Tonight’s game certainly wasn’t the ideal start to a tough road trip for the Mariners, but fortunately I don’t think anyone really expected us to win this game. The M’s sent Jason Vargas to the mound to face the young left Clayton Kershaw.

Things were pretty bad from the get go, with Andre Ethier hitting his first HR of the night, a 3 run shot, in the 2nd inning to give LA an early lead. That lead just kept expanding until it eventually ended up at 8-2.

Vargas got whacked around through pretty much all of his 4 2/3 innings of work, and the M’s offense really couldn’t do anything with Clayton Kershaw. Andre Ethier provided nearly all the offense for LA, hitting three home runs and driving in six.

Roy Corcoran came into the game in the fifth and pitched poorly, again, and it’s looking like he may be the one to go when Shawn Kelley returns to the pen.

Tidbits from the Mariners side – Ichiro went 2 for 4 and stole a base, Jose Lopez had three hits and drove in both of the Mariners runs, and Ronny Cedeno made a few excellent defensive plays at shortstop. If only he could hit.

Other news and game notes:

Ichiro’s hit streak is now at: nine games.

The Rangers and Angels both won today in blowout fashion, so the M’s fall back to 3 1/2 games out of first place.

Erik Bedard is scheduled to return for a July 4th start against Boston, which is too bad as we could really use him over these next two series.

I for one, would be happy to take one out of three from the Dodgers, and tomorrow is our best chance, with King Felix taking the hill against Eric Milton.

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