Mariners at Royals Game Two Notes

The Mariners were set for another wild one without even knowing it. For the past two nights, the Mariners have played uncharacteristic Mariner ball. They have scored a lot of runs and have had relatively lousy pitching.

• Luke French took the mound for his Mariners debut, and you could tell he was amped up and nervous. He gave up 4 runs on 9 hits in only 5 innings.

• Rob Johnson had himself a night, continuing to show signs that his bat is coming around. He went 2-for-4, and came around to score on both hits. He showed a lot of promise in July, hitting .269 with a walk rate of 16.1%.

• Adrian Beltre came through with his first hit since returning from shoulder surgery, and later came around to score. He went 1-for-5 on the night.

• A cat decided it was going to mosey out on to the field during the top of the fifth. Well, it didn’t exactly mosey out on the field – after a long chase, the grounds crew ended up chasing it into the Royals bullpen. Mariners fans may recall a similar incident at the Kingdome, which resulted in a member of the grounds crew being forced to wrestle with a kitten all the way to the dugout.

• Jose Lopez continued his hot hitting, going 3-for-5 while knocking in 3 runs and raising his average to .281. Lopez’s OBP has continued to rise every month of the season, going from .325 in the month of June to .327 in the month of July. His slugging percentage has consistently been around .500, coming in at .519 last month.

• Russell Branyan checked in with 2 more hits  on the night to go along with 3 RBI and a run scored.

• One other note is that David Aardsma was not available tonight due to a boil, which he had removed today. The rest of the bullpen Warriors got some bad news when they were informed by a MLB representative that the helmets, which they have carried out to the bullpen all season, were not part of standard MLB equipment, and could no longer be displayed.

The Mariners continued to pound on the Royals inconsistent pitching tonight, leading to an 11-6 win. Lefty Jason Vargas takes the mound against Bruce Chen (yes, he’s still alive) tomorrow at 5:10 PM PT.

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