Yankees Even Series

The New York Yankees under the pitching of Sonny Grey beat the Seattle Mariners Saturday afternoon 6-3.

The Yankees took the early lead in the second inning scoring a run to make it 1-0. Cooch Ruiz tied the score for the Mariners in the top of the third on a solo home run his second of the season. The Yankees took the lead for good when Jacoby Ellsbury hit a three run homer to put the Yankees up to 4-1.

The score kept that way until the seventh inning when the Yankees scored two more runs including another RBI by Ellsbury. He drove in four of the Yankees six runs. Those two runs were off of Casey Lawrence who came in the sixth inning to replace Gallardo who was supposed to face Ellsbury the first time after giving up the three run homer. Now the score is 6-1. The Mariners scored two runs in the top of the eighth inning with Kyle Seager and Guillermo Heredia each driving in a run. Cano came in to pinch hit for Taylor Motter with two runs on base and two outs however he struck out to end the rally and the final score being 6-3.  Now this is another game where the Mariners lost scoring three runs or less.  The positive side the Mariners only used two pitchers so they have a bullpen that will be ready to go on Sunday afternoon if necessary.

Andrew Albers who the Mariners picked up from the Atlanta Braves after James Paxton went on the disabled list will make his third start. He is 2-0 in those starts and going ten innings. If he can go the same way on Sunday as he has the previous two games then the Mariners have a good start in winning the game. He will face Masahiro Tanaka who will make his second start after coming off the disabled list. In his last start he gave up three runs on six hits through seven innings. If Albers can go five or six inning giving up a couple or three runs and the Mariners can get three runs off of Tanaka then they have a good shot in beating the Yankees and taking the third series in a row on the current road trip. Even if the Mariners don’t win they will go into the series against the Orioles in Baltimore with a record of 5-4.

Jean Segura and Ben Gamel who have been their best hitters almost all season are right now in a slump. Neither one got a hit in Saturday’s game. It will be nice if they can rebound on Sunday and have a good series against the Orioles. I expect that Segura will come back because he has the history of doing so though Gamel doesn’t.  Not known right now whether Cano will be in the lineup on Sunday or wait until the Orioles series. The Mariners may move Motter over to shortstop to give Segura the day off if Cano can play. It is nice to see that Heredia was able to recover quickly when he was taken out of the game on Wednesday when he was hit below the elbow. Right now he has done well especially defensively along with making key hits when the Mariners are scoring several runs in one inning. Right now he is my favorite player and I like all the outfielders along with Segura. They are bringing some young spark to a team that is older in the other positions except catcher with Zunino. Recently Zunino has picked up his hitting. It would be nice if he can keep it up. The Mariners can use his hitting to go along with his defense. Until next time go M’s.