The M’s Take 2 Out of 3 From Boston

Jeff Bailey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The way we’d been playing, this recent series against the Red Sox was a very nice surprise. Personally, against a team like Boston, I wouldn’t have been disappointed with one out of three. Fortunately though, the Mariners obviously weren’t, evident by the way they battled today in the rubber game of the series. Vargas got himself into a lot of jams early in the game, but was able to minimize the damage each and every time. This included a situation in the 5th inning, in which the bases were loaded with nobody out for Jason Bay. In a situation like that, I didn’t see any possible way they weren’t going to score, but Vargas miraculously got Bay to pop out to first, before getting Lowell to ground into his second double play of the game.

Both bullpens put forth strong performances, and the game remained tied at 2-2 heading into the bottom of the 9th inning. After a quick two outs, Ronny Cedeno weakly bounced a groundball in the hole between 3b and shortstop. Nick Green appeared to have plenty of time to throw him out, but instead of doing that he airmailed the ball about 10 feet over the head of Red Sox first baseman Jeff Bailey.

With two outs and the winning run on second, the Boston Red Sox naturally issued a free pass to Ichiro. All I can say is thank God Wakamatsu finally put Gutierrez in the two hole. Guti grounded a 1-0 pitch from Ramon Ramirez under the glove of Mike Lowell and into left field. Cedeno was able to score easily from second base, propelling the Mariners to a series win over the Boston Red Sox.

The M’s start a four game series with the Angels tomorrow, who are coming off of a three game sweep at the hands of the division leading Texas Rangers.

Tomorrow’s pitching matchup: SEA – Jarrod Washburn (3-2, 3.11 ERA), LAA – John Lackey (0-0, 0.00 ERA)