Series to Watch: Red Sox vs. Mariners

The Boston Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners were considered contenders for the crown in their respected divisions, yet both clubs have stumbled out of the gate to a sub-.500 record over the season's first six weeks. The losing records are supported by the run tallies, as the Red Sox have allowed 29 more runs than they've scored this season while the Mariners run differential stands at minus-16.

There is one standout pitcher among an otherwise mundane pallet of hurlers, but his standing as the AL's top arm while facing one of the league's top offensive units sets the stage for must see MLB.tv this weekend. The soft pitching schedule means the offenses could explode, something that has happened often enough for both ball clubs this season. It's not entirely surprising that Boston leads the American League in runs allowed, but the Mariners have their own non-Felix shortcomings on the pitching side of the ledger.

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Game 1 - Thursday, May 14 at 7:10pm PDT: Joe Kelly vs. Roenis Elias
The series got started yesterday, so Game 1 is now in the past. Neither Kelly nor Elias was piling up the strikeouts (just two apiece), but more importantly they kept runs off the scoreboard with just a single tally allowed and an identical 19 outs. The game was tied at one as the teams started the ninth inning, and the Red Sox took the lead on a Mookie Betts fly out that was set for the sac fly, but there was no play at the plate due to Rickie Weeks having flubbed the exchange. Game 1 went to Boston.

Game 2 - Friday, May 15 at 7:10pm PDT: Clay Buchholz vs. J.A. Happ
Buchholz is one of the most frustrating pitchers in the game. He has top-shelf talent when all the gears are clicking, with the ability to spin gems like his seven-inning blanking of the Phillies in his first start of the year, in which he tallied nine strikeouts and allowed just four baserunners. He is equally capable of coughing up a hairball, such as the nine-run tailspin that he endured in his second start. He has been a rollercoaster of performance: in seven turns this season, Buchholz has posted a game score of at least 70 twice while failing to crack a 50 in any of his other five starts, bottoming out at a game score of five in the disaster versus the Yankees.

Happ has personified the role of back-end starter for years, with the mid-4.00 ERA and the battles with pitch command, but his bat-missing skills and left-handedness bring value (in context). He has retained last season's velocity improvement as well as the gains in mechanical repetition and pitch command, a rare combination that is rooted in mechanics. The southpaw improved his balance, as well as the torque in his delivery last season, while finding a more repeatable speed to the plate, and he has been able to replicate the lessons learned and transfer the results onto his baseball card. Happ's performance thus far has helped to cover for a rotation that is suffering from injury (Hisashi Iwakuma) and spotty performance (Taijuan Walker).

Game 3 - Saturday, May 16 at 6:10pm PDT: Rick Porcello vs. Felix Hernandez
The Red Sox locked down Porcello through 2019, inking the ground-baller to a four-year extension that will pay him in excess of $20 million per year. Formerly an underrated asset, Porcello became overvalued in the blink of an eye. He had a rough start to the season but has turned things around in his last three turns, with a 1.89 ERA across 19 innings and 15 strikeouts against three walks. It's the ground-ball rate that stands out most, though, as the sinkerballer who has generated grounders at a 51 percent or higher clip in every season of his career has sunk to just 44 percent this season, adding some context to the highest homer rate he has allowed since his rookie season.

The King formerly had to settle for the title of Greatest Pitcher in the American League, as Clayton Kershaw had the Greatest Pitcher in Baseball crown, but two things have changed this season: 1) Kershaw has been vulnerable to single-inning blowups and his 4.26 ERA is nearly two-and-a-half times higher than the mark of his last two seasons; and 2) Hernandez has ascended yet another rung on the pitch ladder with his performance this year. Hernandez's 0.842 WHIP leads the majors among starting pitchers that qualify, and he has allowed more than two earned runs just once in seven turns, coming back on April 12 when he allowed three runs in five innings.

Game 4 - Sunday, May 17 at 1:10 pm PDT: Steven Wright vs. James Paxton
Wright has worked just a dozen big-league games in his career, starting only two of them, but the knuckleballer brings the element of confusion with his dancing butterfly pitch. Knuckleball pitchers tend to have a long leash of stamina due to the lowered kinetic toll, and Wright has demonstrated this ability in the past as he has gone as many as 92 pitches in previous spot starts. Expect the strikeouts to be low and the walks to be high, while the influence of his volatile knuckler will dictate Wright's performance against the Mariners.

