All-Star Recap: Mariners Edition

The 84th Major League Baseball All-Star Game just came to an end. It was a typical low-scoring game, as pitching always seems to dominate the Midsummer Classic. Despite that, there were some exciting moments, and the American League came out on top, by a score of 3-0.

The scoring came on three separate occasions, in the 4th, 5th and 8th. The first came on a sacrifice fly from Jose Bautista that scored Miguel Cabrera, the second on a fielder’s choice from JJ Hardy that brought teammate Adam Jones home, and the last came on a double from Jason Kipnis that scored Salvador Perez.

All in all, the American League had 9 hits on the game, while the NL only had three. Five of the AL’s hits were for extra bases, with doubles from Mike Trout, Jason Kipnis, Miguel Cabrera and Adam Jones, and an unlikely triple from Prince Fielder. The NL had two singles, and a double from Paul Goldschmidt.

As it relate to the Mariners, the game wasn’t very eventful. Hisashi Iwakuma did not pitch due to throwing on Sunday, so one of the team’s two representatives ended up not do much representation. The other, Felix Hernandez, whose Cy Young chances I wrote about earlier, pitched one solid inning.

He ended up making his appearance in the 4th inning, giving up one hit, with no strikeouts or walks. All in all, the game was pretty lame from the perspective of a Mariner fan.

The MVP ended up being Mariano Rivera, who pitched the 8th inning rather than the 9th. Jim Leyland seemed to want to make sure he got in the game rather than let him close. I think that was a very bad idea. I see why he did it, but a 3-0 lead in the All-Star game seems pretty safe.

Other than that, Leyland did a better job managing the game than Bochy, and that likely played a part in the AL winning the game.

Oh, and there is this: