Will Jerry Dipoto take the Mariners far?

Welcome to Seattle Jerry Dipoto! The Mariners newest general manager was introduced just this past Monday and so far I love the guy! Dipoto has noted the problems the Mariners have and has said that he is planning on making sure that each problem is taken care of. Manager Lloyd McClendon has been link to speculations that his job and him coming back next season maybe in jeopardy. ESPN's Jim Bowden noted saying that Dipoto wants to take some time to get to know McClendon before making any decisions. Dipoto was quoted saying that the Mariners OF is the position that needs to be taken care of first, with free agents like Dexter Fowler and Denard Span on the market for this upcoming off season.....not bad targets to help boost the outfield huh?

Dipoto was asked by Seattle Times writer Larry Stone if a Felix Hernandez trade or looking for other opinions besides Nelson Cruz was in the mix. Felix is coming up on 30 years old, which is the typical age that players seem to decline, and Cruz is 35 and has just come off back-to-back 40 home run seasons but Dipoto shot both notions down.

Brad Miller and James Paxton are two high trade targets, even with Paxton's injury plagued 2014-15 seasons, and could be moved possibly this off season for other targets that could help the Mariners this upcoming season. This Tuesday on Mariners Talk podcast both me and Russell will go into more details about who the Mariners could trade for and which team could use both Miller and Paxton. Ketel Marte has the shortstop position locked up possibly. But what about the first basemen position and two other possible outfield spots along with the starting pitching and bullpen? Dipoto faces a difficult off season ahead of him.

Hisashi Iwakuma is up for free agency this upcoming off season so I'm pretty sure that Dipoto will want to lock him up for a couple more years, but what about David Price or Johnny Cueto? Both Price and Cueto are perhaps the highest valued pitchers on the free agency, so is Dipoto going to try and strengthen the starting role with a big signing like Price or Cueto along with Max Scherzer? All three will go off the market quick in my opinion, but again there still leaves the bullpen, first base, and the outfield.  Mark Trumbo or Jesus Monterto will take control of that role, now as for the outfield Cruz has RF locked up but CF and LF are missing. . .so who does Dipoto go after for those two spots?

Jason Heyward, Fowler, Span, and Yoenis Cespedes are all up for grabs. Heyward first off is going to be staying in St.Louis so I'll take him off the list but that leaves Fowler, Span, and Cespedes. Cespedes has done nothing but help the NY Mets get to the postseason for the first time in nine years and to be honest I'm not sure the Mets are going to be able to hold onto to him, so there's where Dipoto comes in and snags one helluva free agent pickup! So, that takes care of LF so now all that's left is CF.

Fowler and Span are the two candidates that are really the only guys that I would consider Dipoto going after. Span is having hip surgery so the question people are asking is this "will Span be the same Span after his surgery"? Good question, if he doesn't have the speed he used to then Fowler is the guy you need. Fowler is going on 30 but the guy still has the speed and the glove to help the Mariners out in a big way.

This Tuesday you can tune into Mariners Talk podcast at 7 PST and hear me and Russell talk about these topics and more.

Felix bullies the A's in home debut

What do you get when you have 38,968 fans and 25,000 have yellow shirts and K cards? You get the first Supreme Court of the season and King Felix Hernandez didn't disappoint the fans. The day before this game he and Macklemore did a commercial for the #ChangeTheGame campaign for anti-bullying but boy it seemed he didn't want to promote anti-bullying against the Athletics.

Felix improved to 3-0 for the first time in his major league career and also improved his record against the A's to 17-7 in 31 starts with a 2.60 ERA. Though the bullpen nearly fell apart in the top of the eighth, thankfully they were able to hold the A's off and Fernando Rodney shut the door and shot his arrow to finish off the A's.

The Mariners offense the other night was only able to get one hit of Angels starter Garrett Richards, tonight was different story as the M's hitters decided to pound the A's pitching staff with 12 hits. Abraham Almonte got things started with the first pitch as he drilled a line drive to left and thanks to his amazing speed he was able to leg out his third double of the year, following that Brad Miller laid down a bunt that turned into a base hit thanks again to speed.

If you remember early this year the Yankees coaching staff said that Robinson Cano never hustled........well things change, Cano legged out his second infield hit of the season and on the play Almonte scored the first run of the game.The Mariners were able to load the bases with one out, but unfortunately Kyle Seager popped out on a high 3-2 pitch and Stefen Romero struck out on an off speed pitch and so A's starter Tommy Milone escaped the first with minimal damage.

Lets talk more about King Felix. Felix began the game off by retiring the first 10 batters he faced and struck out 6 batters in the first four innings. Felix continued his domination while his offense decided to give their King the run support he deserves.

