Harang takes care of the O-Brids

Aaron Harang entered last night's game with an 0-3 record and an 11.37 ERA so a lot of Mariners fans didnt have too much confidence in his pitching abilities. The first inning was impressive though as Harang got the Orioles 1-2-3. The Mariners also backed up Harang in the bottom of the first inning, with 2 outs Kendrys Morales was able to land a single in center field as Adam Jones couldn't make the catch. Following Morales's single Mike Morse drew a walk and Jason Bay ripped a double down the left field line and scored Morales and the Mariners took the early 1-0 lead to help out Harang. Harang had another easy 1-2-3 inning in the second and the M's followed his easy inning by scoring two more runs in the bottom have of the second. The bottom half of the second began with Jesus Montero legging out his first major league double, thanks to Adam Jones's bubble blowing mistake. Michael Saunders drove in Montero with a single to right and the lead went up to 2-0 in the Mariners favor. Saunders then stole second base for his fourth base of the year, Morales then drove in Saunders and the M's lead was now 3-0.

Harang kept up his impressive pitching performance lowered his ERA by 3 runs over the next 2 innings of shutout baseball. In the bottom of the fourth Mike Morse took Wei-Yin Chen deep for his 9th homerun of the season since Saunders lead off the inning off with a single when Morse hit his homer the M's took the 5-0 lead. In top of the sixth the Orioles finally got to Harang, with two out Manny Machado doubled, following Machado's double Nick Markakis singled home Machado and the O's got their first run on the board. Adam Jones who was having a tough night doubled to right field scoring Markakis, Harang was finally able to get out of the inning after striking out Chris Davis to end the inning. 

The Mariners helped out Harang one more time as in the bottom half of the inning Saunders and Seager both lead off with singles and Morales drove in both runners and the lead was now 7-2. Jason Bay gave the M's one more run with a sacrifice fly that scored Morales and gave the M's the 8-2 lead.

The M's bullpen took care of the Orioles for the rest of the game. Carter Capps went one and two innings but did give up a run on Manny Machado's solo homerun. After Capps gave up back to back singles after Machado's homer Eric Wedge brought in Charile Furbush and he did the job by getting Chris Davis to go down swinging on strikes. Tom Wilhelmsen was called onto close out the ninth in a non save situation. Wilhelmsen got the Orioles 1-2-3 and the Mariners closed out the homestand at 5-2. 

NOTES: Dustin Ackley ended his 10 game winning streak. Harang lowered his ERA by 3 runs during his performance. Jason Bay extended his hitting streak to 6 games, during that stretch he has raised his average from .184 to .276.  

Looking back on April

Well, April is gone and it is May. So that means a fresh month for the Mariners. This month the Mariners will begin off in an interesting way, they start off the month of May against the Baltimore Orioles in the rubber match of a 3 game series at home. The M's will also start their interleague schedule to by traveling to Pittsburgh to play the Pirates for the first time since 2007 and it will be the M's second trip to Pittsburgh, the last time the M's played in Pittsburgh they swept the Pirates in a 3 game series, the Mariners have a record of 5-1 against the Pirates. During this month the Mariners will be suffering from homesickness as they will play 17 or the 26 games on the road. The Mariners finished off the month of April with a 12-17 record, in 3rd place, and only 6.5 games out of first place. Ok yes I know that this is just a "me telling you the stats of the month blog" but thats because its only the first paragraph. During this month the Mariners managed to hit .242. 

During the month of April the M's still had problems with their achilles heal team the Chicago White Sox as they went into Chicago and was able to win the first game of the series but lose the last 2 games putting the Mariners record at Comisky Park over the last 4 year to 4-15 and their total record over the last 4 years to 4-18, they also struggled against the Houston Astros as they have only managed 2 wins in the 6 games they have played against them this year. The Mariners first opponent on the road this month will be the Toronto Blue Jays, who are 10-17 to start the year. The Mariners have been hitting well over the last 8 games and along with hitting for average the M's have had power to back up the team as well. Mike Morse has hit 8 homeruns in April and to tell you the truth i cant even remember when a Mariner hit 8 homeruns in April or in that fact in one month! Kendrys Morales and Kyle Seager both have hit 3. Seager leads the team in hits with 31 and leads the team in batting average with a .292 average! Now for pitching the M's top pitchers Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma have both posted an ERA bellow 2, Felix with a 1.90 ERA and Kuma with a 1.67 ERA and both of them have also been striking out batters as well.

