Mariner Continue Slide

 

 What can we say about the seven game road trip where the Mariners went 1-6. Sunday was most brutal having a 9-3 lead going into the ninth inning and the Angels coming back to score seven runs to win 10-9.

What made it frustrating was the Mariners pitching including the bullpen had done a good job going into this game. The offense had trouble in the previous six games and this one looked like the Mariners would win pretty handily before the ninth inning. The ninth inning started with Casey Fien giving up a home run to Albert Pujols.  At this point that was OK however Fien continued to have trouble that closer Edwin Diaz came in the game with the bases loaded.

The problem happened that Diaz had trouble getting outs himself. He was unable to use his slider affective and the Angels were able to hit his fastball. A major problem was that Diaz wasn’t expected to pitch in the game with such a big lead and I am not sure if he had enough warm up time either.

In the previous six games the Mariners bullpen was effective though there was a little trouble before with Nick Vincent and Fien.

The Mariners are expecting to have Tony Zych coming off the disabled list. He did get a little action with Tacoma though they had rainouts in their first two games against Sacramento on the road. I would not be surprised if Zych takes the spot of Fien on the roster. Most likely Zych will pitch in the sixth or seven inning most of the time unless there is a big lead like Sunday in Anaheim. We hope to that Diaz won’t struggle in another game like that for a little while.

The important thing is that the Mariner players keep a good attitude on their shoulders.  We hope that the offense on Sunday will continue and the bullpen especially will correct themselves. The starting pitching had done a pretty good job in all seven games. The Mariners could have won at least three of the games in these seven. We have to keep the faith that they will start winning on a regular basis.

The Mariners start playing a three game series against the Houston in Seattle. We hope that the Mariners could win at least two of the games before facing the Texas Rangers and the Miami Marlins.  Go M’s.