Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Mariners Even Series With Walk-Off


The Seattle Mariners lost the opening game on Monday with the Oakland A’s at Safeco Field 7-3. James Paxton haven’t pitched because of illness only went four innings in the game throwing 71 pitches giving up two runs on three hits. Both of the runs were solo home runs on mistakes. I am sure that Servais felt Paxton couldn’t really throw more than the 71 pitches. We hope that in his last outing which could be on Saturday he will be able to go further. He left the game with the Mariners being behind 2-1 so the Mariners obviously had the chance to still win the game. Adam Warren who was the second reliever in the game gave up a solo home run in the sixth inning to Khris Davis hitting his 46th home run of the season. Although it hasn’t happened this way but it feels like all his home runs are against the Mariners. Sounds like Mike Trout and a few other guys too. The Mariners though tied the score in the bottom of the sixth inning with two runs including solo home run by Dee Gordon. Oakland won the game scoring two runs in the seventh and eighth inning. Matt Chapman hit a two-run homer off of Shawn Armstrong in the seventh inning. It was his first two runs given up since he was brought up at the beginning of the month of September from Tacoma. Casey Lawrence gave up the final two runs.

On Tuesday night the Mariners made a come from behind to win the game. Mike Leake not pitching well gave up three runs in the top of the first inning however Nelson Cruz hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the inning to tie it which was so good for the Mariners. Leake had problems where he continued being hit giving up three more runs in second inning. He didn’t give up a home run at all though he did give up a triple to lead-off hitter Nick Martini then gave up seven singles. Leake should have been out of it in the first inning when a throw by Jean Seager was dropped by Ryon Healy at first base. It was a difficult grounder to Segura so it was ruled a single.

Leake only went one and a third innings. It was the shortest outing of his career. I was surprised that Servais came to take Leake out with one out the score being 6-3. Though it was the right decision I was surprised because he never did that with other pitchers early on like Felix Hernandez.

The Mariners scored a run in the second inning plus another on a home run by Jean Segura to make the score 6-5. It looked like a game being high scoring. Chasen Bradford finished off the second inning. It was his second game in as many days.  He went the one inning than was replaced by Roenis Elias who pitched three innings giving up one run on a homer in the fifth inning. Rookie Matt Festa came in for Elias giving up a run on three hits over one-third of an inning. He was replaced by left James Pazos getting the final two outs of the inning. The rest of the bullpen didn’t give up a run including Edwin Diaz pitching the 10th inning and Alex Colome in the 11th inning. The Mariners tied the score 8-8 in the bottom of the ninth inning off of A’s closer Blake Treinen. Colome was the winning pitcher as Chris Herrmann pinch hitting for Andrew Romine who pinch run for Ryon Healy in the bottom of the ninth then played first base. Herrmann hit a walk-off two run homer in the bottom of the eleventh inning. It was off of former Mariner Emilio Pagan pitching both the 10th and 11th innings for the A’s. It was his first loss of the season. Also it was the first time the A’s gave up a run eighth inning on.

This now gives the Mariners a record of 86-71. So they could still win 90 games with missing the playoffs. Felix Hernandez will start Wednesday’s night’s game in the final game against the A’s.
The final series against the Rangers will be Marco Gonzales on Thursday night followed by Wade LeBlanc on Friday. Saturday and Sunday games haven’t been mentioned who will start however the Mariners could go with Paxton and Leake to end the season. I will give my final report card for the season certainly won’t be as good as the first half.

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