Seattle Mariners: The disappearing bat, Guillermo Heredia 2018

For the next several weeks, Emerald City Swagger will review the 2018 Seattle Mariners piece by piece. We start with the position players, then move on to the pitchers. Today is outfielder Guillermo Heredia.

Guillermo Heredia is one of my favorite players on the Seattle Mariners. Among my reasons, he’s the kind of upbeat guy every clubhouse needs. Heredia is the type of player who has a smile on his face and is always there to congratulate a teammate.

In 2018 Heredia didn’t have as good of a season offensively as he did in 2017. His stats looked about the same in both years but he was involved in more rallies in 2017 than 2018. It may be the Mariners offense was better during the prior season.

Heredia began the season platooning in left field with Ichiro because Ben Gamel was on the disabled list. Gamel returned on April 18 from doing a rehab assignment in Tacoma. Four days later Heredia was sent down to Tacoma when the Mariners activated pitcher Erasmo Ramirez to make a start.

Many fans thought Ichiro should have been released at the time since he was hitting around the Mendoza line (.200) without driving in a run. Heredia returned to the roster on May 1 when Ramirez returned to the DL. At the time of his demotion, Heredia was batting .310. The highest point of the season for him.