A pinch of Kendrys

Jeremy Bonderman took to the mound yesterday against the Oakland A's looking for his first win in four starts. Bonderman got off to the right start as he only allowed a Seth Smith single in the top of the first inning and got Yoenis Cespedes to strikeout. Endy Chavez lead off the bottom of the first inning with a single and after both Nick Franklin and Kyle Seager flied out Rauuuuuuuul Ibanez stepped in a knocked out his sixteenth homerun of the season, it was his 287th of his career, and the Mariners took the lead 2-0. Bonderman would have another easy inning in the top of the second and struck out the last batter of the inning again. 

He would continue to pitch well, in the top of the third he was able to get Seth Smith to line into a double play that was huge in the inning, but in the top of the fourth Bonderman would get the first two batters to fly out but walked the next two. He was able to recover by getting Josh Reddick to line out to Chavez in right field to end the threat for the Athletics. Ibanez put the Mariners up 3-0 in the bottom of the fourth inning with his second homerun of the game for his seventeenth of the year and his 288th of his career.

The Athletics would finally strike for a few runs in the top of the sixth inning. The A's began the inning with both Seth Smith and Jed Lowrie singling, Bonderman would get Cespedes to ground into a force out as Seager tagged out Smith for the first out of the inning but both Lowrie and Cespedes were able to get into second and first safely. Brandon Moss would load the bases up by hitting a soft fly ball that landed a few feet in front of Franklin Gutierrez, after a visit to the mound by the Mariners pitching coach Bonderman threw a wild pitch that allowed Lowrie to come home and score the first run for the Athletics. Bonderman would walk John Donaldson and that would be the end of his outing, Danny Farquhar was brought in to try and get out of the inning with minimal damage. Farquhar would get Josh Reddick to ground out for the second out of the inning and on the play Cespedes scored to put the A's deficit to one run, but Farquhar would get John Jaso to ground out to end the inning.

Gutierrez would come out of the game with a strained left hamstring and Jason Bay would replace him. In the bottom of the seventh inning Bay would lead the inning off by walking, Mike Zunino was able to get his first hit of the game and on the base hit Bay, who was out with his own hamstring problems, moved fast to get to third base. Michael Saunders would end the inning on a double play. Farquhar would get the first two batters out in the top of the eighth inning but Brandon Moss would tie the game with his fourteenth homerun of the year. 

The top of the ninth would see Oliver Perez come into the game, he would walk Reddick to start off the inning but got to bunt a pop out to Zunino, Nate Freiman to fly out and then got Coco Crisp to pop out to Franklin. Smith would start the tenth inning off by getting on with a lead off single. Perez would come through again in the clutch by getting the next three batters out including striking out Cespedes and Moss to end the inning.

Grant Balfour came into the bottom of the tenth inning looking to get the A's to the eleventh. Balfour got Justin Smoak to ground out to start things off, Zunino was able to get on base on a wild pitch, Saunders then finally came up in the clutch by singling to right field that allowed Zunino to get to third and put the game winning run 90 feet away. Kendrys Morales would then be brought up as a pinch hitter for Brendan Ryan and he didn't waste anytime and belted the first pitch into the right field seats to walk off the game in style with his ninth homerun of the year. The last time Morales hit a walk off hit was against the Mariners back in 2010 and in that game was the game that he broke his leg stomping on home plate, this time his teammates gave him room and Morales trotted slowly on home plate.

With their second win in row the Mariners improved to 34-43 and moved back into a half game lead over the Angels in third place and they are now only 10.5 games out of first place in the AL West and only 9.5 back of the Rangers. They get a well deserved day of rest today and will open a two game series against the 2nd place Pittsburgh Pirates and after that will get one more day of rest and open a three game series against the Chicago Cubs.

NOTES: With today's performance Raul Ibanez has gotten the nation thinking about getting him into the All Star Game and the Homerun Derby.