In a game that ironically became the last for manager John McLaren, R.A. Dickey, who McLaren has backed, got roughed up in his second straight start.  R.A. gave up 5 runs, on six hits, 4 walks, and a HR.  It was ultimately decisions like the one to pitch Dickey that ironically summed up his managing style for the Mariners, which too often was sticking with players for too long.  This, along with  lacking the foresight to make key personnel changes,  in the end sealed the fate of the McLaren, Bavasi era.

Mike Jacobs (2 for 5, 3 RBI’s), and Dan Uggla belted big flys for the Marlins.  Hanley Ramirez went 2 for 3 with 3 runs on 3 walks.  21 year old rookie Ryan Tucker (2-1) picked up the win going 6 innings striking out 4, and allowing only 2 runs.

A positive for the Mariners was that they out hit the Fish 13-11.  The negative, as has been for most of the season was the 25 runners left on base, many in key spots.  Recent call up Jeff Clement started at catcher, and picked up where he left off on his last call up striking out twice, but did draw two walks.  Adrian Beltre was 2-5 scoring twice while he picked up his 11th double of the season.  Jose Vidro went 3 for 5 at the dish, and Jeremy Reed continued to swing a nice bat going 2 for 3.

McLaren was fired before the team left for Atlanta.  He will be replaced by Jim Riggleman who was currently on the staff as the teams bench coach.  Lee Elia, who recently took over as hitting coach is now the bench coach.  The remainder of the staff stays in place for the time being.  McLaren’s final record as Mariners skipper was 66-88.  Its going to be very interesting to see what Riggleman does with the lineup after McLaren was so indecisive about putting it together day in and day out.

The M’s head to Atlanta for a game on Friday against the Braves.  That game will start a nine game interleague road trip.  Lets see if getting away on this road trip from the mess that has begun to unravel in Seattle among the Mariners brass can be good for the team going forward.

Mariners Blog

The Florida Marlins came into tonights contest looking to hand the Mariners their ninth straight home loss and fifth straight loss overall.  Tonight King Felix had other ideas. 

Going into tonights game, Felix Hernandez had been getting the 3rd least run support in the American League. But tonight the Mariners bats came to life early as they put up two runs in the bottom of the first.  Ichiro Suzuki led the game off with a single, then with Ichiro stealing second with the pitch,  Jose Lopez ripped a double to score Ichiro to make it 1-0.  After a Jose Vidro strikeout, Adrian Beltre belted a single to move Lopez to third, then Lopez scored on a RBI single by Raul Ibanez to make it 2-0.

In the Top of the 2nd inning Dan Uggla got Florida on the board with a solo shot to left field to cut the lead to 2-1.  It was shortly after that when Felix Hernandez took  over.

Starting with one out in the 3rd, Heranadez fanned 6 straight batters, falling one strikeout short of tying Mark Langston’s club mark of 7 straight.

The Mariners hit lefty Scott Olsen hard all night and got to him again in the 4th.  Ichiro scored Kenji Johjima on a sacrifice fly, and Lopez hit his second double of the game to score Willie Bloomquist to make it 4-1.  Seattle made it 5-1 in the 5th as Ibanez scored on a throwing error by relief pitcher Logan Kensing.

Florida finally got to Herandez in the 6th as Jeremy Hermida singled home a run, and Jorge Cantu hit a sacrifice fly to score Alfredo Amezaga to make it 5-3.  In the 7th, Matt Treanor scored Luis Gonzalez to make it a 5-4 ballgame.

Felix Hernandez started the 8th inning and got Hanley Ramirez to ground out and then walked Hermida before getting pulled.  Righty Sean Green took over to face Jorge Cantu and got a big strikeout to get the second out.  Green was replaced immediately by Arthur Rhodes who struck out pinch hitter Cody Ross to finish the 8th.

