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).

 (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)

The Seattle Mariners commited four errors and Felix Hernandez gave up three runs as the Seattle Mariners lost to the Texas Rangers by the score of 5-2.  Hernandez’s record dropped to 2-4 on the season as he took the loss for the Mariners.

Hernandez walked three five batters while stricking out three batters.  The walks really hurt Hernandez who seems to have control problems all night long.  Hernandez has four loses but still has a 3.37 era on the season.

Sean Green allowed two runs to score but both of those runs were unearned due to errors.

Both of the Mariners two runs came in the sixth inning.  Jose Lopez hit a sac fly for an rbi and Kenji Johjima had a rbi double.  The Mariners as a team struckout five times and left 15 men on base.

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The Seattle Mariners scored four runs in the top of the ninth inning to take the game into extra innings but then went onto lose on a walk off home run in the tenth inning to the Texas Rangers by the score of 13-12.  Ramon Vazquez took Brandon Morrow deep to win the game for the Rangers.  Morrow took the loss and is now 0-1 on the season.

Starting pitcher Erik Bedard was roughed up in only two innings of action.  Bedard gave up seven hits and six runs as he was hit hard all night long.  Cha Seung Baek pitched the next two innings without letting in a run but then Ryan Rowland-Smith gave up two runs and Mark Lowe gave up four more runs.

The Mariners did hit three home runs in the game.  Kenji Johjima had the big three run blast in the top of the ninth inning to tie the game.  Raul Ibanez had a two run home run in the first inning and Wladimir Balentien had a two run shot as well in the eighth inning.

Johima led the the Mariners with four rbi while Ibanez wasn’t too far behind with three rbi.  Balentein had two rbi and Yuniesky Betancourt finished up the game with one rbi.

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Carlos Silva is now 3-0 on the season as the Seattle Mariners defeated the Oakland Athletics by the score of 8-1 on Thursday night.  Silva was dominate as he pitched seven innings and only gave up four hits and one earned run.

Ryan Rowland-Smith and Brandon Morrow pitched the final two innings of the game for the Mariners and did not allow a hit.

Jose Lopez and Jose Vidro both had two RBI for the Mariners.  Willie Bloomquist, Yuniesky Betancourt, Kenji Johjima, and Raul Ibanez all had one RBI each.

With the win, the Mariners record is now 9-8 on the season.

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The Seattle Mariners finally figured out the Kansas City Royals pitching staff as they scored 11 runs as they beat the Royals 11-6 on Tuesday night.  After having a complete game thrown at them on Monday, the Mariners came out swinging early and often.

Jose Lopez had four RBI for the Mariners, and three of them came on sacrafice flies.  Lopez is just the 12th player in major league history to hit three sacrafice flies in a game.  Yuniesky Betancourt tallied three RBI, Kenji Johjima had two RBI, while Raul Ibanez and Willie Bloomquist chipped in with one RBI each.

Starting pitcher Miguel Batista struggled for the Mariners but he did pick up the win after pitching five innings and allowing seven hits and four earned runs.  Ryan Rowland-Smith also had some trouble as he had two earned runs in only one inning of action.

The pitching staff is really lucky that the offense scored 11 runs, or the Mariners would have probably lost this game the way the pitchers pitched.

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