Paxton has failed to build on a promising 2014 season, but the step backwards is not as drastic as it first appears, considering that his walk and strikeout rates are right in line with previously-established levels. The big differences have come on contact, with an escalated home run rate and corresponding hit frequency that could either be regression at work, the league growing accustomed to his big-arm delivery, or some combination of factors. His minor-league track record suggests that more strikeouts could be coming, but he is walking a thin line when it comes to free passes.

Hanley Ramirez avoided the disabled list after his run-in with the Monsta' in Fenway back on May 4, but since his return Ramirez is just 7-for-24 with one double, and four of those hits came in Thursday's game. He has put prodigious power on display during batting practice, but the quick bat that swatted 10 homers in his first 22 games has been missing for nearly two weeks. The four-hit breakout might have been what Hanley needed to reverse course, and he'll enjoy left-hander J.A. Happ in Friday's game before squaring off with the the King on Saturday.

David Ortiz has been tough to peg over the past few years, as he has defied Father Time en route to at least 30 homers and 100 RBI in both of the past couple of seasons, but the 39-year old is off to a miserable .218/.307/.370 start to this season. He has long struggled against southpaws but he has swung an empty stick against lefties in 2015, going 5-for-39 with no homers and a 330 OPS. Don't expect him to get back on track this weekend, with matchups against left-handers Happ and Paxton sandwiched around the toughest pitcher in baseball.

Mookie Betts has been much more exciting this season than the stats might indicate, stealing the spotlight with aggressive plays at the plate, on the base paths and in the field. The slash line only shows a .234/.302/.411 line overall, with five homers and five steals, but Betts is always worth the price of admission just to see what he'll do next. A career .315 hitter in the minors, expect Betts to up the ante as he adjusts to the pitchers at the highest level.

Despite his fondness for hitting in AT&T Park, Pablo Sandoval was expected to reap some benefit with the move from San Francisco to the short porches of Fenway, but his 2015 stats look a lot like the past several seasons in terms of batting average and slugging percentage. His line of .285/.358/.423 harkens back to the old days with his best on-base rate in several years, though sample size is an obvious issue. By design, switch-hitters often have minimal splits due to their constantly having the platoon advantage, but the Panda has lacked bite against left-handers, with a career slugging percentage that's 117 points lower when facing southpaws.

Nelson Cruz is on fire. His .744 slugging percentage leads the American League by 71 points while his 99 total bases pace the circuit by 19. He could go hitless in his next 32 at-bats and still have a .600 slugging percentage. He is locked in like no other player in the game (yes, that includes Bryce Harper), and Cruz is proving impervious to the powers of regression and ballpark effects after leading all of baseball in homers as an Oriole last season. With 15 jacks in his first 32 games, Cruz is well on his way to a second consecutive 40-homer season. He even has three outfield assists this year, equaling his combined total from the past two seasons.

Robinson Cano has started very slowly this season, with a .268/.311/.370 line, and there is no way to slice-n-dice the data that will give a sunnier outlook. He started slowly last year as well, but his April slash this year included a .665 OPS that was his worst calendar month since April 2008, and this May has brought a continued power shortage. Cano has just one homer on the season among a dozen extra-base hits in 148 plate appearances, with 11 RBI through his first 34 games. Cruz can only carry the entire load of the offense for so long, and at some point Cano is going to have to pitch in some left-handed sock to balance the Seattle attack.

Kyle Seager has started almost as slowly as Cano, barely clearing the .700 OPS barrier with a slash of .246/.299/.405 in 137 plate appearances. Like Cano, the Mariners' third baseman is still crawling out of the muck, but at least Seager has mustered a few long balls along the way, with four homers among his dozen extra-base hits. The 27-year old has heated up in the past week, with five extra-base hits in his past seven games to boost his OPS by more than 50 points. The pressure is on the infield tandem of Cano and Seager to hold up their end of the deal and knock some balls over the wall.

The M's lean heavily to the left when it comes to the top end of their roster, with Seth Smith joining Cano and Seager as left-handed bats that anchor the lineup when an opposing right-hander is on the mound. Unlike his outfield brethren, however, Smith is essentially hidden against lefties in order to maximize his value. To that end, Seattle has used him perfectly this season, with only three of Smith's 101 plate appearances coming against southpaws.