Moving On To Baltimore

On Sunday the Seattle Mariners lost to the New York Yankees 5-0. Right now the Mariners are 1-5 on the current road trip. They could have won a game in New York while winning another in Boston. They had leads that got away including the one they were leading 10-5 against the Red Sox then lost 14-10. If they can sweep the Orioles that will give them a 5-5 for the road trip which I am sure most of us would jump up and down on though be better with at least one or two wins heading into Baltimore.

Sunday’s game the score was 0-0 going into the fifth inning. Marco Gonzales struggled once again in the fifth and the sixth inning. It was lower part of the lineup that allowed the Sox to score three runs in the fifth and then first baseman Mitch Moreland hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning to put the game out of reach.

Red Sox Ace Chris Sale dominated the Mariners going seven inning giving up four hits and striking out thirteen Mariner batters. He walked only one batter and lowered his era to 2.56. Not an easy thing to do go out and beat the ace of a team though the Mariners have done so on several occasions.

Casen Bradford and Nick Vincent each pitched an inning for the Mariners to keep the bullpen rested.

News came out that Nelson Cruz was American League player of the week. A lot of that had to do with him hitting two home runs, a single and driving in seven runs in the game that looked like they would win before blowing the 10-5 lead. He hit well against the Yankees as well. Cruz spent a year in Baltimore before coming to Seattle so we hope that he continues his hot hitting there as well.

Jean Segura will be back in the lineup Monday against the Orioles. The Mariners lineup will look like normal except that Chris Herrmann will be at catcher and batting eighth just ahead of Guillermo Heredia. If you are wondering about Mike Zunino he struck out three times on Sunday after having Saturday off. I am sure the Mariners have him working on his swing.

Felix Hernandez takes the mound on Monday against the Orioles. If he pitches anything like he did in New York the Mariners should win the game. The rest of the series will be James Paxton on Tuesday followed by Wade LeBlanc and Mike Leake. This shows that the Mariners have a pretty good chance winning all four games though winning three would be OK as well. We hope that the starters can go six innings so the bullpen continues to have rest. We hope that they get back to normal after pitching poorly against the Yankees and Red Sox. Andrew Cashner goes for the Orioles Monday and he has a record of 2-8 with an era of 4.72 so a good sign for the Mariners. It is important that they get to him early and we hope that Felix will be able to go six innings at least. Go M’s.