Jays 2, Mariners 0

It was one of the nights.  Simply put.  A night that opponents of the greatest pitchers in the game know all too well.  A night when your ace is on.  Even in the pregame warmup Jays Manager Cito Gaston thought one run scored for his team would be enough.  Well…Cito, you were right.

Roy Halliday (w 9-6) pitched a complete game four hitter, his sixth of the season.  He struck out six, and walked zero.  Out of his 115 pitches, 84 were for strikes.  With that type of control of the pitch count he blew through the lineup only allowing two singles by Richie Sexson, and singles by Willie Bloomquist, and Jeremy Reed.  Thats it.

R.A. Dickey (L 2-4) pitched well enough to keep his team in the game, but getting no run support finally caught up with him.  David Eckstein ripped a double in the fifth, and eventually scored on a Marco Scutaro single to finally get the Jays on the board against Dickey.  A Rob Barajas tapper in the sixth with the bases loaded, scored Vernon Wells to make it 2-0.  That was all the run support that Halliday needed.

The loss snapped the teams three-game win streak, and was the Jays third in a row.  The Mariners returned to regular league play going with Jeff Clement in DH spot.  Clement continued to struggle as he struck out three times on the night.  The good thing for Clement is that the team is going to let him ride out his slump this time.  I think before the end of the year he will turn it around. 

In some other team news, the team placed Felix Hernandez on the 15 day DL.  I’m sure Felix wants to go, but with a last place team, and him being a key component to their future, i doubt the M’s want to take any chances with his ankle. 

The team also announced Ryan Rowland-Smith would get the start Tuesday night.  It will be his first start since pitching for Double A San Antonio in 2006.  I’m sure the team will monitor his pitch count and I expect him to maybe go 3 to 4 innings.  Opposing the Mariners at Safeco for game two, will be righty Jesse Litsch (8-4).  Gametime is at 7:10 PT.

Mariners Blog

In the top of the second inning with the bases loaded Mariner’s Ace Felix Hernandez came to the plate against one of the leagues best, Johan Santana.  It took one pitch for Hernandez to deposit the Santana fastball out of the park opposite field to right for the first grand slam by an American League pitcher since 1971. The Felix slam put the Mariners up 4-0, and was the first homerun of his career.  Hernandez also was pitching a nice game.  That was until he was forced out of the game in the 5th due to an ankle injury after Jose Reyes slid into home to make it 5-1.  Hernandez left only needing one more out to officially qualify for a win in the game.

In a game that lacked offense, the Mariners only got one other run in the ballgame on a 5th inning single by Jose Lopez scoring Willie Bloomquist.

The Mets only recorded 4 hits as the Seattle bullpen got out of some jams relieving Hernandez.  Roy Corcaran (1.1 innings), and Ryan Rowland-Smith (2 innings) helped keep the score 5-1 going into the bottom of the 9th.

With Miguel Batista starting the later in the week, and Brandon Morrow due back Tuesday, along with J.J. Putz still on the DL, the Mariners went into the 9th with Sean Green.  Green struggled giving up a run on two hits and a walk.  Then enter…Arthur Rhodes.  With one out and two baserunners on, Rhodes shut the door.  The 38 year old vetran one year removed from Tommy John surgery, struck out Carlos Delgado, and Damion Easley to end the game.

Ryan Rowland-Smith (2-1) picked up the victory. Johan Santana (7-6)got the loss.  These two teams meet again tomorrow night at 7:10 at Shea Stadium.  Seattle is expected to go with struggling knuckleballer R.A. Dickey (1-1) as the Mets counter with Oliver Perez (4-5) . David Wright is expected to get the day off for the Mets. 

Mariners Blog

The Seattle Mariners started the weekend with a bang with a 10-2 win at Turner Field in interim manager Jim Riggleman’s debut.  Erik Bedard turned in a nice performance until being pulled because of back spasms after three scoreless innings. Bedard isn’t expected to miss much time.

Seattle’s offense matched a season high with 15 hits. Jose Lopez continued his nice first half at the plate with 3 hits, 2 were doubles, and 4 RBI’s. Adrian Beltre added 2 hits and 3 RBI’s

The Bullpen pitched in with a nice peformance relieving Bedard, as Ryan Rowland-Smith picked up the win.

Just as we all got excited about the impressive win, we all got brought back down to earth with the Braves taking game 2 and 3 of the series. The Braves won those two games 5-4, and 8-3 respectively as the offense went back to it dissapearing act.

In game 2, the M’s took the lead to the bottom of the ninth as Miguel Batista blew the save opportunity filling in for the sore Brandon Morrow. Greg Norton hit a key double and eventually scored as Brian McCann singled in the former Mariner for the winning run. The Mariners mustered only 5 hits in the loss.

Game 3 was completely dominated by Mark Teixeira. Tex blasted 3 home runs, 2 off starter Carlos Silva who failed to pick up a victory in his 12th straight start.

Raul Ibanez picked up two hits off Braves starter Tim Hudson and seemed to be the only player with an answer to his stuff. Jeff Clement’s finally got the monkey off his back with a leadoff double in the seventh, and hit his first dinger of the year to center field in the 9th. Willie Bloomquist knocked in the final run with an RBI single late.

The Mariners head to New York for a series with the Mets starting monday. Game 1’s matchup will see Johan Santana against Felix Hernandez. Should be a fantastic matchup.

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).

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.

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

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.

Mariners Blog

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.

Mariners Blog