Viva Vargas!

Vargas has now pitched 16 consecutive scoreless innings... he pitched 7 with only 4 hits, and matched a career high with 9 K as the Mariners won 3-0. He was pretty much flawless. His only issue that I can remember was the leadoff batter of the game, when the ball was hit back to him at the mound and he threw the ball away for an error. The dude doesn't get enough attention, he just quietly goes out there and gets things done, letting Felix and now Pineda take all the headlines.

Then, in the 8th Wright decided to load the bases and give all of us a heart attack, but he made it out unscathed. In the 9th League came out and nailed his 10th save. Is he back on track? Could be...

On Monday we scored runs in the first and the third (as well as 6th and 8th), and tonight we got bloop single by Cust to score Figgins in the 1st. That was all we would need. Then, in the 3rd after Smoak got an RBI 2B, Cust singled again to get his 2nd RBI of the night. It was his first multi-RBI game of the year. He's hitting the ball well and is definitely heating up. Hopefully his first of many HR is imminent. It is nice that we've been scoring early in the game, at the start of the year we only seemed to be scoring late in the game when it was too late.

Guti came back, he went 0-4 but it was nice to see him in the lineup and on the field. I think he only had one fly ball hit to him. Gut received a very warm welcome when his name was announced and his first AB, and many women in the crowd nearly fainted at the sight of him.

I ate my famous concoction of rice and peanuts. Smaller container than last year, but one of the best deals at the ballpark. I supplemented it with ballpark food of sunflower seeds and some kettle corn left over from yesterday.

My next game won't be for a couple of weeks, as the Yankees will be in down the 27-30 and I don't want to deal with obnoxious Yankee fans. I'm hoping with the warming weather our bats will start picking up (yeah right) to help our stellar starting rotation out. The three games I went to this week were outstanding. The last time I went to three games in a row I was weary and exhausted, this time I am exhilarated!

I won't be going to the day game tomorrow because of work so I went to 3/4 of the games on this short homestand. So out of their 23 home games I have been to 12, or 52%. This projects to 42 or 43 games on the year. The attendance was 16,992. Getting better!

The Mariners are now 7-5 when I attend and improved to 19-24 overall.

By the way, Happy 31st Anniversary of the St. Helens eruption!

Well, we just didn't get it done today. Felix Hernandez wasn't as sharp as he needed to be in the first inning, and it cost us. He gave up 2 runs and 1 hit in the first which led to 2 runs, and that's all Minnesota needed as we lost 2-1. In 8 of Felix's 10 starts he has given up 2 earned runs or less, and his record is 4-4. That's just a shame, all you can ask of any pitcher is to go 8 innings and give up a measly two runs... they shouldn't have to be perfect!

With a runner on 1st with one out, Olivo tried to break up the fielder's choice play at 2nd in the 9th. At this point we were down 1 and it was a huge play, could have been the difference between a win and a loss. Well, Wedge ejected. You could tell as soon as he got out there. There was a lot of gesturing and very close quarters, it looked like the brims of their caps were touching. After he got ejected he stuck around a few more moments. I was hoping for an exciting dirt kick or hat tossing, but they don't make managers like good ol' Lou anymore. Well Wedgie, congrats on your first ejection. Replays on the TV showed that it was a really close play, almost too close to call... in one angle Olivo was safe, in another he was out.

Sadly the flag was at half staff and a moment of silence before the game as Harmon Killebrew, MLB Hall of Famer and Legend, passed away this morning. He was one of the greats, without a doubt.

There is some good news to come out of the ballgame. Gutierrez will be activated tomorrow! He's been out the entire year because of an undiagnosed case of IBS. He had lost 10-15 pounds and all reports say he's pretty much full strength. We need this, defensively and offensively... and just in time for "Death to Flying Things" fly swatter day this Thursday.

Another positive, after allowing a walk to the first batter in the 9th, League got out of the inning with no damage by inducing a double play. After his disastrous previous 5 outings, let's hope he is on the way to turning things around.

I ate kettle corn and a hot dog.

The attendance was 16,015 and the Mariners are now 6-5 when I attend.

