Seattle/Marquette Preview

[aaronweiner]

Michael Strathallan of the Marquette Suns would really, really like to erase his memories of the 2011 Doubleday Series against Long Beach. In his last postseason appearance, Strathallan, who had just won his second straight Steve Nebraska Award, threw two starts totaling three innings and gave up eleven runs, six of them earned.

Well, he’ll get his chance against the 97-win Seattle Storm. Technically, the Suns have developed to the point where Strathallan alone won’t determine whether or not Marquette can win a series, but the Suns are going to need a huge performance by the pitching staff to determine whether they’ll even make it past the best offense in the Frick. Seattle won seven of nine against Marquette in the regular season: let’s see if they can carry that success into the playoffs.

Pitching:

Pitching is Marquette’s bread and butter, and they’re good at every aspect of that part of the game: Marquette was second in runs allowed, fourth in starter ERA and third in bullpen ERA, with, obviously, THE league’s ace in the hole. The rest of the rotation did very well this year also, and all of them can keep the team in games. Marquette’s secret weapon is the combination of Jake Barnett and Sean McVeigh, who own the eighth and ninth innings of games.

Seattle can’t hold with Marquette’s pitching, but they do have the duo of Esteban Benitez and Morgan Ackerman, who are always productive, solid pitchers. Paul Hogan and Greg Downing do a fine job of taking care of the late innings.


Hitting:

This is where Seattle has it all over just about everyone in the MBWBA. The entire team hit .301 as a unit, and there weren’t too many people in the lineup who didn’t hit the magic mark. The offense is led by Trey Williams and Dave May and a 38-year old Roman Empire. Josh Tyler might surprise – he’s better than his numbers this year.

Marquette doesn’t have Seattle’s depth in the lineup, but they do have Eric Melton, who might end up the second best catcher in the history of the MBWBA. Cory Warr had a huge revival year, and while Allen Stephens is fading a little bit at age 32 he can still hit a bit. The Suns had more than their share of homers this year, which is the source of their offense; they’re 11th in OBP and were just 8th in OBP but were 6th in runs because of their proclivity to hit home runs.

Overall:

This is a classic battle of strength against strength: Marquette’s pitching against Seattle’s hitting. We’re taking the upset here: we think that Strathallan, who will get three starts, will avenge his terrible 2011 playoff series.

Projection: Marquette in seven.

[Edward Murphy]

Going with Seattle.

[njherdfan]

Going with Seattle.

I'd love to win my first series!

[recte44]

Gotta root for my division mates, though it's also nice to see the Suns back in a meaningful series.

[njherdfan]

We've had some decent luck against Strathallan this year. My main hope is that my team can put their OBP skills to good use and get him out of the game early.

[trmmilwwi]

Hoping for a good series that goes 6 or 7. I may have a chance to steal a few then. I adjusted some of the settings a bit so we'll see if that helps.

[njherdfan]

Hoping for a good series that goes 6 or 7. I may have a chance to steal a few then. I adjusted some of the settings a bit so we'll see if that helps.

As did I. If you're interested in sharing what they were post-series, I'd be interested in hearing your tweaks. Of course, a lot of this series is going to come down to luck. When Strat pitches, I'm probably only going to have a few hits; I have to hope that some of those hits are strung together and that they go for extra bases.