Mariners Lose Another Close One To Minnesota
The Seattle Mariners have played some of their best baseball against teams like the Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees. These teams are at least arguably better than the Mariners, and yet Seattle has held their own and then some against these quality opponents. Against teams like the Miami Marlins and Houston Astros, the Mariners have struggled. The M’s lost two out of three to the Tampa Bay Rays, who currently sport the second-worst record in the American League. Now they’ve started out a set against the Minnesota Twins with two straight losses. So that’s a thing the M’s are doing that’s at least worth keeping an eye on, even if only for funsies.
All of a sudden we’ve got a little losing streak on our hands, as the team has dropped four straight to teams that they probably don’t have any business dropping four straight to. Tampa’s supposed to be good but is struggling mightily, and Minnesota isn’t supposed to be anything. While baseball is a game controlled by random occurrences and a string of losses to so-said “bad” teams shouldn’t be as panic-inducing as it is in practice, we as fans reserve the right to freak out if and when we want to. So freak out, if you will. Personally, I’m just gonna take a deep breath and hope for a win today.
Yesterday’s game was a Roenis Elias start, and the young starter went seven innings with four strikeouts and a walk. There’s the nitty-gritty: Elias soaked up innings and was fine by the measures within his control. Maybe a little less within his control is his homer allowed to Brian Dozier, which came with two on in the fifth. He allowed that and one other run on six total hits. So not a good outing, but take away that one mistake curve and all of a sudden it’s a good outing. There’s no denying that the curve happened, and so let’s just say Elias was alright. Nothing like a three run bomb to kill the mood, but he was alright.
James Jones continues to be a lightning bolt, hitting a triple that scored Brad Miller from first. Triples in losses are all the rage these days. Jones would score on a Michael Saunders home run, which gave the Mariners a short-lived lead. Saunders would add a solo home run in the eighth off of Jared Burton, who has the perfect Twins pitcher name. Too little too late, it turned out, as the M’s lost another one-run game in Minneapolis.
Happy Felix Day! It’s sunny and beautiful in Seattle and the King is pitching for the Mariners against Ricky Nolasco and the Twins. 11:10am start for this one. If a skidding team needs to stop skidding, they could do worse than throwing Felix Hernandez. Here’s hoping for a good win today.