Mother's Day beating by the Mariners

Last night I completely forgot to write the recap on the Mariners loss to the Athletics. Last night's loss was embarrassing, the fact of the matter is that the home plate ump played a part in the A's win. Home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez called a ball that was up in the zone a strike after that Kyle Seager grounded out to end the ball game. This call came with 2 runners on and on a 3-0 count, if the call would have been reversed the Mariners would have loaded the bases for Kendrys Morales, but instead Seager grounded out and the A's won 4-3. Well, now we move on to today. Before first pitch the Mariners have yet to lose a series since they lost 2 out of three to the Houston Astros on April 22-24. Safeco Joe Saunders entered today's game for his 13th start at Safeco Field where he still holds an unbeaten record with a 8-0 record with a 1.75 ERA. Saunders started off today's Mother's Day edition of Mariners baseball by going 1-2-3 in front of a crowd of 27,599 fans. In the three game series against the A's 25,000+ have turned up to watch their Mariners......now that's what I love seeing! None of this 15,000 fans or 9,853 fans, its awesome that 27,000+ turned up.

Now back to the game, the Mariners were looking to get over the past nights loss in which they hit 1-6 with runners in scoring position, so they were looking to get over that and start fresh today. Well, they did just that, as Michael Saunders got things started off by ripping a single into left field, Kyle Seager, who has been one of the most patient hitters the Mariners have had this season, drew a walk to bring up Kendrys Morales. Morales decided that he'll make his team 1-1 with hitting with runners in scoring position by ripping one into the Athletics bullpen and giving the Mariners the early 3-0 lead. Safeco Joe had a rough second inning by giving up two doubles and one the second double John Donaldson scored and the A's got their first run on the board. After Derek Norris singled, Nate Freiman grounded out to Brendan Ryan and thanks to some quick thinking by Ryan, he threw out Luke Montz out at home plate. Saunders then struck out Brandon Moss and got Michael Taylor to pop out to end the inning for the Athletics and erasing a huge threat.

Mike Morse got the bottom of the fourth inning started off by lining a double into left center field. Justin Smoak was able to move Morse over after grounding out to Jed Lowrie, following Smoak's ground ball Jesus Montero improved the Mariners RISP for the day to 2-3 as he lined a base hit to left field scoring Morse from third and the Mariners took a 4-1 lead. After Montero, Robert Andino and Brendan Ryan continued to struggle batting wise as both flied out to end the bottom of the fourth inning. The bottom of the fifth saw the Mariners scoring another run. Michael Saunders started things off by bunting himself on first. Saunders then showed just how fast he is, on a single by Jason Bay Saunders advanced to third on a bang bang play. Kyle Seager was able to score Saunders on a sacrifice fly and put the Mariners lead up to 5-1. 

The Mariners added one more run in the bottom of the seventh inning as Jason Bay hit a long one out homerun for his fourth HR of the season and the Mariners lead increased to 6-1.

The Mariners bullpen finished the game off for Joe Saunders. Yoenis Medina and Oliver Perez were able to finish off the Athletics. Medina came into the top of the seventh and was able to get Yoenis Cesepedes to ground into an inning ending double play. Medina would then have an easy 1-2-3 top of the eighth inning. Perez came into the top of the ninth inning and struck out the side 1-2-3. With this win Joe Saunders now is 9-0 lifetime at Safeco Field. The Mariners now improved to 18-20 and are only a half game behind the Oakland Athletics for second place, six and a half games out of first place, and are four games out of the first and second Wild Card spot. 

The Mariners get another off day tomorrow as they travel to the Bronx to face the aging, yet power hitting New York Yankees. Felix Hernandez will start game 1 of the 3 game series and go against C.C. Sabathia, Hisashi Iwakuma will go against Phil Hughes in game 2, and finally Aaron Harang will go against Andy Pettitte. All of these games will be huge not only for the Mariners starters but also the batters.

NOTES: Brendan Ryan went 0-4 lowering his batting average down to .122 and Robert Andino went 0-3 and lowered his batting average down to .159. Mike Morse had 2 hits for the first time in 9 games. Michael Saunders was able to break out of his 0-fer by going 2-4 scoring twice and raising his batting average to .286.