Three Peat

Wow, so much to talk about on this one. Since the last game I went to, the Mariners had gone 0-6 coming into the game including a disaster of a road trip in which they lost 4 out of the 5 games the final AB.... and 2 rain outs in Cleveland. The Twins came into the game having lost 8 in a row and the worst team in baseball. Someone had to win, I'm glad it was us... although we tried to make it interesting in the top of the ninth!

Pineda was scheduled to start yesterday but because of the postponement he was pushed back to today and Felix to tomorrow. It didn't faze him, in fact he had no-no type stuff through 2.2 innings. I was just starting to regret not bringing my scorebook when he gave up a single in the third. Overall he gave up three hits and hit a batter while striking out seven in 7 innings. The dude's composure is well behind his years. I keep waiting for him to falter, it will happen eventually, but right now he sure is fun to watch and brings excitement to the ballpark. As the late, great Niehaus said "DIABOLICAL!"

The only trouble he got into was in the sixth inning, through no fault of his own. With two out Luis Rodriguez committed and error, one of three in the game, which was followed by a single by Kubel (who sucks defensively, by the way) and then hit Morneau to load the bases. At that point it was a two run game after we'd scored single runs in the 1st and 3rd innings. But Pineda gathered himself and got Cuddyer to hit into a Fielder's Choice. The game was pretty much over at that point... all that was in his way from a win was our bullpen (at least League was sitting after blowing four consecutive outings... first time in Mariners history for a relief pitcher, by the way). It was our defense that almost failed us...

We got some insurance runs in the bottom of the 6th that we ended up needing, with the first back to back homers of the year for the Mariners by Kennedy and Peguero. It was Peguero's 2nd HR of his career. The first was Friday in Cleveland (which was last official game) so he has hit them in two consecutive games. I have never seen a homer like Peguero's... it was literally a line drive straight over the fence. It would have kept going if not for the stands. Kennedy also had a sacrifice in the 8th inning to make it 5-0. I won't mention his error in the 9th, it was a routine dribbler to him just a few few off of first (a little league play) and he simply bobbled it. Could have been because he had just moved over there due to Smoak being pulled for precautionary reasons?

Anyway, we almost threw the 9th away with two errors, the other was by Figgins which should have resulted in a game ending double play. They scored two runs but we hung on and ended our losing streak. Sure hope we can put together something on this homestand, tomorrow we're going for the sweep in the short two games series.

One annoying note, the radio was 5 seconds behind the action for the first five innings... which was REALLY weird and kind of off putting. Eventually it was fixed.

Attendance was 14,859 with the roof "extended" before the first pitch. The giveaway was yet another "bag of dirt", which means I now have three. I found out that you could "check-in" at Safeco and receive deals/specials so I was intrigued. I downloaded the free MLB at-bat application for my cellphone and used it for the first time tonight. The free version is sort of lacking in features but I was able to get $2 off a Torta. So I only paid $6.50 which is pretty good for ballpark fare. Too bad the torta still isn't that great.

The Mariners are Now 6-4 when I attend and are 17-23 overall.

Felix Goes the Distance, M's Win Again!

I've been a bit sick this homestand, tonight was the first game I'd been to. Since the last game, they had gone 7-3 (including 5-1 on roadtrip) to enter the game at 15-17 and just three games behind Anaheim for the AL West lead. Okay, I know they are the LA Angels of Anaheim but sorry... they're not in Los Angeles! I can't believe I'm saying it but we are now 16-17!! Who would have thought!

Let's talk about this game, it had a little of everything. My sister said "I've never seen that before" when referring to the 4th inning blunder by Jack Wilson. With a runner on first and no out, Ramirez sacrificed with a bunt up the first base line, but it turned into a base hit when Olivo picked it up and found no one covering first... which should have been the second baseman as Smoak was charging for the ball as well. This turned into a huge mistake as there should have been one out and instead runners on 1st and 2nd. Pierre, on 2nd, ended up coming around to score the first run of the game on a sacrifice fly which should have been the third out of the inning.

In the 8th We had a rundown! A runner was caught off third after taking too large of a lead on a groundball to the shortstop Ryan, who made a heads up play and threw to third. After a couple of throws the runner was out and it provided a lot of excitement 'cause at that point we were still tied.

