M's 3, Indians 1 - Gameflow
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Zach McAllister was cruising along rather easily, whereas Iwakuma was holding the Indians down through grim determination. After six innings, the Tribe had outhit the M's by 7-3, just about like Tuesday's game. The score was tied 1-1, just like Tuesday's game. And with the M's new power bullpen, the win felt scripted, just like Tuesday's game. Kyle Seager scrounged a double and my son looked shocked at something ... Seager's slide, maybe? "Man, Dad, this game is exactly like last night's."
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With the score tied 1-1, Seager grounded that long single past the second baseman and ... took off for second. OH NOO NOO NOOOOOOOOOO! He's out by 15 feet ... no, throw's on the wrong side of the bag MAN! he's FAST! and Seager does a "Superman" boot camp exercise to raise his torso up off the dirt. His hand slides under the tag and, technically, Seager gets to the bag before the ball gets to him.
This is the Mariners. Ball beats runner, runner out. Except, this time, the ump makes a Yankee call, and makes sure the Yankee is tagged out correctly. The ump signals Seager safe. Yes, Virginia, the umpires do respect the M's scramble up the ladder. Slap me silly and call me Shelley.
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John Jaso walks ... for the second time in the game; that's 21 walks against his last 9 strikeouts, by my count ... and Eric Thames comes to the plate. MoetheDog and I had been laughing about Al Oliver and Eric Thames looking like line-shot doubles every time they took their stances. Vinnie Pestano, who had just barbecued Jesus Montero, fired a 92 MPH fastball up and in, where Thames couldn't reach it. Thames fired a 92 MPH line-shot double down the RF line.
Capt. Insano time. The one significant difference between Wednesday and Tuesday: we were back to the routine ninth innings.
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The M's are -7.0 behind Oakland, with whom they have 6.0 games remaining, and who are suddenly -1.0 key players off their roster after roids suspensions. Talk about a gutkick: Bartolo Colon had a 116 ERA+, the ballclub was 14-10 in his games, and he was scheduled to start TODAY. Check out the A's pitching stats the last 30 days. Colon had a 1.57 ERA the last month, but Blackley, Parker, Milone and McCarthy have all been 4.88 to 6.18 the last month. True, they just got Brett Anderson back. Still no fun to lose your hot starter like that.
The M's are -6.5 back of Balmer, with whom they have 3.0 games remaining. Balmer also has 7.0 games left with the Yankees, 6.0 with the Red Sox, 3.0 with the Rays and 4.0 with the 68-55 White Sox.
If the M's did get to +10 over .500, it would be over the A's dead bodies anyway, so Merks could be right. May turn out that an 86-76 M's team had to worry about the White Sox / Tigers, rather than the A's and O's.
Bring it on,
Dr D