, and the Halos are already starting behind the eight ball.  It’s hardly time to pack up the tent and go home.  Things may well turn out okay on the mound, and even if Lackey and/or Escobar miss time deeper into the summer, the Angels have the prospect base to go get another arm, and still have a better offense than the Mariners (if the Mariners don’t improve on their -19 run differential from last year, even with Bedard and Silva, it’ll be hard for them to win more than last season’s 88 games).  

But that margin for error I wrote about over the winter?  Shrinking fast.

Brian Kamenetzky hosts the Lakers Blog and Blue Notes: A Dodgers Blog for the LA Times.com. He’s a contributing writer to ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, and can be heard regularly on the Steve Mason Show, on 710 ESPN radio in LA. Write him at bk@sportshubla.com.
 

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