Mariners Three Down and One To Go

The Baltimore Orioles came into Seattle on a good seven game winning however the Mariner players had other ideas and now have won three games and look to get a sweep.

Saturday night with the return of Mike Zunino in his first game starting after coming up to replace Steve Clevenger who got a broken hand and will be out for a couple months. General manager Jerry Dipoto said that Zunino would be around as long as he can contribute in hitting. Everyone knows how good a catcher he is just needs to be able to hit at a decent clip.  Saturday night was a good start where he hit two home runs that helped the Mariners win 12-9. The Mariners had three other homers besides the two by Zunino. He will be starting again on Monday night in the first game the Mariners play in Houston. The Mariners will have a better idea of how things will go with Zunino when heading into the all-star break that is next week after the Mariners go against the Astros and then the Kansas City Royals over the weekend. After the four day break the Mariners will come home to face the Astros once again.

Mike Zunino was able to show everyone the promise he had in 2014. If he does well during this stretch the Mariners will have two good capable catchers on their roster. I am sure they will look to use them both about half of the time. If Zunino has to be sent back down to get more development in Tacoma Iannetta will be back to being the primary catcher and whoever comes up will be in the same role as Clevenger. The Mariners hope that Zunino will be back where he was in 2014 and why he was drafted as the third overall pick in the amateur draft.

Scott Servais and Jerry Dipoto wanted to wait a game to put Zunino into a game because he knows James Paxton who started while Iannetta knew Wade LeBlanc more who started and won on Friday night.

This series against the Orioles is showing us how the Mariners can do when both the offense and the pitching can work together. This is especially true of the starting pitching where they have been able to go six innings or more most of the time though James Paxton went five and two thirds inning. He left the game with the bases loaded however Tom Wilhelmsen was able to get the last out.

Nathan Karns pitched the final three innings getting the save. He pitched well again coming out of the bullpen though he did give up a two run home run to Chris Davis which was his twenty-first of the season. I figure if you can stop the rest of the Orioles lineup besides Davis you are doing well. Karns looks like he has made the transition to the bullpen pretty well. He is valuable for the Mariner in the same fashion as Mike Montgomery another former starter who can go one to three innings in an outing. Both of them can save the rest of the relievers from being over worked. Everyone in the bullpen will be ready to go Sunday except for Karns. We will have to see if he can bounce back on Monday in Houston or wait until Tuesday. Whatever the case he is valuable in the bullpen though I am sure he liked to pitch in the rotation. Iwakuma will be pitching for the Sunday against the Orioles. So we do hope for nice sweep in the series. Go M’s.