The bottom of the fourth started off on what looked like a lead off home run by Seager but after replay review it turned out that Seager just missed his first home run of the year by a few feet, so after running around the bases and thinking he finally got that big hit he was searching for he ended up striking out on the next pitch, Romero struck out as well on another off speed pitch. So with two outs the Mariners decided to put the 2000 slogan to work again "2 outs so what?".

Dustin Ackley got his second hit of the game and following that Mike Zunino grounded to Josh Donaldson who's throw went wide and into the crowd which allowed Ackley to score Zunino was then able to score on another error by the A's and so the M's pushed their third run across.

The Mariners added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth. Ackley got things started with a half swinging single to left and following his single Zunino drove an inside pitch into the A's bullpen to give the M's a 5-0 lead. After a pitching change by the Athletics Brad Miller showed off his impressive power swing by driving a long one over the center field wall for his third homer of the season and pushing the Mariners lead to 6-0. After the sixth inning Felix went out and struck out the side to push his strikeout total to 11 for the night and while the M's were up to bat Felix decided that he wanted to throw one more inning even with 100 pitches under his belt.

Felix hit the first batter he saw in the eighth and then gave up a single to Eric Sogard. Lloyd McClendon then made the smart decision of coming out to relieve Felix of his duties for the night, and so Felix walked off to a standing ovation from 38,000+ fans giving thanks to the King for one amazing night.

The Mariners bullpen though was not as hot as Felix was, Lucas Luetge was brought in and walked the first batter he saw on four straight pitches so McClendon decided to relieve Luetge and give Danny Farqhuar a shot. That didn't fan out as great as McClendon intended, as Farqhuar walked Jed Lowrie with the bases loaded so that brought the A's first run home, Farqhuar was able to strike out Donaldson but McClendon went to the bullpen for the third time in the inning and brought in Charlie Furbush to try and stop the bleeding.

Furbush gave up an RBI single to Brandon Moss which made it 6-2, following that Yoenis Cespedes legged out a fielder's choice and on the play Sam Fuld scored and made it a 3 run ball game. To make things worse Furbush threw a wild pitch that allowed the fourth run to come across and score, thankfully on the very next pitch Furbush got Alberto Callaspo to pop out to Justin Smoak to end the nightmare inning.

Rodney was then called upon in the ninth inning to close things out and secure the M's 6th win and 1st place in the West. After giving up a lead off double to John Jaso Rodney settled down and Daric Barton to pop out and fooled Sogard with one nasty changeup. A's manager decided to send in another pinch hitter in Mariners killer Coco Crisp, so McClendon decided to make a quick trip to the mound to talk things over with his closer.

What ever Lloyd said to Rodney it worked, as he threw three straight changeup's to Crisp and got him to swing on the third one for the final strike of the game. Rodney shot that arrow towards the heavens and earn Felix his third win of the season and earned his third save of the year.

So the M's are back in first place in West, I know its early but you gotta take in the fact that the M's are over .500 and are in 1st place. Tomorrow the M's send Erasmo Ramirez to the mound who will look to have a better outing against Oakland than last time where he allowed five runs on seven hits, Sonny Gray will go against Ramirez and so tomorrow's game is basically a rematch of last Sunday's game.

Players of the Game: Felix Hernandez 7+ IP 4 H 2 R 2 ER 0 BB 11 K
                                Mike Zunino 2-4 HR 2 RBI 2 R
                                Brad Miller 2-5 HR RBI R
                                Dustin Ackley 3-4 2B 2 R

Frankly Seattle steals a win from Oakland

The Mariners came into tonight's game one game under .500 for the road trip, so you can guess that they were looking to win tonight to get to .500 on the road trip. With Joe Saunders on the mound the A's decided to get to him in the first inning. After a lead off triple by Jed Lowrie, Derek Norris singled him home and then John Donaldson hit a two run home run to put the A's up 3-0 early in the game. The Athletics added another run thanks to Nate Freiman's fourth home run of the year, after that Saunders walked both Chris Young and Josh Reddick but thanks to Saunders picking off Young and then getting Eric Sogard to ground out he was finally able to end a 40 pitch inning. 

The Mariners were finally able to get their first runs against Sonny Gray in the top of the third, after Michael Saunders drew a four pitch walk Nick Franklin hit his 11th home run of the year and so the M's were back in the game trailing by only 2 runs. Joe Saunders came back though after a 40 pitch 1st inning and gave the Mariners 5 more innings, after that Brandon Maurer came into the bottom of the seventh inning and had a nice 1-2-3 inning with one strikeout. 