Brandon Morrow came on in the 9th throwing some straight up gas, striking out Uggla with a 99 mph fastball, getting Gonzalez to ground out to Lopez for the second out, and finally mowing down Wes Helms to get his second career save in as many chances.  Morrow has looked fantastic of late and fans must wonder if his dominating performances of late, along with drafting of strong armed closer Joshua Fields,  spell the end for J.J. Putz.

Hernandez picked up the win to improve his record to 6-5 recording 9 strikeouts.  Olsen got the loss to go 4-4.  The M’s look to close out the series tomorrow night at 7:10pm (PDT) against the Marlins before heading off to Atlanta to face the Braves on Friday. They are going with Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey (1-2) against righty Ryan Tucker (1-1).

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Heavy hitting prospect Jeff Clement will be in uniform tonight to try to add some pop to the anemic Seattle offense.  Wladimir Balentien in turn was optioned to triple A Tacoma.  It is presumed that this move in Balentien’s case is to get him some work in Center Field in the minors and get him back playing everyday again.

Manager John McLaren said that the team plans to work Clement in at Catcher and not have him ride the bench.  McLaren mentioned the team needs an offensive spark, and he hopes Clement will help give him that.

The Mariners outfield situation just got more confusing yesterday with the move of Ichiro Suzuki to right field.  Now it appears we have turned the clock back to 2005 with Jeremy Reed seeing most of the time in Center Field, unless another move is made.

Major moves could be on the horizon, stay tuned.

 (photo: John Froschauer/AP)

After a long day for the organization with a result they have become uncomfortably used to,  Seattle dropped their 4th straight contest overall, and 8th straight game at home to the Florida Marlins 6-1 to fall to 24-46 on the season. 

Carlos Silva got off to another slow start in the first,  giving up 3 consecutive hits along with a walk, with one out in the inning. Silva escaped giving up runs by Jeremy Hermida, who singled in the inning, and scored on a single by Mike Jacobs, and Jorge Cantu on a sacrifice fly by Luis Gonzalez.  Gonzalez finished the game with 2 RBI’s.  Silva was later ejected by umpire Bill Welke in the 5th for arguing a contreversial play that would have been an inning ending double play.  Silva saw his record fall to 3-8.

As has been the story of the Mariners offense this season, they left 18 runners on base.  In the 4th after a Richie Sexson single to load the bases with no outs in the inning, the M’s only mustered 1 run on a sacrifice fly by Kenji Johjima to score Adrian Beltre to cut the lead to 2-1. The offense was shut out the rest of the way.

The 23 year old lefty Andrew Miller (5-5), who was a key piece of the Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera trade with Detroit, pitched a solid game for the Marlins going 7 strong, allowing only 6 hits, and did a nice job pitching himself out of trouble in the 4th. 

In other Mariners notes, Ichiro Suzuki stole 3rd in the 5th inning for his 30th stolen base of the season. 

Sexson was 2-4 on the night, and has hit better recently since changing to a more open batting stance.

Miguel Batista, who recently was taken out of the rotation pitched a nice 8th inning getting 3 quick outs notching two strikouts.

Brandon Morrow got some work in late striking out Cantu, Jacobs, and Dan Uggla to strike out the side in the 9th. 

The Mariners will try to even it up tommorow for game 2 of the series at 7:10p.  Lefty Scott Olson (4-3) will face Felix Hernandez (5-5)

After picking up a win in an opening round upset against Miami , Seattle Mariners 1st Round Pick (20th Overall) Joshua Fields closed out Stanford on Monday night to help Georgia advance to 2-0 in the 2008 College World Series.

Fields who was hitting as high as 97 on the gun, struggled a little with control as he is found himself in a jam with one out in the 9th.  Fields, who commentator Mike Patrick reffered to as “good wild” because he intimidates batters with his velocity, hit a batter and then walked the next. After a mound visit, he settled down to force a double play to pick up his 17th save in 17 chances.   

Last week Fields took home 1st team All-American honors, as well as National Stopper of the year earlier in the month for the 2008 season.

On the same day the Mariners decided to part ways with GM Bill Bavasi, Manager John McLaren announced he will be moving Ichiro back to right field.  McLaren also stated that the move isn’t temporary, its permanent.

