Felix Hernandez was the starting pitcher for the Mariners and he got hit hard as he gave up 13 hits and five runs in six innings. Hernandez didn’t get the loss however as Mark Lowe dropped to 1-5 on the year with the loss. Lowe gave up three hits and one run in two innings of action. Lowe gave up a solo home run to Mark Teixeira that ended up being the winning run of the game.

Jose Lopez and Jeremy Reed both had rbi doubles for M’s in the game as they both finished with one rbi each. Miguel Cairo and Bryan LaHair both had rbi singles in the game as well to help out at the plate. The offense just came up short against the high powered Angels.

The M’s will try to split the four game series with a win on Thursday against the Angels. I really don’t like thier chances however and expect to see loss 101 for the year.

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Twins 7, Mariners 3

Minnesota Twins rookie right-fielder and lead-off batter Denard Span had a day he will never forget on Wednesday afternoon at Safeco.  Span, who began the season playing in Triple-A Rochester had a coming out party of sorts as he batted 3-for-5 driving in a career-high four runs as the Twins table setter.  His biggest play of the day was with his glove however, when he robbed Mariners third baseman Adrian Beltre of what would have been a go-ahead home-run in the 7th inning.  Beltre stood in disbelief after the former number 20 pick overall in 2002 jumped and snared the ball just above railing and screen in front of the first row of seats.

Brendan Harris added two doubles and two RBIs on the day, and Nick Blackburn picked up his 9th victory on the mound this season tying him for the league lead among rookie hurlers.  Blackburn allowed three runs in six innings of work to hand Seattle their American League leading 70th loss of the season.

Seattle starter Jarrod Washburn (5-11) picked up the loss in the ballgame as he allowed four runs (three earned) on five hits with six strikeouts.  Mark Lowe continued his recent struggles getting hit hard allowing five hits and three runs in one inning of work.  Newcomer Jared Wells pitched two solid innings allowing only one hit and striking out two.

Raul Ibanez went 2-for-4 on the day but failed to pick up any RBIs to add to his Seattle record book performances over the past few days.  Beltre hit the ball hard all night going 2-for-4 with two RBIs and would have had more if it wasn’t for the great catch by Span in the 7th.

Seattle will stay at home tomorrow night to start a four-game series against the AL East leading Tampa Bay Rays.  They are coming fresh off of a walk-off home-run win yesterday as Carlos Pena hit a three-run blast in the 9th to beat Cleveland.  Andy Sonnanstine (11-6) will face Felix Hernandez (7-7) at 7:10 PT.

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Mariners 11, Twins 6

Monday August 4, 2008 : The Minnesota Twins owning the best record in baseball over the month and a half, were cruising along going into the bottom of the sixth with a 6-0 lead.  All signs indicated the Twins were on their way to an easy victory against the slumping M’s lineup.

Not so fast.

The M’s got one back in the 6th when Jose Vidro grounded into a double-play but scored Adrian Beltre from third to cut the lead to 6-1.  Glen Perkins was still feeling confident with five-run cushion, and the Twins decided to leave him out there for the 7th.  That’s when the wheels came off for Perkins.

After a Kenji Johjima single to lead it off, Ichiro Suzuki drew a walk followed by a Willie Bloomquist single to right to load them up for Raul Ibanez.  Ibanez hit the second Perkins pitch over the right field wall for a Grand-Slam to suddenly put the Mariners down by only a run with nobody out in the inning.  Minnesota pulled Perkins after the home-run for Brian Bass.  Beltre smacked a double off of Bass, followed by a Jose Lopez RBI single, and just like that we are tied at 6.  That would be it for Bass as he gave way to Craig Breslow to try to stop the bleeding.  The nightmare for the Twinkies as Lopez moved to second base on a passed ball to move the go-ahead run into scoring position.  Breslow forced a Vidro pop out before walking Miguel Cairo. Breslow then promptly got yanked for Matt Guerrier.

Whew, taking a deep breath to continue.  First and second with one out.  Still the 7th.

Jeff Clement hit Guerrier’s fist pitch to right for an RBI single scoring Lopez from 2nd to give Seattle a 7-6 lead.  Cairo went to third base, and Clement advanced to second on a throwing error.  Safeco was rockin!  You knew it was all going right for Seattle when Yuniesky Betancourt reached on an infield single scoring Cairo and Clement to make it 9-6.  A bad throw to first to by Brendan Harris to try to get Betancourt helped Clement score and move Betancourt to 2nd.  Minnesota intentionally walked Ichiro, bofre Guerrier walked Bloomquist to load up the bases for the second time in the inning for Ibanez.  Ibanez smacked a single up the middle scoring Betancourt and Ichiro.  Bloomquist tried to score as a throw got away at third base but was thrown out at home to end the craziest Mariner inning of the year.  Seattle 11, Minnesota 6.

