Another Blown Game

I could easily say the Mariners had another blow save however they have had a lot more blow games over the season. In fact most of the losses in the last month or so have been blown games.

I mentioned on social media after Thursday’s blown game against the Kansas City Royals that the Mariners lost because they did not play their A game. In this game which was a walk-off double that gave the Royals 4-3 win. The Royals should have had only one runner on base because Cishek hit a batter making two batters on base. So a hit like that could have made it a tie instead. Of course we never know what could have happened either without the additional runner on base. We will never know because the Royals could have scored another run as well with batter on second.

It was a tough game because James Paxton pitched a really good game for eight innings. I believe he should have been left in the game to finish it off. He deserved the chance to finish the game however the manager decided to take him out. Sometimes I think the manager over does things sometimes. I would call it over managing. Although Cishek’s job is to be the closer I believe the manager like in this game should leave the starter in the game. Just because almost every manager would do the same thing doesn’t mean you have to. I am sure if Felix Hernandez was in the same situation he probably would have been left in to finish the game.

Back to the Mariners playing their A game; we saw in the series against the Baltimore Orioles how effective they are when playing their A game but I see if they are not doing so in most circumstances they will lose. The Mariners are one of those teams when they are playing A minus or less likely they will lose.  There are times playing A minus or less they will win games but in most cases this will not happen. The main reason they play so many one run games. In fact they have played more one run games than any team in the majors so less than A game they are showing that the chances are pretty highly that they will lose. They have on occasion won one of the games like when Adam Lind hit a walk-off home run. The only other times I see them winning without the A game is when the offense has scored a lot of runs and the pitching along with defense has been below par. An example of that would be if they won 10-5.

On Thursday night the Mariners showed without solid defense they will lose again despite great pitching. Early in the season they were winning because the offense and defense were working together even if the pitching was not at full par but the defense has not been that way for some time. Right now they are ranked with the worst defense in the major leagues.

I heard before the game the Royals have the third best hitting team in the American League but dead last in scoring runs so they showed Thursday night if the other team gives them additional at bats they will take advantage of the situation. Right now the Mariners have to work on the defense along with running the bases. We have seen over the season that they get in trouble giving outs away on the base paths too. A team like the Mariners one or two mistakes will cost them the game a lot of the time. Again they must play at the highest level to win. The Mariners do not have the talent to overcome mistakes though I believe most teams don’t.

Iwakuma will be pitching for the Mariners on Friday night. He needs to pitch near what Paxton did on Thursday night and no mistakes by the defense or offense. This all comes down to it that the Mariners have to get at least another player or two to be a good team. Go M’s.