Apparently McLaren has also been pondering the idea of using Ichiro in the 3 spot in the batting order, something that Lou Pinella tried in the past briefly in 2001 until moving him back to the lead off position.

Willie Bloomquist will get the start tonight in Center against Florida at Safeco, with Jeremy Reed, and Wladimir Balentien expected to also see time in Center Field in the near future.

Chief executive officer Howard Lincoln announced today at an afternoon press conference, that the Mariners will be relieving General Manager Bill Bavasi of his duties with the club. Assistant GM, and team V.P. Lee Pelekoudas will take over as the interim General Manager, effective immediately. Lincoln announced that Pelekoudas, who has been with the organization for 29 years, would be considered permanently for the position, but the team does plan an immediate search outside the organization.

Bavasi was in his 5th season as M’s GM. He took over for Pat Gillick in November of 2003. In Bavasi’s tenure, the team only finished with one winning season. After a surprising 88 win season in 2007, The Mariners 24-45 record in 2008 is the worst in baseball despite having a 116 million dollar payroll.

This move comes one week after hitting coach Jeff Pentland was fired. Mariners fans must wonder….who’s next?

Great read here in a post by Darrin Beane in “the news tribune.com” in Tacoma, who chronicles “The Bavasi Years” displaying every major transaction made since November 2003. Readers beware as this may bring back scary flashbacks of the ghosts of Mariners past.

http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/mariners/2008/06/16/p27334

It took a ninth inning rally but the Seattle Mariners were able to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by the score of 2-1 on Wednesday afternoon.  Raul Ibanez hit a rbi single to right field that scored Ichiro Suzuki for the go ahead and winning run in the game.  Ichiro stole second and third in the ninth inning.  Good win for the Mariners who really needed to pick up a victory.

Yuniesky Betancourt got the Mariners scoring started in the seventh inning when they were down 1-0.  Betancourt roped a rbi triple to deep right center field and Richie Sexson scored the first run for the Mariners.  There wasn’t a whole lot of offense for the Mariners, but it was enough to come away with the victory.

I was very impressed with the Mariners pitching against the Blue Jays.  Felix Hernandez tossed eight strong innings while only allowing four hits and one run while striking out eight Blue Jays.  Hernandez was able to improve his record to 5-5 on the season with the victory.

J.J. Putz came in at the beginning of the ninth inning but was pulled out of the game after walking the first batter.  Brandon Morrow was then brough in and he was able to get the Mariners out of the game and pick up the save.  Morrow got the save which was his first of the season as the Mariners ended their road trip with a 3-3 record.

Mariners Blog

Miguel Cairo laid down a beautiful squeeze bunt in the top of the 10th inning and the Seattle Mariners went on to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by the score of 3-2 in 10 innings.  Willie Bloomquist scored on the squeeze play from third base to score the winning run.

Besided the squeeze play in the 10th inning, the other two Mariners runs came in the first inning.  Jose Vidro connected on a two run home run for the Mariners first two runs.  From the second through the ninth innings however, the M’s had a terrible time getting any rallies going as they couldn’t push across any runs.

Mariners starting pitcher Jarrod Washburn tossed the first six innings of the game while he gave up five hits and one run.  Washburn pitched a pretty good game but did walk three batters.  Mark Lowe gave up one run without recording an out.  Arthur Rhodes and Miguel Batista were finaly able to get the Mariners out of the seventh inning.  R.A. Dickey then tossed the next two innings without having any damage done.  Dickey actually ended up picking up the win and is now 1-1 on the season.

Onto the 10th inning that seen a dropped ball by Wladimir Balentien, and then the Blue Jays twice having the bases loaded but not scoring one run.  J.J. Putz was able to get a double play with zero outs in the inning and then got a fly ball off the bat of David Eckstein to end the game stranding all three runners on base.

A win is a win and the Mariners will take it anyway they can get one at this point in the season.  Even if it is ugly lol.

Mariners Blog