Game 3, Sunday July 27, 2008
Mariners 5, Jays 1
It was a somewhat uncomfortable start for Jarrod Washburn when he took the hill on Sunday afternoon. Before today’s game, Wash was grilled by the media, and many thought he could even possibly get the call of a deal during pre-game warm ups. All Wash did was push aside those distractions of his supposedly pending trade to the New York Yankees and dominate the Jays lineup for his most impressive start of the season.
Washburn pitched a gem going eight innings allowing only four hits, and striking out two. His only blemish on the day was a solo home-run by John McDonald in the 5th. At that point Wasburn had only allowed two hits. I’m sure this start opened some eyes and raised his value. Look for the M’s to hold onto him a few extra days to see if another teams interest was peaked.
Believe it or not the Mariners were losing this game going into the 6th 1-0 as Shaun Marcum was dueling Washburn through the first four innings to a stalemate. After an Ichiro Suzuki lead-off walk, Jose Vidro smashed a big two run home-run to right field, his seventh, to make it 2-1 M’s. Kenji Johjima made it 4-1 continuing the bat around inning with a two-run double in the four-run sixth.
In the seventh the Mariners got themselves some rare second half of the season insurance runs as Jose Lopez hit an RBI single off of Shawn Camp. For Lopez it was his career-high 14th straight game he has hit safely.
Side Notes:
- Ichiro tripled in the ninth giving him 2,998 hits between the major leagues and the Japanese League. He has 1,720 of those hits for Mariners.
- J.J. Putzpitched a nice bounce-back non-save 9th inning to seal the win for Seattle. Putz was roughed up yesterday so it was good to see Riggleman throw him out there so he can stay on track.
- As reported earlier in the week, broadcaster Dave Niehaus was in Cooperstown Sunday to receive the Ford C. Frick award at Sunday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Congrats Dave!
Seattle will travel to Texas for a four-game set against the big hitting Texas Rangers. Felix Hernandez(7-6) will face Scott Feldman (4-3) at 5:05 PT in the series opener.
