Mariners Win in Houston

Going into the ninth inning of Thursday’s night game against the Astros in Houston the game was tied 3-3. The game had gone back and forth. Miley had another good pitching game going six innings after doing a complete game in his last outing.

I was thinking when Leonys Martin was coming up to lead off the ninth inning to get onto base in any fashion. I want the Mariners to score at least one run because I don’t want the Astros to win the game in the bottom of the ninth. So Martin started the ninth getting single followed by stealing second base. Aoki the leadoff batter who is really good of late drawing walks or pulling the ball so Martin could go to third actually drew a walk. Another good sign since Seth Smith was coming up and he had a good game. He ended up walking as well to load the base. I thought wow the Mariners have the chance to score at least the one run I was hoping for if not more. Now Robinson Cano came up to bat and he lead the American League in runs batted in so I figured yes the Mariners should score at least a run. Well Cano hit a ball to deep center field that went for a double and scored all three guys Martin, Aoki and Smith. I knew then that the Mariners had a pretty good chance to win. Those were the three runs the Mariners needed.

Steve Cishek the Mariners closer who had already saved eight games in eight opportunities came in to try to save another game. My thought was he could give up two runs but not three or more. All he had to do was throw strikes and not walk anyone. He did so getting the first two getting outs and then the third batter got a single hit. I thought this is OK because he at least did not walk the batter. The next batter hit a fly ball to left to Aoki to end the game. So now the Mariners had another successful win. Now they have won four games in a row. Tonight the Mariners have TaiJuan Walker going for them. He seems to always be facing the Astros. His last outing was not as successful as his previous ones however I expect that he will pitch well enough to give the Mariners another chance to win a game. This is all we expect out of the rotation is to give the Mariners at least the chance to win and let the bullpen and the hitters do the rest of the work. This formula will mean the Mariners should win a good amount of games over the season and make the playoffs.

Robinson Cano right now is doing an excellent job and his batting average has risen up to being near .300 mark. This is the reason the Mariners signed him to such a high and long contract. The important thing is that at least one or more of the batters ahead of him will get on base along with Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager can do a job too. Recently we see if at least four of the batters can do the job regardless where in the batting order the Mariners are in good shape. Dae-Hoo Lee showed us that on Wednesday hitting two home runs batting eighth in the order. Now we hope that his counterpart Adam Lind can heat up when he is facing right handers and batting sixth.

What I like about Cano and Cruz is that they are both showing leadership roles whether they are hitting well or not. The whole team is working together as a unit and anyone can be a hero in any given game. Also this shows how Edgar Martinez is working as the hitting coach along with all the other coaches and manager Scott Servais. So we can continue saying Go M’s.