Mariners Win Despite Themselves

The Seattle Mariners started off the game in good fashion scoring five runs in the first two innings including a home run by Nelson Cruz. He and Cano have now gotten back to hitting well. After hitting the game winner on Monday Cano hit two doubles on Tuesday that drove in three runs.

Jarrod Dyson who has been doing well had a couple hits in the game well as scoring two runs. In the eighth inning in a tight game that turned out to be the winning score 8-7 Dyson threw out a runner at third base. That play made the difference in the game. The Mariners could have lost the game if he had not thrown out the runner.

The player that was big for the Rangers was left fielder Joey Gallo who hit a long solo home run off of Erasmo Ramirez in the fourth inning. That homer allowed the Mariners to take Ramirez out of the game. It was his first start in a while so he was only able to go three and a third innings on fifty-eight pitches.  He was replaced by Casey Lawrence who was recently called up from Tacoma. He did fine until the sixth inning with no one out and two runners on base Joey Gallo hit another home run. Up to that point the Mariners had an 8-3 lead scoring three runs themselves in the sixth inning. I believe the Mariners should have had lefty specialist Marc Rzepczynski to face left handed hitting Gallo. He did come in the sixth inning to replace Lawrence however it would have been more comfortable had he faced Gallo instead. It was good that the bullpen was able to shut the Rangers down after that.

Ariel Miranda will pitch in the final game of the series for the Mariners Wednesday night against the Rangers. We will see if he is able to lead the Mariners to sweeping the Rangers. Right now the Mariners are two games over five hundred at 55-53 with a two lead over the Los Angeles Angels and four over the Rangers to be in second place. The Rangers have Andrew Cashner going for them. At this time it looks like even money as far as I am concerned who will win the game. The great thing is that the Mariners hit well in Arlington Texas. It would be great to win this game before going to Kansas City to take on the Royals. The Mariners have a four-game series against the Royals and since the Royals are ahead of them for the wild card it would be nice for the Mariners to three out of the four games. Now that the Mariners are over the hump when it comes to five hundred it would be nice if they can get more victories. What is important that their starting pitching does well? If they can pitch at least six innings with three runs or fewer than the Mariners have a good chance. Unfortunately neither Hernandez or Ramirez did so but the offense was able to overcome the pitching however the bullpen does not need so much pressure on them. We will see how they do coming up. Go M’s.