The six RBI’s in one inning for Ibanez was a team record for one inning passing Ken Griffey Jr.’s five he had in 1999 at the Kingdome. 

Pitching notes:

Miguel Batista got slugged for six runs on seven hits and walking four over three innings of work.  He appears to just have completely lost the ability to get batters consistently out.

Jake Woods pitched a decent outing throwing three innings in relief striking out four, while walking four, but allowing no runs. 

Roy Corcoran (2-0) was probably surprised to pick up his second big league win as he left the mound down by 5, and suddenly had had the lead when Cesar Jimenez took the bump in the 8th.  Jimenez and Mark Lowe pitched perfect 8th and 9th innings respectively to round out the win.

I’m sure the Twins can’t wait for tomorrow’s game so they can put that mess of a game tonight behind them. Tomorrow nights contest will see R.A. Dickey (3-6) against Scott Baker (7-3) at 7:10 PT at Safeco.  Lets see if the M’s can win three straight. 

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Mariners 8, Rangers 5

The Mariners players could finally relax for Thursday’s game against the Texas Rangers.

The trade deadline came and went on Thursday and the team remained intact minus the trade of relief pitcher Arthur Rhodes to the Florida Marlins.  It has been a stressful season full of uncertainty for many players on the roster.  At least now they know they are staying a little longer.

The Mariners got a strong performance by knuckleballer and former Ranger R.A. Dickey on Thursday to pick up an 8-4 victory in Arlington.  Dickey had his signature knuckler dancing going 7.2 innings allowing six hits and only two runs.  It took till the 8th inning til Javier Vazquez hit a two-run home-run to get the Rangers on the board.

Raul Ibanez was one of the rumored players expected to potentially be dealt today.  Ibanez was reportedly close to being dealt to the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in the day until Seattle decided to back out of the deal.  Ibanez showed the M’s they made the right choice hitting an RBI double in the first, followed by a fielders choice RBI by Adrian Beltre to quickly put the M’s up 2-0.

The Mariners stayed hot in the second and got two more runs.  Catcher Jamie Burke reached base on an error and eventually scored on an RBI double by Ichiro Suzuki.  Ichiro would then score on Texas starter Matt Harrison’s wild pitch to put the M’s up 4-0. 

Seattle got more help in the 4th as Miguel Cairo scored on a fielders choice RBI from the bat of Jeremy Reed.  Bryan LaHair then scored on an Ichiro sacrifice fly to give the M’s the big 6-0 lead. 

In the 8th, Adrian Beltre blasted his 19th dinger of the year off of Texas reliever Dustin Nippert to increase the lead to 8-0.  Jose Lopez immediately followed with a single to extend his career-best hitting streak to 18 games.

The Vazquez homer in the bottom half ruined Dickey’s bid for his second career shutout.  The Rangers made it interesting in the 9th as they combined to score three more runs off of Mark Lowe and J.J. Putz, but it wasn’t enough as the M’s held them off.

The Mariners will return back home tonight as they begin a three game set against the Baltimore Orioles and former Mariners Adam Jones and George Sherrill.  The red hot Jarrod Washburn (5-9) will take the ball against Garrett Olson (7-5) for the birds.

With the Rhodes trade going down while Seattle was on the road, they chose not to fly a man to Arlington to replace Rhodes on the active roster.  The Mariner 25-man roster currently sits at 24 players, so expect a new Mariner to be called up for tomorrow nights game.

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Jays 5, Mariners 4

Joe Inglett’s two-run single in the 10th inning with the bases loaded gave the Toronto Blue Jays a 5-4 victory Friday night.  The winning play came as a result of the ball glancing off of the golden glove of Ichiro Suzuki for the winning runs.

Kenji Johjima started off the scoring in the top of the 2nd with an RBI double off Jays starter John Parrish, scoring Miguel Cairo.  Promptly in the bottom half, Matt Stairs evened the score with a solo home-run to right field off Miguel Batista to tie the score 1-1.

In the 3rd the Mariners continued to hit Parrish hard for three hits and two runs.  An Adrian Beltre RBI double, and an RBI Jose Lopezsingle suddenly put the M’s up 3-1.  Inglett came in the bottom half with a sacrifice grounder to second base to score Adam Lind to cut the lead to 3-2.

