The Mariners Scored More Runs Than The Other Team!

It hasn’t happened often this month.  In all of September, the Mariners had won only five games coming into today.  Charlie Furbush started for the Mariners, so hopes were slim.  In fact, I bet ratings were slim because it’s the Indians and Mariners.  It might’ve been interesting if Cleveland hadn’t lost so much ground, but here they are, just as irrelevant as Seattle is.

Today wasn’t really a shocker, however.  You can’t be surprised with outcomes like this.  Of course baseball teams score into double digits into occasion.  Of course the pitcher of record can take home a win while giving up six earned runs.  It happens.  Sometimes I wonder how often this happens when people who deserve it are on the mound.  Say, Felix Hernandez.  The last time the Mariners scored 12 runs, Anthony Vasquez was on the mound.  He needed it.  He really needed it.  The most run support Felix has ever received this season was nine runs against the Yankees.  It happens, but those extra three runs make the difference.  That buffer, that extra distance.  It happens, but I swear it doesn’t happen enough when the Mariners need it to.

Despite a lack of offense over the weekend, the Mariners bats finally got hot.  Furbush may be a part of the Mariners future, he may not be.  At least he got to enjoy run support for a day.

Not every Mariner pitcher gets to say that.

Gumby had an interesting outing today.  He struck out eight Indians today, six of which were consecutive strikeouts. This leaves him one strikeout behind Mark Langston for that record in the Mariners franchise.  That’s not bad company.  In a day where he sets his career-high strikeouts in a game, he also gets to say he came close to tying a record.  What if he would’ve broken it!  The stories he could tell.  But that’s not the story he gets to tell, no.  His six earned runs also tie his career-high for most earned runs given up.  While on one hand, he was sharp.  It may be skewed because the Indians are sixth worse in the league K% with 20.7 and sixth worse in Contact% with 79.3.  They sort of strikeout a lot.  This will be great for Furbush’s confidence, because giving up six earned runs is not good.

People have shown concern with his delivery, but his arm angle looks like it can be deceptive, and it creates a sidearm-type break to his stuff.  His fastball is sitting around 91 mph, and his curveball has nearly a 20 mph difference.  This afternoon, out of the 95 pitches he threw, 61 of them went for strikes, giving us a 64.2% strike rate.  This is deceptive, because while it stands to reason this shows he had great control, he was lacking great command.  The homeruns he gave up to Asdrubal Cabrera and Carlos Santana covered too much of the plate, and he paid the price.  On the positive side of this, out of the 37 swings Cleveland took against him, nine of them whiffed, giving us a 24.3% swinging strike rate.  Again, this also could be deceptive, but out of his eight strikeouts, five of them were swinging strikeouts.  More than half!  Of what I could catch on the TV by the time I made it home, he made Kosuke Fukudome look silly whiffing on a good curveball.  I’m not sure if this was a step in the right direction, but it was a step.  See?  Interesting.

The Mariners third was probably the most exciting third inning of this season.  Nine runs!  If you square root that, you get three again, so there’s some crazy stuff right there for you! Numbers, pfft.  Firstly, Mike Carp, everybody.  Carp came to the plate twice in that inning.  In his first appearance, he doubled in Luis Rodriguez.  In his next at-bat (which means the Mariners batted around, what?!), he belted his first career gland slam on an inside slider:

I don’t think Carp’s power is in question anymore.  His slash line is .273/.332/.458, and although his average has been dropping, when he does make contact, he has been stinging the ball.  Much like Dustin Ackley‘s toolbox, luck isn’t found in Carp’s either.

The next cool storyline we can find is that Alex Liddi finally flashed some power, belted his first homerun of his major league career.  It was a long, slow swing, but it displays what kind of power he has.  It was on a 78 mph curveball that was a bit inside but still caught enough of the plate for him to mash it.  Interestingly enough, the previous three pitches thrown to him were 90 mph fastballs, one of which he swung through.  There’s no way to know if he read the ball well enough out of David Huff‘s hands to belt that curveball, or if his swing was sped up because of the pitch sequence.  Either way, he did well, and if he continues to do well, he’s force the Mariners hand into giving him more playing time.  Oh, Italians.  Always so forceful.

• This was a makeup game.  This game was to “make up” a game that couldn’t have been played.  Today, there was a rain delay heading into the eighth inning.  Detroit has clinched their division.  Cleveland is 11 games behind the wild card.  The Mariners are eliminated from anything meaningful in baseball.  Why was there a 43 minute rain delay?  Oh, authorities.  Always trying to get the last word.
• Right before the rain delay, Root Sports showed a husband and wife, holding up signs to receive rally fries.  The sign cataloged his travels, his “ultimate roadtrip”.  This consisted of: Mariners @ Cleveland, Seahawks @ Pittsburgh…I don’t want to continue, because this is already depressing me.
• Miguel Olivo batted cleanup again.  I don’t know if I can trust the people in charge of this franchise if this keeps happening.

The Mariners start their last road trip of the year tomorrow.  For real, this time.  Not this, random-makeup-game-in-the-middle-of-the-week nonsense.  And it’s two teams that are completely relevant in baseball!  Oh wait.

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