Seattle Sports Insider

M's toss 0-2 reverse sweep to DOA Padres

GAMEFLOW

The M's in the top of the 1st inning looked like they wanted to make up for the humiliation of game one. Segura smacked a single and stole second, and then Robinson Cano smoked a long single to score Segura easily. 1-0. Even after that, Boomstick racked a menacing line drive and then Ryan Healy singled. Seager struck out, looking every bit the 70-single man that Mo' Dawg sez he is, but still it looked like all the makings of a nice comfy 8-3 win vs. a 100-loss team.

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Inept M's Watch Playoff Chances Go Up In Puff of Smoke

And by "watch their playoff chances vanish" we don't mean in the sense of the old sportswriter cliche. Well, we do mean it that way, but more we mean that the Seattle Mariners stood out on Petco Field and watched the San Diego Padres play baseball.

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SSI Sudoku

BJOL provided us a little puzzle, if you're looking to use a cup of coffee's worth of time to figure something out about baseball.

Earlier he had flatly stated that a good SEQUENTIAL offense is superior to one that's based around "everybody let's hit home runs together." Now he runs into an offense that is both of those things:

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Orcs lose 6-4

Trevor Cahill took the mound and blanked the Twinkies for the first couple of innings while the A's took a 2-0 lead. But in the middle innings, the Twins ralled. Two walks and two singles tied it 2-2 and then in the next inning, two more singles and then a blast to CF by Mitch Garver put the Twins up 4-2; Joe Mauer singled him in and it was a 5-2 lead the Twins hung on to. Bringing us to

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Quick Reads - Mariner and Seahawk

Site's been down for half a week, guys. Sorry bout dat. There's an "extra" post up at D-O-V.

MLB's Jane Lee points out that not only is Edwin Diaz the 2018 MVP, but also consider

While teammates Robinson Cano, Felix Hernandez, Kyle Seager, Nelson Cruz, Mike Leake and Dee Gordon earn a combined $103 million this year, the Mariners can least afford to lose the 24-year-old Diaz, who is taking home the MLB minimum $570,000 while racking up saves and strikeouts at a record pace.

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M's Playoff Chances

.... have now hit life support. The standings, with 36 games left:

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M's 5, Dodgers 4

GAMEFLOW

In the top of the 1st, the Dodgers scored a bit of a tough run on an Erasmo Ramirez that had not yet found his starter's rhythm. A leadoff walk, a grounder moves him over, another groundout for two out, and then a ground ball finds its way up the middle to score the leadoff man Joc Pederson. With our offense, you had to wonder how long that early lead would hold up.

But in the bottom of the first the M's went nuts. Haniger with a walk, then an out, then Robby Cano singles sharply off the glove of the 3B putting men on first and third. Boomstick showed his 60 HIT tool with a line drive to RIGHT field for a tie game --- > and then Kyle Seager gets a mistake, and drills it into the right field bleachers. 4-1 M's and already the taste of Friday's awful game was rinsed out of Dr. D's mouth.

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Coming Through at the Plate

SIGH, SIGH, SIGH and THE PENNANT CONTEXT

As we've all known for about three weeks now --- > if the Oakland A's continue to play .800 baseball, they're going to not only beat the Mariners, but the Astros too and then pull a 1976 Reds clean sweep of the playoffs. In other words, our rooting investment depends completely on the proposition that a .500 roster will eventually start playing .500 ... with maybe a losing streak in there.

Dr. D continues to man the crow's nest and wait, wait, wait for that A's stumble. He'll let you know if they lose ten in a row. I think they're watching in Houston, too.

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Quick Reads

Jerry Dipoto explains that Ben Gamel (slashing a cool .354/.427/.600 in Tacoma) was sent down, rather than Guillermo Heredia, because of short-term platoon matchups. When we get past starts by Dodgers Rich Hill and Clayton Kershaw, Gamel is likely to be back up:

“Ben will factor in again very quickly,” Dipoto said.

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M's 2, pesky rodent Orcs 0 in --- > satisfying retaliation

Mike Leake had a 2-hit shutout to had the ball to Alex Colome in the 9th. Line score: 8 2 0 0 1 6. This guy is a #4 starter? It pushes the M's record in Leake starts to 17-8 and Leake's ERA back down to 3.90, that being #20 in the American League.

This leaves the M's starters at #17, #19, #20, and #21 in the entire league, with the Twin Closers, so it's not going to take that many runs. As it is, the M's sit 70-52 which is no record to sneeze at.

For the second time this year Dr. D writes the game without having seen it, which is Jamesian in the sense that he's spent his life deciphering what happened on baseball fields from the available records ... :- )

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