The bats settled down from that point as it took till the 8th inning till the games next run was scored.  Lyle Overbay led off the bottom of the 8th with a double off of J.J. Putz followed by a Rob Barajas single.  The Stairs hurt the M’s again with a RBI single to tie the ballgame at three.  It was the third straight hit allowed for Putz.  Luckily Putz forced as double play, and struck out Lind to get out of the jam. 

Closer B.J. Ryan, and Brandon Morrow worked the 9th and got through with no damage done.  Are we going to see another typical Mariner extra inning marathon?  Willie Bloomquist wanted to single handedly end it fast drawing a two-out walk and then stealing second base to put himself into scoring position.  Jeremy Reed came through with a big RBI single to score Willie to give the Mariners the one run lead to try to close it out.

Enter Mark Lowe.  Lowe, who some within the M’s organization think may be the closer of the future had a shot for the save.  Gregg Zaun led off with a single.  John Mcdonald then reached on a critical Lowe throwing error to put runners at first and second with nobody out.  Scott Rolen couldn’t get the runners over as he reached on a fielder choice, but forced Zaun to get forced at third base.  Lowe then forced Lind to fly out, and suddenly he was one out away from ending it.  Then it unraveled as former Mariner Brad WIlkerson forced a crucial two-out walk to load the bases for Inglett to end it.

What a tough loss for the M’s.  It was their sixth straight loss.  Rumors continue to swirl around trade rumors and you must wonder if it is becoming a distraction.

Saturday’s contest will feature R.A. Dickey(2-6) for Seattle against David Purcey (1-1) for Toronto.

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Mariners 8, Indians 2

Cleveland starter Aaron Laffey had two-outs in the bottom of the second inning with nobody on. Thats when things went bad.  A single by Jamie Burke, a hit batter (Yuniesky Betancourt), and an error by shortstop Jhonny Peralta on an Ichiro Suzuki grounder loaded up the bases suddenly for the Mariners.  Laffey then walked Willie Bloomquist on an ugly four-pitch walk to score Burke.  After the error and the four pitch walk, the crafty veteran Raul Ibanez stepped to the plate thinking fastball  all the way on the first pitch.  Ibanez deposited the 88 mph grapefruit into the right field bleachers for his sixth career grand slam to give the M’s the 5-0 lead.  Jose Lopez made it 8-1 in the 4th with a three-run jack off of Laffey for his sixth home-run of the season to give the Mariners an 8-1 lead.

On Felix Hernandez bobblehead night, Felix knew he had to perform on the mound.  The 22-year-old didn’t dissapoint striking out eight allowing just four hits and two runs in six innings.  Hernandez threw 98 pitches in his second start since returning from the DL.  Mark Lowe, Roy Corcoran, and Cesar Jimenez closed out the Tribe with three scoreless innings of relief to help the M’s pick up the win.

Yesterdays call-up Bryan LaHair got his first major league at-bat as he pinch-hit in the 8th inning.  Unfortunately for LaHair, he will never forget that he grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

Former Mariners Shin-Soo Choo, and Asdrubal Cabrera where in the starting lineup for the Indians.  Choo started in right field going 0-for-4 with 2 K’s.  Cabrera started at second base going 1-for-3 with a walk and a run.  The M’s traded Choo for first baseman Ben Broussard in 2006, Cabrera was aquired by Cleveland for first baseman Eduardo Perez in the same season. 

Game 2 on Saturday was supposed to match up lefties Jarrod Washburn (4-8) and Jeremy Sowers (0-5) on the mound.  But thanks to the flu, Washburn will move his start to Sunday.  Miguel Batista will take the mound in his place.  Cleveland will try to avoid its 11th straight road loss.  Look for Bryan LaHair to get a start on Saturday or Sunday.

Reliever J.J. Putz threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings of work for Tacoma.  Putz threw 17 pitches and said he had no soreness in the elbow.  Putz might be activated by Sunday.  Its going to be a tough call for the M’s to send a pitcher down since they all have pitched well in relief.  I suspect it will be Jimenez though.

Athletics 3, Mariners 2

R.A. Dickey and Greg Smith dueled 7 shutout innings of a pitchers game until in the 8th things got crazy when it was handed to the repective bullpens.

 In the top of 8th, Jose Lopez finally sparked the offense by leading off the inning with a double.  After Oakland intentionally walked the hot hitting Adrian Beltre, Jose Vidro reached base on an infield single scoring Lopez to make it 1-0.  Sean Green replaced Dickey and got through the bottom half of the inning.  In the 9th with one out, Willie Bloomquist recorded a ground rule double to left field.  With Lopez at the plate “Willie Ballgame” got a nice jump off the pitch and swiped third base.  Bloomquist then scored on a Lopez double, his second of the game to make it 2-0.

