While I started watching this game on Friday – it was the one free TV game this week on regular television. I unfortunately fell asleep watching it. I guess as I get closer to 50, this kind of thing is going to be happening more often. :(
Justin Grimm got the start, and early on I thought he was doing to do OK, if not dominant. In the end, he did get a technical quality start, having gone 6.2 innings, allowing just three runs. He did however, allow ten hits – a bit too many. A “weeble” performance, for sure.
He had some help in the field, by what turned out to be one of the weirder plays I’ve seen. It looked like it was going to be one of the old 3-6-3 double plays. Except for some reason, Justin Grimm had run off the mound in the general direction of first base. By the time the ball was coming back to first, Moreland was in full stretch mode, and caught the ball. Or so we thought. Mariners manager Eric Wedge came out to dispute the play, because he thought Moreland had come off the bag. It didn’t matter, because Moreland never caught the ball. Grimm caught the ball for some reason. Everyone assumed that Moreland caught it, but it turned out not to be the case. It wasn’t until the thing was shown on replay as to what actually transpired. Here, look at this video. It’s really a surprise that nobody saw this – I wager the only two people that really knew what happened in the moment were Grimm & Moreland.
It was shortly after that where I conked out, because I don’t remember much else from the game. Offensively, we had a few three run innings to account for most of our offense. It got started in the second when Jeff Baker hit an opposite field two run home run – and not a wall scraper, either. A good dozen or so rows up into the seats in right. We followed that up with a three run shot by Lance Berkman in the next inning. A small ball run in the fourth, and then the other three run inning came up in the 7th. It wasn’t home run based. In fact, there was’t much power either, because the inning went single, single, lineout, k, single, walk, single, k. But all that was enough for the second three run inning, none of which was needed in the final score, but I know nobody who won’t take that.
Most of this offense came against Joe Saunders, a guy we always seem to do well against.
Our bullpen was mostly good. Except Joe Ortiz, who gave up two runs in his 0.2 innings of work. He hasn’t been as good lately, and is probably going to get squeezed out when a roster move needs to be made soon. Perhaps if he didn’t clamp down on the nickname I gave him and ask the media not to use it anymore (“Smokin Joe Ortiz”), maybe… ;)
We’ll take another win, going to 31-17.