There was a Bradley ejection in the 8th, he got into the face of the HP umpire on a called third strike as Figgins slid into third with a steal. Konerko had earlier had a few words, but Milton was tossed and Wedge had to run out and hold him back from the umpire or he would have been facing a suspension. He waved the bat around a little. That was exciting but was lacking in the fun of those classic Lou moments when he would kick dirt, toss his hat etc.

Felix was outstanding, went 9 innings on 5 hits and just 2 runs (1 shouldn't have happened). His last out he was so fired up, my sister commented that she had never seen him that excited, that he is usually so calm. Oh no, he gets excited... and tonight was the perfect example. He picked up his 4th win of the year already.

Brendan Ryan had the game winning hit up the middle with pinch runner Kennedy on 3rd. The bench emptied and the crowd went wild, we had won the game 3-2! He had come into the game on an 1-23 slump, so this was a huge hit for him. He also had our first hit, a double, earlier in the game.

Smoak continues to impress me... since coming back from the bereavement list he has hit .353 with 3 HR, 13 RBI and OPS of 1.127. He had another good game with a key 2B, RBI, and a BB.

Ichiro Bobblehead night, annoying! But, over 31,000 fans got to see a great, entertaining ballgame. My sister and I both got pizza (Pepperoni) from The Pen and enjoyed it, but we both agreed that it wasn't enough food as we were still hungry. An annoying aspect was that I asked for the white pizza but five minutes later it still wasn't ready, and I was starving so I gave up. About halfway through the game we got some Kettle Corn ($4.75) which was decent, but the stuff outside is cheaper and better!! We had fun and she reported that it was her third game this year already, which was more than all of last year. No Dancing Grounds Crew today, but they did do YMCA early in the game which I hadn't seen in a long time. Some famous skater dude named Rob Dyrdek threw out the first pitch and my sister tried to get his autograph but the line was too long.

This will probably be my only game of the homestand since I am under the weather and need to fully recover. However, I do feel the fresh air and great game helped me out. I will see, it will be very tempting to sacrifice my health since we're one win from .500! At one point we were 4-11.

Oh, the roof was closed and they wore those ugly teal tops as you can see in the celebration picture up top.

The Mariners are now 5-4 when I attend!

April Games Recap

I thought I would sum up each month of the season year in one post.

Fri Apr 8: CLE L 12-3. Vargas, Pho, Sold Out
Sat Apr 9: CLE L 2-1, Fister, Beef Thai 30,309
Mon Apr 11: TOR W 8-7, Felix, Turkey Crepe & W Pizza 13,056 (LU)
Tue Apr 12: TOR W 3-2, Pineda, Torta, 15,500
Mon Apr 18: DET L 8-3, Vargas, Burger, Sushi, Crepe 12,774
Thu Apr 21: OAK W 1-0, Felix, Potato, Cookies, Rice Krispies 12,770
Fri Apr 22: OAK W 4-0 , Pineda, Gyro 17,798
Sat Apr 23: OAK L 9-1, Vargas, Garlic Chicken

Record by Starting Pitcher:

Vargas 0-3
Fister 0-1
Felix 2-0
Pineda 2-0

Record by Day:

Mon: 1-1
Tue: 1-0
Wed: N/A
Th: 1-0
Fri: 1-1
Sat: 0-2
Sun: N/A

Record by Food:

Pho 0-1, Thai 0-1, Crepe 1-1, Pizza 1-0, Burger 0-1, Sushi 0-1, Potato 1-0, Cookies 1-0, Gyro 1-0, Garlic Chicken 0-1

Record by Scoring: 1-0

Att:

Mon: 13,056, 12,774
Tue: 15,500
Thu: 12,770
Fri: 45,727 (SO), 17,798
Sat: 30,309, 23,355
Avg Attendance: 21,411

Overall score: Opponent 40 Mariners 24
Run Differential: 16

Avg Runs Scored:
Opponent 5
Mariners 3

Greatest Run Differential Win: 4
Greatest Run Differential Loss: 9

Mariners total Runs Record:
1: 1-2
3: 1-2
4: 1-0
8: 1-0

Opponent:
0: 2-0
2: 1-1
7: 1-0
8: 0-1
9: 0-1
12:0-1

Overall 4-4
One Run Games: 3-1