In the top of the eighth Gray was brought out of the game and replaced by Sean Doolittle and tonight was not the night for the Athletics bullpen. The inning began with Michael Saunders collecting his first base hit of the night and extending his hitting streak to three games, Henry Blanco then hit a sharp line drive to left that Yoenis Cespedes couldn't hold and on the play Blanco motored into second base. The next two batters came through in a big way for the M's, Brad Miller blooped a curveball into centerfield that allowed Saunders to walk home and then Franklin hit a sharp line drive to left that scored Brendan Ryan (who pinched ran for Blanco) and so the game was all knotted up at 4-4. 

Doolittle was taken out of the game and Ryan Cook was brought in, Cook was able to get ahead of Kyle Seager in the count at 0-2 but then threw four balls in a row and Seager drew a walk. With Kendrys Morales up to bat Cook threw a wild pitch that allowed Brad Miller to hustle home, score, and give the Mariners the 5-4 lead, then Morales ground to Alberto Callaspo who threw home to try and cut down Franklin, but thanks to Franklin hustling hard he was able to score but paid a price for it. 

On the fielder's choice play that Franklin scored on he was accidentally spiked by Derek Norris but thankfully he was able to walk on his own to the M's clubhouse with a gash in his knee and a huge hole in his pants as well. Franklin tweeted (@NickFrank20) that he was ok and only needed 5 stitches and will be back in about 5 days.

The M's weren't finished after Franklin scored, Cook threw one more wild pitch that brought Seager into score and the M's went up 7-4 after the eighth inning. Yorvis Medina went to hill in the bottom of the eighth inning, he began the inning off by walking Chris Young but came back and struck out Josh Reddick and after Callaspo grounded out Medina walked Sogard, he got Lowrie to ground out though to end the inning for the A's. Danny Farquhar then came into the top of the ninth inning to shut the door on the Athletics and secure the M's the win and the best comeback of the year for the team. Farquhar was on his A-game as he struck out Stephen Vogt, got Josh Donaldson to ground out, and struck out Cespedes on a 75mph curveball. 

So, the Mariners are now 4-4 on the road trip, but this win had to be the best victory and comeback of the season, especially taking the fact that Joe Saunders gave up 4 runs in the first and threw 40 pitches in the inning as well. Mike Morse went 0 for 4 tonight extending his 0 for streak to 0 for his last 18 at bats. Tomorrow the Mariners go for the series win as they begin playing at 1:10 and after that they get a day of rest and then start a quick 6 home stand. Hisashi Iwakuma will look to get his 13th win tomorrow. 

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.

Blanco saves Felix

Eric Wedge decided to start Henry Blanco today. Blanco caught Felix once in the World Baseball Classic so Wedge figured that they would communicate well together. The Mariners were on the national spotlight today as the game was broadcast on FOX. The Mariners would go down easily in the top of the first, but Felix would not have such an easy first inning. Felix would get the first batter in Coco Crisp to strikeout but John Jaso would walk and after striking out Yoenis Cespedes Brandon Moss singled to put runners at first and second but thanks to Felix being as clutch as he is managed to strike out John Donaldson to end the bottom of the first. Felix threw 24 pitches in the first inning.

Raul Ibanez lead off the top of the second by singling and Mike Morse followed by singling himself. Michael Saunders was able to continue his struggles by striking out with nobody out then both Brendan Ryan and Henry Blanco popped out to end the top of second inning. Felix had another long inning has he finish the second by not allowing a hit or run but threw an extra 18 pitches giving him 42 total pitches in only two innings of work. In the third Felix would have an easy 1-2-3 inning by throwing 16 pitches and putting his total to 58 in three innings of work. The fourth inning saw Felix strikeout two batters and get Donaldson to ground out and only threw 13 pitches.

The fifth inning brought some excitement to both sides. The Mariners started off their half of the fifth with both Blanco and Ryan flying out. Endy Chavez was able to leg out an infield single, Nick Franklin followed Chavez by doubling down the right field line but unfortunately Chavez couldn't score and was held up at third. Kyle Seager was unsuccessful in bring home the M's first run of the game and popped out to end the inning. Jed Lowrie lead off the Athletics half of the fifth by doubling and putting the A's in a position to take the lead on Felix. Felix was able to escape the inning in one hell of a fashion, he got Seth Smith to fly out and then Chris Young flew out and on his fly out Lowrie was cut down trying to score and Felix was in and out in only 8 pitches.

Kendrys Morales lead off the sixth inning by singling just past the diving Eric Sogard. Mike Morse drove one over the head of Chris Young on the play Morales was able to mooch on into third base. Michael Saunders was intentionally walked to bring up Henry Blanco and on the first pitch put the Mariners up 4-0 with his second grand slam of his career. Felix would get into a jam in the seventh inning after the first two batters got on with singles but he was able to strikeout Donaldson and got Jed Lowrie to ground into the inning ending double play. Charlie Furbush and Yorvis Medina finished off Felix's 106 pitching gem and secured the series over the A's.


NOTES:The Mariners are now 6-3 against the A's this season.