Mariners vs. Dodgers Provides an Early-Season Potential World Series Preview

With the advent of balanced leagues comes year-round interleague play. And with year-round interleague play, we get the possibility of early-season series with World Series potential.

This season, we get that at the start of the second week when the Seattle Mariners visit the Los Angeles Dodgers for three games starting Monday.

The Mariners finally have some offense to go with their top-tier pitching, making them a popular pick to win the American League pennant. In the Dodgers, you get a payroll juggernaut that has the talent to live up to the hype, making them one of the safer choices in the National League.

While this is a meeting of two of the game's power clubs, the unfortunate part is it tiptoes around two of the sport's best pitchers, which is not so unfortunate for hitters. Because Clayton Kershaw and Felix Hernandez pitched Saturday and Sunday, respectively, they will both miss the series.

Even without Kershaw or King Felix, this series is one of the better ones of the week despite both teams getting off to shaky starts.

Both enter the series 3-3, but pitching will undoubtedly carry both through the summer and possibly the fall. While the aces will be ducked, there is still some meaningful pitching to pay attention to as Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson continue trying to prove they can be contributing pieces to the Dodgers rotation.

Meanwhile, Seattle's James Paxton and Taijuan Walker get starts in the series, and for the first time this season, each will face an intimidating offense. Paxton's first start came against the Los Angeles Angels, and while Mike Trout and Albert Pujols can strike fear into a pitcher, the rest of the lineup does not. As for Walker, his first start came against an Oakland lineup that is not the first exhibit for powerhouse offenses, even though the A's managed to hang nine runs on Walker.

The rocky starts for both teams are just that, though—starts. This is a long season, and both pitching staffs are still two of the best in their leagues and house two of the game's true aces. The rotations, in particular, are the reasons why these teams figure to be postseason favorites. Entire starting staffs rarely go into slumps.

For the Dodgers, they still have a potent offense despite losing Matt Kemp and Hanley Ramirez from a group that posted the second-highest OPS and the second-most runs in the league last season. They have shown as much this year with an .857 OPS through six games, again good for second-best in the league and helped greatly by early-season MVP candidate Adrian Gonzalez and his 2.058 OPS.

Alex Gallardo/Associated Press

This is also being done so far without Yasiel Puig playing up to his full capacity and having already been benched for ineffectiveness over the weekend. Puig returned to the lineup Sunday against Arizona, and while he went just 1-for-5, his average actually went up, and he ran into his first home run with that one hit.

This season, though, the Dodgers have a new weapon at their disposal: defense. By losing Kemp, Ramirez and Dee Gordon and replacing them with Joc Pederson, Jimmy Rollins and Howie Kendrick, as well as catcher Yasmani Grandal taking the bulk of the innings from A.J. Ellis this year, the overall team defense is greatly improved.

Their problem is potential for injury. McCarthy and Anderson have had well-documented troubles staying healthy during their careers, and any hit to the infield, especially Gonzalez, could put a painful cramp in the lineup.

The Dodgers are already dealing with their share of early-season ailments, as closer Kenley Jansen and left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu are both on the disabled list. Jansen's injury has put a kink in the bullpen hierarchy, and Ryu is the reason for the "TBD" in their pitching probables for the series against Seattle.

Any other injuries in the rotation, particularly to Kershaw or Zack Greinke, would be a major blow to the Dodgers capturing the league's best record or even winning the NL West, as the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants are ready to pounce on any weakness.

While the Mariners added Nelson Cruz over the offseason, the offense has still had some trouble scoring. It managed just 12 runs in its first five games and was shut out twice.

That was before it came through in a big way Sunday, scoring eight times. None of the runs were bigger than the solo homer that came in the 10th inning off the bat of Cruz, who is expected to be the Mariners' main power source a season after he hit 40 homers for the Baltimore Orioles.

The offense, which now features Cruz, Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager and Mike Zunino, is capable of supporting the Mariners pitching staff.

That includes picking up Hernandez when he might have a rare blemish of a start, as he did Sunday when he allowed three runs in five innings to the A's. For too many years, it was Hernandez commonly getting hosed because his team could not manage more than a run or two for him.

The problem the Mariners face is playing in a stacked division with the Angels and A's, teams that figure to play a prominent role in the AL West.

Beyond that, they still play in Safeco Field. And while the lineup might have added some power to Cano and its blossoming young bats, there still has to be concern about if it will be able to score until it proves otherwise.

But there are still more than five months to sort out all of those things. For this week, just take in what could be an October preview between West Coast favorites.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.