Tough Loss to Houston

A time when the Mariners really needed to win against the Astros the bullpen and the offense decided to collapse. I might be exaggerating a little bit however I am sure you know what I mean.

For the second game in a row going against tough starting pitching the starter for the Mariner came to pitch. On Tuesday Ariel Miranda had his best outing for a while not giving up a home run at all. His struggle though was able to get the ball over the plate. He walked six batters in six innings while striking out five batters. In six innings he didn’t give up a single hit. He threw 112 pitches because of the lack of control so he had to leave the game. When he left the game the score was tied at 1-1.

Miranda was replaced by James Pazos who got one out and walked a batter in the seventh inning. Emilio Pagan came in and gave up a two-run homer for the final score of 3-1. Like in most cases the Mariners lost a game scoring three runs or less. Pagan has been struggling late I believe because he hasn’t pitched this late into the season. Right now I would give him a few days off or not put him in situations like this for a little while. Ryan Garton and Shae Simmons pitched the eighth and ninth innings not giving up a run.

Justin Verlander pitched six innings in his first outing for the Astros giving up one run on six innings and struck out seven with one walk. The one run he gave up was a home run to Kyle Seager in the 4^th inning. The seven total runs in the game three of them were off the bat of Robinson Cano.

The Mariners will have another tough game on Wednesday facing Lance McCullers Jr who just returned to the rotation. He will face Andrew Moore for the Mariners who recently was called back up from Tacoma. The Mariners hope to get a good outing out of Moore like they did with Ramirez and Miranda with a better result score wise. This game will be crucial since the Mariners don’t have many more games to lose where they can stay in the wild card race. We hope that the offense can come back alive in this final game against Astros. They have Thursday off before facing the Angels over the weekend at Safeco Field. Go M’s.