Paxton Blanks Rangers

Can James Paxton pitch better than he did Saturday night? I am sure he can however the rest of the major leagues are not sure whether they want to find out or not. He gave up two hits and was pitching a no-hitter into the sixth inning.

Texas pitcher Cashner was matching with Paxton until the sixth inning when the Mariners exploded for five runs that included a three-run homer by shortstop Taylor Motter who is filling in for Jean Segura who is on the disabled list. Segura may come back this coming Friday. I am sure that we will see Motter playing a lot still. He is showing power off his bat. Not only he has hit home runs he has hit some doubles as well.

The other player who has been hitting well is right fielder Mitch Haniger. He got a couple more hits on Saturday and is batting .292 along with three home runs.

Haniger and Segura the Mariners traded for with the Arizona Diamondbacks in the last off-season for pitcher TaiJuan Walker and shortstop Detel Marte who currently is playing in triple A. So far the trade with the Diamondbacks has favored the Mariners. Not only because of the production out of Haniger and Segura had every year Walker and Paxton’s names come together. Now that Walker’s not on the Mariners Paxton’s name is the only one mentioned. This could have taken pressure off of Paxton and why he is pitching so well. In three games starting so far Paxton hasn’t given up a run as of yet. Whether he or Felix is the ace for the Mariners doesn’t really matter. In fact you could say the Mariners have two aces at this time.

Paxton pitched eight innings giving up the two runs along with nine strike outs. Also he only gave up one walk in the game. It is hard to get more domineering than that in a game. If this game had been pitched in May or later I am sure that Paxton would have pitched a complete game.

According to manager Scott Servais the bullpen right now will have to do with matchups instead of who is pitching what inning except that Edwin Diaz will be the closer in the ninth inning. Since this game was not a closing situation Nick Vincent pitched the ninth inning for the Mariners. When it comes to matchups Vincent certainly did the job he struck out all three batters he faced on thirteen pitches.

Sunday Iwakuma will be facing the Rangers to see if the Mariners can sweep them. If they are able to the Mariners record will go to 5-8. What makes this an interesting game is that Iwakuma a far different pitcher than Paxton. Iwakuma’s fast ball may hit 90 on a good day while Paxton’s will reach the upper 90’s along with that Paxton is a lefty and Iwakuma is a righty. It will be interesting to see how the Rangers will adjust to the situation.

Monday the Mariners will start a three game series at home against the Miami Marlins. The Mariners will see Ichiro in action. It has been a while since the Mariners have faced Ichiro. Monday Ariel Miranda will face the Marlins followed by Gallardo and Felix Hernandez. Both Miranda and Gallardo have had their moments. They have both pitched well along with poorly. In his last outing Gallardo pitching against the Houston Astros had a 5-0 lead going into the fifth inning however could not sustain his pitching. The Astros were able to recover to win the final game of their three game series against the Mariners in Seattle winning 10-5. The worst pitching performance of the season so far by the bullpen; major reason that manager Servais has decided to go with matchups.

The Mariners hitting still needs to improve however Saturday did show some light. It would be nice to see if the Mariners could put together some scoring over a number of innings instead of five in one inning. We will take what we can at this point. Go M’s.