Mariners clip Birds 2-1, fly home after rough road trip

  The Seattle Mariners finished up a rough road trip by containing the St. Louis Cardinals to one run and going on to win the final game of the series 2-1. Jason Vargas was outstanding tonight going 7 2/3 innings and only giving up 5 hits and allowing no walks against a potent Cardinals offense, he now moves to 5-2 on the year. Jaime Garcia pitched a nice game but will pick-up his third loss of the year despite only giving up 5 hits and walking one tonight. Jason Vargas has been a shining star in an otherwise dismal year for the Mariners as he continues to get the job done on a regular basis.

   This was a fun game to watch, featuring a David and Goliath type match-up in front of 40,020 Cardinals fans mostly dressed in red and anticipating another slaughter by their sluggers against the hapless Mariners. Baseball is a major part of the culture in this part of the country and the fences are adorned with the faces of past heroes like Stan Musial, Bob Gipson and 87  year-old Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst who was interviewed before the game. I remember Schoendienst from when I was a kid rooting for the SF Giants and he managed the Cardinals winning the World Series in 1967. Red still hits fungos every day and sounded sharp as a tack in his interview. 

   Sometimes in a season like this it is nice to reflect and enjoy the rich history of this game rather than fret over the win-loss column. It also makes it easier to watch a game like tonight’s and just enjoy the quality plays. One of the most exciting plays of the night was watching Milton Bradley climb the fence in the 4th inning to rob Albert Pujols of a homer. Bradley jumped up and swatted a ball that had barely cleared the fence back in to play as if he was playing badminton,  holding Pujols to a double. Pujols would eventually score that inning for the Cards only run on the night, but Bradley’s play was spectacular and fun to watch.

  Offensively the Mariners picked up a run in the 4th when Josh Wilson hustled to break-up a double play allowing Milton Bradley to score on a grounder by Langerhans who got the start at first. The only other run for the Mariners came in 5th inning when Chone Figgins delivered a clutch 2-out double to score Michael Saunders from second and break the ugly 0-16 with RISP streak of the Mariners. But tonight really was all about Jason Vargas who knows how to execute the most basic of  pitching fundamentals ie: getting the first pitch in for a strike, which at one point in the game he had done in 14 out of 18 batters he faced. 

    Jose Lopez came out of the game in the sixth with an injury to his knee which is not good for the club as we seem to have half a dozen guys on the DL now.  Speaking of which, where are these guys? Josh Bard went down a month ago and seems to have disappeared off the map. Bedard seems to be in perpetual limbo, and Jack Wilson apparently left a game in the 6th inning because he was tired, also Mike Sweeney has been out on the longest 15 day DL I can remember. It all seems quite surreal as the AAA guys slowly have taken spots in the line-up over the last month or so leaving us with an ever-changing cast of characters with a new surprise line-up everyday.

   Well at last our battered sailors are making way for their home port after this 3-7 road trip,now  floating in the wake of their AL West rivals the Rangers and Angels who are starting to turn it on. Hope to make it down to the Safe to see the Reds this weekend or for sure when the Cubs and Lou Pinella come rolling in. http://jeffsmariners.com

Team has meeting, then delivers beating 4-2

  The Seattle Mariners rallied around their Ace pitcher Felix Hernandez and came away with a 4-2 victory over the San Diego Padres to snap a 5-game losing streak. This victory came on the heels of a closed-door players only meeting after the Mariners loss on Saturday. Apparently the veterans Chone Figgins, Milton Bradley and Cliff Lee showed leadership in pulling the meeting together. It was nice to see these guys step-up and start the process of being more accountable to each other in the post-Griffey era. Griffey was a great player but the truth is that back in the glory days of the 90’s  it was guys like Jay Buhner who kept the team together and were not afraid to call each other out when they needed to for the good of the team.

  Felix Hernandez pitched like the lion he is today going 8 and 2/3 innings  giving up only 4 hits and walking only one Padre while striking out 9. Milton Bradley blasted a 2-run homer as well, and you can say what you want about Bradley but he does play with heart. It was nice to see Rob Johnson pick up three hits today, including a single in the top of the ninth in which he eventually scored on with the help of a clutch double by Ichiro, giving the Mariners an insurance run.

  Felix Hernandez gave what I thought was his best performance of the year. I was also glad to see Wakamatsu allow Felix to go out to the mound in the ninth despite his pitch-count and get the first two outs before handing the ball over to Aardsma for the final out. As you know I have been writing a lot about the scientific approach to pitch-count that the Mariners have been following like a religion up to this point in the season with miserable results. With all due respect to the sabermetrics crowd on certain unnamed blogs, I am old-school when it comes to judging when it is time to pull a starter. By that I mean if you have a big strong kid like Felix on the mound throwing well, you make the judgement based on the situation at hand. And after losing 5 games in a row and your Ace is on the mound feeling and looking strong, well then let him finish the game and count the pitches later but first win the game!

   So as to be clear I have a respect for statistics, trends, and projections based on past performances but it just seems a Manager needs to be able to follow his gut feeling as well, and not become over reliant on abstract numbers. Rest assured I have a copy of  Baseball Prospectus 2010 full of useful information that I refer to now and then, but we are talking about a real live group of men not some bizarre fantasy baseball league.

   We shall see if this club is ready to suck it up and come out swinging after the closed-door team meeting yesterday. Luke French will be making his first start this year with the big club facing the tough Adam Wainwright as we make our way to St Louis to face Albert Pujols and the Cardinals. This should be a fun and interesting series to gauge the grit of our  sailors from Seattle. Heart and guts cannot be measured by sabermetrics, but I’m hoping our team is  ready to represent  the true scrappy nature of the Northwest Pioneer spirit for the rest of the campaign .http://jeffsmariners.com

Milton Bradley leads Mariners over Tigers 5-3

 Milton Bradley the ugly duckling of baseball may have finally found a home here in Mayberry with Skyscrapers-Seattle. Bradley drove in 3 runs tonight including a 2-run homer and looks like he is having fun as well! The Detroit Tigers even with the imposing  Jason Verlander on the mound, couldn’t contain the live bat of Bradley who lined the first pitch he saw in the first over the right field fence to set the tone for this one. The Mariners sent the dependable Doug Fister up against a Tigers line-up that was missing slugger Miguel Cabrera, and as usual Fister kept his end of the bargain going seven strong innings before handing the ball off to the bullpen.

 Though Fister may not have had his best stuff he seems to have the confidence to pitch effectively like a seasoned veteran. Fister gave up a homer to Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge in the sixth, but we answered back in the bottom of the inning with a little lightning of our own, this time off the bat of Franklin Gutierrez who hit a solo blast to right to keep the game tied 3-3. But Verlander stayed in the game and was still throwing his fastball at 98 mph in the 8th inning. Chone Figgins hustled for a 1-out double off the wall in left in the 8th, followed  Gutierrez who managed to get a walk to set the stage for Milton Bradley who then delivered a clutch single that the speedy Figgins scored on with a perfect slide at the plate. Jose Lopez added an insurance run on a sacrifice fly, and David Aardsma came in to pick-up the save in the 9th.

 Milton Bradley was so excited after chasing Verlander out of the game with his RBI single, that he ran over to the home dugout while the pitching change occurred and high-fived his shipmates! Something has gotten into our Choir Boy Bradley and whatever it is I hope it is contagious. Between Bradley and the Mike Sweeney we may have enough spark to fire-up the boilers on this ship and start steaming on the long voyage back to .500. Hope to see some of you down at the Safe tomorrow, I’ll be down in section 124 row 14 looking for a mini-sweep in this 2-game series. http://jeffsmariners.com