The Mariners only problem that they need to work on going into this month is hitting with runners in scoring position. The Mariners posted a .206 batting average with runners in scoring position for the month of April which is only 4th worst to the Chicago Cubs who are hitting .165 with runners in scoring position. If the Mariners are to make a run for the post season they have to figure out a way to get hits when it matters, and it matters when the bases are loaded with nobody out! Another woe for the Mariners is the pathetic batting of Brendan Ryan, Jesus Montero, and Raul Ibanez. All three are hitting bellow the Mendoza Line; Ryan is hitting .149, Ibanez stands at .158, and Montero is hitting .200. Fans are wondering when Wedge is going to put his foot down and send them down to the minors or release them and call up Mike Zunino and Nick Franklin. Another problem the M's will face is Aaron Harang who in his three starts has posted an 0-3 record with an 11.37 ERA and fans are wondering as well when Wedge will either go find another pitcher in free agency, make a roster move to bring up Jeremy Bonderman from Triple A, or release him. 

So from now on, every monthly recap ill make a prediction of how the team will do and for the month of May im going to say they will finish 17-10. This month i believe both Morse and Smoak will pick things up as they have towards the end of April. 

Maurer gets birdbashed

Brandon Maurer entered last night's game on a great roll posting a 2-1 record with a 1.89 ERA in his last 3 starts so you know he felt great going into the game. Well, Nate McLouth decided to say hi in the rudest way possible, a lead off solo homer to right and the Orioles took the early 1-0. In the last 3 starts Maurer would've brushed off that lead off homerun, but unfortunately Maurer didn't brush it off, instead Maurer gave up a double to Manny Machado on the next pitch and following that Maurer threw two wild pitches that enabled Machado to move to 3rd and then score. After giving up a single to Nick Markakis and walking Chris Davis, Matt Wieters doubled home both Markakis and Davis and the O-birds took a 4-0 lead, Maurer finally got out of the inning but after one inning his ERA jumped from 5.61 to 6.75. The Mariners hitters had some work to do now as they faced Jason Hammel. The M's hitters would only muster two hits from Kendrys Morales and Mike Morse but couldn't get anyone in. Maurer was able to get over his rough first inning and threw three shutout innings. After the 4th inning manager Eric Wedge brought in Blake Beaven to relieve Maurer. 

Beaven was able to keep the Orioles at bay until the top half of the 6th, the inning began with J.J. Hardy singling and Ryan Flaherty doubling, Chris Dickerson then singled home both runners and the Orioles now took a commanding 6-2 lead of the Mariners. The bottom half of the 6th was where the M's tacked on their first runs. Mike Morse got ahold of one and took Hammel deep for his 8th homerun of the year. Jason Bay continued his hot streak by singling off of Hammel along with Justin Smoak. After a pitching change Dustin Ackley put his hitting streak to 10 games with a single and loaded the bases for Kelly Shoppach. Shoppach grounded out and was able to leg out to first and on the play Bay was able to score the Mariners trailed by 4 runs. Brendan Ryan continued his reliability by grounding into an inning ending double play. The Orioles added an extra run in the top of the 7th inning and extended the lead to 7-2. After that the M's would not get another run and the O's bullpen shutdown the Mariners to close out the game.

NOTES: Brandon Maurer took the loss in the game and put his record to 2-4. The Mariners go for the series win today in the rubber match. Aaron Harang will look to get his first Mariner win tonight, Dustin Ackley will look to extend his hitting streak to 11 games and Jason Bay will look to extend his hitting streak to 6 games as well.