Enter Brandon Morrow in the 9th and its automatic, ballgame over, see ya later…right? 

Oakland finally got the bats around on those Morrow gassers. Jack Cust and pinch hitting Kurt Suzuki both went yard in the bottom half to tie the game at 2-2.  Mark Lowe got the M’s off the hook and struck out Jack Hannahan to send it to extras.  For Morrow, it was the first run allowed for him in well over a month, and his first blown save in nine chances. 

Lowe got the M’s throught to the 11th, and handed the ball to Lefty Cesar Jimenez.  Jimenez has been pitching fabulous for the M’s since his recent call up.  Jimenez struck out Cust to start the inning, but Emil Brown homered to left field to break the Mariners hearts in the bottom of the 11th. 

Once again, the Mariners kept up with their theme of stranding baserunners as they left 12 on base.  With the release of Richie Sexson today, will the fire sale begin?

Huston Street picked up the win to improve his record to 2-2.  Jimenez picked up first loss to fall to 0-1.  The M’s fall to 36-56  on the season.

The M’s will head to Kansas City for the teams last series before the All-Star break.  It will mark the return of Felix Hernandez to the mound.  He will face Luke Hochevar for the Royals to start a three-game set. 

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In the series finale of a four game set, the Detroit Tigers finally tallied the winning run in the top of the 15th inning off of backup catcher Jamie Burke to come away with a 2-1 victory at Safeco.  The M’s had to use 7 pitchers to get through the day.

A Marcus Thames sac fly off of Burke scored Michael Holliman for the winning run to end a long offensively deprived baseball game.  Manager Jim Riggleman was really strapped for pitching options late.  With an already banged up staff, Riggleman was without already without Arthur Rhodes on the day who woke up with some arm soreness.  Riggleman also did not want to pitch Brandon Morrow because he has been used four of the last five games.  Ryan Rowland-Smith was not an options because he was used as a starter.  And all other relievers were used in the ballgame.  No runs were surrendered from the 5th inning till the 15th.  Both teams combined for a total of 14 hits.

It was an extremely ugly scorecard for both teams.  The Mariners had no player record more than one hit.  The Tigers only player to record more than one hit was Ivan Rodriguez who was 4-for-7.

A positive to take from the game was obviously the pitching staff who has done a tremendous job the last few weeks.  Rowland-Smith went 5 innings surrendering only one run.  Mark Lowe (1 inning), Roy Corcoran (2 innings), Miguel Batista (1 inning), Sean Green (1 inning) and Cesar Jimenez (4 innings) all combined to hold the Tigers out of the score column.  In fact, only Green allowed a hit until Burke came in for the 15th. 

Tiger pitcher Nate Robertson pitched 9 innings fabulous innings for the Detroit.  Aquilino Lopez picked up the win to see his record improve to 3-1.  Burke picked up what is most likely his first and last lost as a major league pitcher.

The M’s head to Oakland to start a four game series against the A’s tomorrow night.  Jarrod Washburn (4-7) will face lefty Dana Eveland (6-5).  

Mariners Blog

With the recent success of M’s starters, Carlos Silva was hoping to build on that success and win his second straight start.  The Tigers had other plans. 

Matt Joyce went 4-for-5 with two doubles, and Pudge Rodriguez added a three RBI.  Mike Hollimon added a Homerun as Detroit pounded out 15 hits on the day.  Justin Verlander picked up his 5th win of the season.

The Mariner bats held there own as they had 14 hits on the night, but stranded far too many baserunners in the ballgame.  Some M’s notes:

-Ichiro Suzuki and Jose Lopez both had three hits each

-In the sixth Ichiro singled for his 1700th career hit

-Rookie Jeff Clement had another bad day going 0-for-4 with 2 K’s

- Mark Lowe and Roy Corcoran looked fatigued as they both struggled slightly in late relief

Game two will be an afternoon tilt on the 4th of July.  It will feature the return of Erik Bedard (5-4) to the rotation.  Opposing him will be the crafty vet Kenny Rogers (6-5) 

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With Felix Hernandez not taking the mound on Tuesday night against Toronto, and with Miguel Batista ailing, Manager Jim Riggleman said that the team may go with the relief staff tuesday against the Jays.  “We’re pretty sure it is going to be a combination of guys out of our bullpen,” Riggleman said. “We know it’s not going to be Felix. Depends on what happens out there today and tomorrow.”   Riggleman mentioned Ryan Rowland-Smith, Sean Green, Mark Lowe or Roy Corcoran, or potentially having a combination of all pitch a few innings.  It seems as though alot depends on how long R.A. Dickey can go tonight.  Stay tuned

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