As is my policy for the last few years, I do not write about losses to the Yankees.

Familiar ring for the offense. One double, five singles, three walks. Just one run. Not much to talk about there.
On the other side, a former Ranger pretty much carried Seattle this game. Justin Smoak went 3-4 with a solo home run.
That’s pretty much the big bullet points to this game.
Oh, and Colby Lewis had his hard luck from last year crop up again. He pitched a complete game loss. Looked pretty good. Eight innings, eight hits, one walk, eleven strikeouts, three runs. He had a good outing, but our offense was stuck in the mud – yet again.

A few days ago, I wrote that Felix Hernandez is the only real pitcher the Mariners have at the moment. To some extent that’s right, but the kid that Seattle ran out there for this game looked quite good. Michael Pineda reminds me a lot of the old Astros pitcher, JR Richard. This kid looked big and powerful. He’s not there yet, but if he puts it together in the next few years, Seattle will have a hell of a 1-2 punch. Kid looked good.
Fortunately, CJ Wilson was better NOW. CJ struck out 12 on his way to a complete game win. Nine innings, six hits, one walk, 12 k’s, and just two runs – one being unearned. He looked good. Threw 125 pitches over the 9 innings, which is under the average for nine innings pitched, so that’s good too. He looks like he’s starting to come on, which is good. Colby Lewis looks like he may have figured it out now too. We just need our offense to get healthy, and we’ll be OK.
Offensively, we had some home runs this game. The duo of Mitch Moreland & Chris Davis supplied the power this game. Adrian Beltre also doubled, and there were a few more singles. No player had more than one hit this game, with just Kinsler & Torrealba taking an ofer.
Be nice if we can string half a dozen of these W’s together in a row.

As if it wasn’t bad enough being pushed around in Oakland, at least there’s an excuse there. They have some darn good pitching. Seattle has Felix Hernandez, and that’s it. As I sit here to write a few words about this game, all I can think of is Jim Mora’s old “Playoffs?!?” speech..

Alexi Ogando started this one. Wasn’t too bad. Six innings, just five hits and a run. Pitch count was a smidge high (102), but not totally outrageous. Pedro Strop though, stunk up the joint. Blown save, loss. He allowed the other three runs the Mariners scored. So this was a failure of the bullpen. An all too common occurance this season so far. :(
Again. One double. Four singles. That’s it.

Those who know me know I don’t write about losses to the Yankees. Those same people should also know I don’t like playing 10 inning games. 14-15, or even longer – no problem. But 10? Hate them. We lose most of them. This was another for that pile.
Darren Oliver faced one batter in the bottom. Hideki Matsui. On the second pitch – bam. Home run, game over, walkoff for the A’s.
Our offense was still in low gear. Two doubles, six singles. Six walks helped, but we still couldn’t plate enough to win the game. The last time we were in Oakland before this it was great. We won the division. This time, not so much – we fell out of first place.

Matt Harrison had an awful outing. He was gone before the second inning was over. Six hits, two walks, four earned runs in just 1.2 innings. It could have been worse, but Matt got a pickoff play, which helped keep it to what it was. Matt Bush followed that mess and gave up three runs himself, but just one earned. The three errors the Rangers committed had a lot to do with that.
Andrus & Kinsler doubled. All the rest were singles. But unless they came back to win (they didn’t), that mess by Harrison pretty much doomed the feeling of the game.

I got way behind, and as such I’m offering minimal commentary for the eight games I let slide. :)
Nice comeback after dropping a couple. Three home runs, three doubles, and a pile of other hits is more like it for our offense. Not the molasses we’ve been stuck in. Hopefully this isn’t a one off. EVeryone hit, except Moreland, who was the only ofer.
Colby Lewis had his best outing of the season so far. Went eight innings, allowed just six hits, and two runs. Punched out six, walked one. Good outing. Need to keep this up.

I got way behind, and as such I’m offering minimal commentary for the eight games I let slide. :)
Despite outhitting the A’s 11-9, the Rangers lost 3-1. CJ Wilson pitched pretty decently, but was a hard luck loser, being let down by defense. He gave up all three runs, but only one was earned.
Our offense was all singles (11), and a few walks (3). Our offense looked like the A’s offense. That won’t win a ton of games for sure.

I got way behind, and as such I’m offering minimal commentary for the eight games I let slide. :)
Ogando looked decent again. Not awesome, but OK. He only gave up two runs in six innings, but got a no decision when Darren Oliver gave up three runs (although just one earned).
The Rangers offense was bunched. Seven hits in all, one double, six singles. Kinsler, Andrus, & Beltre had two each. The other was Moreland. Not a lot of offense, which seems to be a recurring theme lately. Not liking that.

I didn’t see much of this game, I was at Wednesday night church services, but I did get to see a little bit of the Gameday on my phone. I got to watch via my phone as the Rangers tied the game at 2, then went up 6-2 in the bottom of the third. By the time I got home, the game was 6-5 in the sixth. I watched Cody Eppley give up the tying run.
But Mitch Moreland saved it in the bottom if the seventh with a solo home run onto Greene’s hill – to the same kid who caught the ball on the fly for the second time in a week. :)
Holland was pretty bad today like Harrison was last night. Arthur Rhodes pitched a scoreless inning for the hold, and Darren Oliver got the save in the ninth.
Given I saw so little of this game, and I’m in a hurry today, I’m doing a short one. It wasn’t great to see another bad starter, but it was good to see the team come back and get the win, and hold it in the end.
Thu afternoon is the final game of the series, we need to take that to get a split.