Snell gone, Mariners woes continue losing 4-2

  The St. Louis Cardinals used five pitchers, including newly returned starter Jeff Suppan to beat the Mariners 4-2 at  Busch Stadium tonight in front of 40,269 fans. The Mariners started out with Ryan Rowland-Smith tonight, and the big  Aussie looked a little better than usual in his four innings of work giving up 3 runs including a two-run bomb to Colby Ramus. This kid  Rasmus is the kind of player I’d like to see us get in exchange for Cliff Lee, he is 23 years old, hits for power with 13 dingers on the year, and seems to be confident. Of course the Cardinals who are rumored to be in the hunt for Lee will probably hang on to this budding star, but I wanted to use him as an example.

   The Cardinals in general are a well-balanced club with some depth at the major league level including newly acquired ex-Mariner Randy Winn who came in to pinch-hit late in the game. Of course their star Albert Pujols is the glue that holds this club together and he delivered a solo home run off  Shawn Kelley in the 5th to put this one away. Not that the Mariners didn’t have chances to score tonight. As a matter of fact they stranded 9 runners including two bases loaded situations, one in the first and one in the 5th, each time the Paper-boy Josh Wilson failed to deliver the clutch hit.

   The Mariners did manage to lift a couple of balls out of Busch stadium tonight, one by Milton Bradley in the 4th and the other a pinch-hit homer off the bat of Ryan Langerhans off another ex-Mariner Ryan Franklin in the 9th. Also on a positive note I did notice that several Mariners were more aggressive at the plate tonight going after first pitch strikes and though it didn’t produce a victory I hope in the long run this approach will help our club.

   The Mariners made a long overdue move today designating for assignment Ian Snell and bringing up 36-year-old Brian Sweeney from Tacoma. Maybe Snell will get picked up by another club who will be able to turn him around, as Lord knows the Mariners gave him every possible chance, and then some. All and all this was not a terrible game, our boys just couldn’t get the clutch hit tonight, and with a solid club like St. Louis you need to take advantage of scoring opportunities or the Cards will prevail. So it is one more game against the Cards before coming home for the weekend to face more NL teams starting with the Reds on friday who are in a tight race with the Cardinals in the NL Central.http://jeffsmariners.com

Cardinals fry French then shell Snell 9-3

The St. Louis Cardinals under the helm of  Tony LaRussa unloaded on the struggling Seattle Mariners tonight 9-3. The Cardinals franchise has a storied past with several World Series victories as well as a long list of great players such as Dizzy Dean, Bob Gipson, Lou Brock, and Stan Musial. However the current line-up featuring Albert Pujols hitting third is as ominous as any in the past and proved it tonight against Luke French who got his first start tonight after coming up from Tacoma where he was 6-2. French was spotted a couple of runs right off the bat when Ichiro started the game off with a homer and Chone Figgins used his bat and speed to manufacture a run in the first. But that was before the Cardinals came to hit, and oh can they hit. The Birds answered right away in the first with three runs of their own off the long-ball delivered by Ryan Ludwick and right away the momentum shifted.

  French looked shaky from the start and couldn’t find the strike-zone and when he did he threw meatballs, sort of like Ian Snell….So I guess Wakamatsu decided to give the carnivorous Cardinals more carcass to feed on by sending none other than Snell himself out to feed the beast. Like a lot of you I figured Ian Snell would be sent off to a corner somewhere till they figured out what to do with him. But there he was again tonight, and he proceeded to get slammed for four runs in two innings just to remind us  in case anyone forgot how bad he is.

   For what it is worth it was nice to look at the classic Cardinals uniforms and see the ageless sage Tony LaRussa again battling away in front of a loyal and educated fan-base. To be honest,  just watching the way Albert Pujols and the rest of tonight’s line-up including  Adam Wainwright, go about their business was a pleasure. Yes I have more than a twinge of envy for the Cardinals fans who get to follow this club, but I have no desire to move to that hot, humid town. So like the rest of you- we are stuck with our sad-sack Mariners for another 100 games.

   Of course we have the Cliff Lee sweepstakes to look forward too and all the drama around that. And I am sure we will win another 35 games or so as we slog through the summer. Maybe Jack Z. will pull off a blockbuster trade packaging Lee with Ichiro for five or six quality players that will give us enough hope to stay glued to our respective TV’s and radios till October, before we get to pick a team from another city to follow through the play-offs. For me I am taking it one game at a time for the rest of the year as I try to grind out my first season with this Expansion Blog. Meanwhile I am wondering about the other Mariners Bloggers who have  jumped ship already this season, where do they go?  Green lake or Seward Park or maybe Fenway Park…….. http://jeffsmariners.com