Uh-Oh! The Mariners are playing a team in their own division tonight!!

timc67

The Mariners are coming off a sweep of the Red Sox and are playing well....until now, because they play Anaheim tonight. The M's are horrible playing against their west rivals. They are 23-15 against Eastern teams but have lost something like 20 straight games against the West (A's, Angels, and Rangers). Its a mystery really as to why they can't win against these teams. Any thoughts Axtell?

Axtell

I don't know what their problem is.

They've lost 14 straight to the A's, and 20 or 21 over all to AL West rivals...they are at home, where they've been playing especially well.

I hope they can build on winning 5/6 from the yankees and red sox. Chris Snelling has been crushing the ball since he came off the DL, Ibanez went over 100 RBI as of last night, and Beltre has been on a tear for several months.

Lopez and Bettencourt make a solid combo up the middle - and both are young with tons of talent.

timc67

Yeah, Chris Snelling has been hitting well since his callup from Tacoma. I love Bettancourt as a shortstop.

timc67

King Felix is pitching well tonight. He just struck out Vladimir Guererro and has a shutout going against the Angels in the 6th inning.

Axtell

Felix pitched a 5 hit shutout, and the game only took 1:51 to complete. He completed the game with just 95 pitches, and 70 were strikes.

Snelling went 0-4 tonight, but he's still showing plenty of promise.

Axtell

Also forgot to add, this win ended their horrific 20 game slide to AL west opponents, the longest divisional losing streak since baseball was split into divisions in 1969.

Axtell

Was just thinking about Felix's performance last night...though nine innings he threw just 25 balls...that's less than 3 an ninning, to go with his 70 strikes.

Don't know why I didn't pick up on that last night, but that seems to be an incredibly low number of balls.

Axtell

Another win tonight for the M's...coming home sure has helped them. 6th win a row is their longest streak in 3 years.

Snelling had a great night (again) 2 - 5 with 2 jacks, Beltre had another great night, and Ibanez drove in 2 more runs.


On a very serious note, M's reliver Rafael Soriano took a bullet off the bat of Vlad Guerrero...he crushed the ball and Soriano had no time to avoid it, took it right off the side of his face. He went off on a stretcher...please keep him in your thoughts.

ToppsCo1lector

From what I hear about Soriano, he suffered a concussion(low grade) but never lost conciousness(which is as good of news as one could get from an incident like this). I saw the play on espn.com and I mean come on it's Vlad; not many guys crush a ball like he does. Hopefully Soriano will get back and be able to come over the mental block that is sure to come into his mind as he is recovering. Congrats to the M's to putting a hot streak together, for a while they looked dead in the water but they could definetly get back into the AL West race; who knows. I'm pulling for the Angels because Orlando Cabrera is there SS.

Axtell

Great news...Soriano was released from the hospital today. No fracture, nothing more than a concussion. It looked much, much worse.

Mariners aren't sure if he'll pitch again this season, though I wouldn't be in a rush to put him back out there, I'd think they'd want to make sure he doesn't spend all offseason worrying about it.

Axtell

Oh well, the streak was fun while it lasted.

Beltre and Lopez had tough nights, but Bettencourt made an inredible play at short ranging far, far, far to his right and throwing out the batter at first.

ctsoxfan

Glad Soriano is okay. He has been a big part of that bullpen this season, with Sherrill and Putz.

80sJunkie

Axtell

80s:

wrong thread, perhaps?