Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Mariners Time to Turn the Corner!


 Right when the Seattle Mariners we think have turned the corner winning two out of three in Anaheim against the Angles they lose the first two games at home against the Royals.

Yes the Royals have been playing pretty good ball as of late after starting off poorly the Mariners should be winning these games.

Monday night they lost to the Royals 3-1. The Mariners had a good pitching performance out of rookie pitcher Andrew Moore making his second start for the Mariners. He went eight innings for the Mariners giving up the three runs on five hits without walking a batter he struck out four. Two of the three runs were on solo home runs. Rookie James Pazos finished off the game giving up two hits in the ninth inning however he struck out two as well without yielding a run. Pazos has had an outstanding year so far for the Mariners. He has an era of 2.91 in thirty-three appearances and striking out 43 batters. He has walked fourteen batters and has given up three home runs. The Mariners only run was scored by Kyle Seager on a wild pitch. He was on base on a walk. Danny Valencia who continues to hit well got three of the four hits and the other one was by Mike Zunino.

Tuesday afternoon on the fourth of July the Seattle Mariners lost 7-3 to the Royals. They did take a 2-1 lead in the first inning after Merrifield led off the game with a home run however Felix Hernandez couldn’t keep the lead giving up three runs in the fourth inning and another two in the fifth inning. He pitched a total of six innings giving up six runs with five being earned and he gave up two home runs. The unearned run was on an error by Robinson Cano.

Felix was replaced in the game once again by Yovani Gallardo who actually pitched a good three innings. He gave up one hit that was a triple in the ninth inning that lead to a run. Ben Gamel who came into the game after not starting for Mitch Haniger in right field almost made an outstanding catch on the triple. Gallardo struck out three batters as well without walking a batter. So far he has done well in that role coming out of the bullpen to pitch a few innings. On the positive side these two outings against the Royals have rested the bullpen.

The Mariners now have five games remaining at home before the all-star break. It would be nice if they could rebound and win four out of the five games including the remaining game against the Royals Wednesday night.

The Mariners offense needs to get back into high gear over the next five games. If they don’t won’t help them going into the second half of the season and July. The Mariners have a rough August schedule mostly being on the road so it is very important to win the majority of these games or they will be out of contention. In August they have only seven games at home and they are in the middle of the month.

One of the guys who is really struggling at the plate is Kyle Seager who struck out three times on Tuesday afternoon and he left five runners stranded on the bases. He didn’t look good in any of the three strike outs. In fact he looked very out of balance. The Mariners need him to be productive at the plate the rest of the way for the Mariners to succeed. Tuesday Nelson Cruz was back in the lineup and he drove in two of the three Mariner runs on two hits. Jean Segura had four hits in the game including the lead-off hit in the game where he scored on Cruz hit. Later Danny Valencia got a hit as well and was driven in by Cruz.

The Mariners need to hit consistently in the game instead of getting ten runs in one game and then getting shut out in the next game. The Mariners pitching can only get them going so far; although he has struggled Felix at least getting the team into the sixth or seventh inning. Now time for the team to work as a unit go M’s.  

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