Blue Jays bats blow up

The Seattle Mariners were looking for their first sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre since the incredible 116 win 2001 season. Well that wasn't the case yesterday for the Mariners. During the top of the first inning Kyle Seager doubled with one out and the M's had their first runner in scoring position to start the game against the former 1st round pick by the Mariners Brandon Morrow. Morrow was able to recover from the Seager double and get out of the inning by getting Kendrys Morales and Jason Bay to ground out. Joe Saunders took the mound for the Mariners on Sunday and his bottom of the first didn't start the way he wanted it to. Rajai Davis doubled to begin the inning then Melky Cabrera bunted Davis over, and Jose Bautista drove him in with a sacrifice fly but that's all the Jays would get in the inning. The bottom of the second inning the Blue Jays would get to Saunders in a big way. 

J.P. Arencibia began the inning off with a single and then Mark DeRosa doubled to left, Maicer Izturis singled in Arencibia to give the Blue Jays the 2-0 lead. Munenori Kawasaki grounded out and on the play DeRosa scored from third and the lead was now 3-0 Blue Jays.

The top of the fifth was the inning for the Mariners. Brandon Morrow has always had trouble with his control in his career, during his career he would usually have a few good innings but then for some reason he would have a meltdown and walk batters and give up runs, the top of the fifth was no different. Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley both began the inning by walking, Jesus Montero was able to get an infield single on a play by DeRosa, Montero lined one to DeRosa and he tried to get the lead runner out in Ackley but thanks to Ackley's hustle he beat the throw and Montero also hustled down the line and he was safe at first. Robert Andino ground out to Kawasaki but on the throw to first Andino with his speed beat it out and on the play Smoak scored and the M's were on the board. 

Michael Saunders then drew the third walk of the inning and the following play Seager drove in Ackley with a sacrifice fly. Morales drew the fourth walk of the inning but Morrow recovered and struckout Mike Morse to end the inning.

The bottom of the fifth Cabrera lead off the inning by hitting his first homerun of the year, after that Saunders walked Bautista and gave up a single to Arencibia, following that Mark DeRosa hit a three run homerun to put the lead to 7-2 in favor of the Blue Jays. In the seventh inning Hector Noesi came into the game, he gave three more runs to the Jays. The Mariners after the fifth just couldn't figure out Morrow as struckout 5 more batters and didn't walk another batter as well. The Mariners 3 game winning streak was snapped and their record went down to 15-18. The Mariners are still 3 game under .500 and still own 3rd place by 4 games over the Angels and lead by 6.5 over the Astros. The first game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Aaron Harang will take the mound after coming off his first win of the season and will face James McDonald who has been struggling to keep his spot in the starting rotation for the Pirates. The final game of the two game series Felix Hernandez will face the National League strikeout leader A.J. Burnett. Burnett has a career record against the Mariners of 3-2 with a 3.71 ERA.

NOTES: So far the Mariners have had a great start to May going 3-1. They have been hitting .237 in the last 4 games. Kyle Seager leads the Mariners in batting average with a .293 and Michael Saunders is right behind him with a .283 batting average.

Felix and Kyle take care of the Blue Jays

Well Felix Hernandez took to the mound for the Mariners tonight against the Toronto Blue Jays. For the Blue Jays Ricky Romero made his season debut after not making the opening day roster for the team. Both Felix and Romero gave up only one hit through 3 innings and both struckout three batters. In the top of the fourth inning the Mariners struck for first blood, after Michael Saunders lead off the inning by walking Kyle Seager saw the first pitch he saw from Ricky Romero and drove it into the upper deck and the M's took the early 2-0 lead. Kendrys Morales, Justin Smoak, and Jason Bay all walked and Dustin Ackley came up (the night before he ended his 10 game hitting streak) and ripped a line drive single to right to drive in Morales and the M's lead 3-0. Now Brendan Ryan came up with 2 outs and the bases loaded and popped out to end the inning, now before he did that im not going to name the person but they tweeted the hashtag #BrendanStrong so after he popped out I tweeted the hashtag #BrendanSucks, so in response to that they blocked me. 

Don't get me wrong I respect Ryan for his glove but when you bat .141 your going to get dogged for it. Justin Smoak was batting bellow the Mendoza Line and his average after today's game stands at .243, so until Ryan gets above .200 he will continued to get dogged and bashed for his horrific batting.

So back to the game, Felix continued his dominance by throwing nothing but strikes and striking out batters along the way. In the top of the Jason Bay was looking to extend his hitting streak to 7 games, so he decided that the first pitch he saw he would as he drove one to right field for his 3rd homerun of the season and he put the Mariners up 4-0. In the bottom of the eighth inning Adam Lind lead off the inning with a double to left field, Felix then gave up a single to Colby Rasmus, so now Felix was in his first jam of the night. Maicer Izturis then lined one out to Seager and thanks to Seager paying attention and Rasmus not, Seager doubled up Rasmus. Seager wasn't the only one to make a fabulous play at his position, with former Mariner Munerori Kawasaki up at the plate he lined one down the right field line and thanks to a terrific Gold Glove play by Justin Smoak Felix escaped the inning and finished the night with 8 strong and brilliant shutout innings and he struckout 7 Blue Jays.

Tom Wilhelmsen was then called on for the second night in a row to throw just to get some work in. Wilhelmsen got the first two batters out easily but walked Bautista but didn't let it get him down, as he came back and struckout Edwin Encarnacion on three straight fastballs to close out the win for the Mariners and securing Felix his fourth win of the season. The Mariners have now improved to 14-17 and have now won 6 of their last 8 games and another good thing has been the hitting; the Mariners have been hitting .295 now in the stretch that the team has been on since the last home stand. Tomorrow's starter will be Joe Saunders as Hisashi Iwakuma's on-going blister problem continue's to effect the M's #2 starter.