Wow.....if you don't like that, you don't like baseball. Or ummmmm well you could be a Mariner's fan I guess. That was great. The Fangraph....a thing of beauty:
As you can see it sort of went back and forth till the top of the 8th and the M's had about a 75% chance to win. But then in the bottom of the 8th Lyle doubles, Barajas singles and Stairs singles to tie the game. Suddenly we have a 75% chance to win...runners on first and second and no one out, tie game in the bottom of the 8th. We are almost sure to win. But Rolen hits into a double play, ground ball to third, Eck pinch running is tagged out and then the throw to first to get Rolen.
After that, there are big swings back and forth. One team is sure to win, then the other. BJ does a good job in the ninth. Wilk leads off our half of the ninth with a base on balls. Inglett bunts him to second. I dislike the bunt most of the time but at this moment Morrow has walked Wilk and has thrown two balls to Inglett, but on the third one he bunts. Then Scoot walks....now we have runners on first and second, one out in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game. We ought to win.
Rios hits the ball hard and for a moment I thought we had it, but Bloomquist is playing shallow and he catches it. We were lucky Wilk was heads up and made it back to second, so he didn't get doubled off. Lyle.....watches ball one, watches strike one, watches ball two, watches strike two and watches strike three without the bat leaving his shoulder. Frig Lyle. So to the 10th and still tied.
Cy comes in to pitch the 10th and gets Betancourt to pop out, and gets Ichiro to ground out 3-1....Cy just got there before Ichiro. But Bloomquist walks and steals second. Reed hits a line drive that falls just in front of Wilk in right. I thought he had a chance to catch it but he plays the hop and tries to throw out Bloomquist at the plate....but the throw is wide. Cy gets the third out but we are down by a run in to start the bottom of the 10th. There is about an 80% chance for the Mariners to win, not even taking into account our poor defense.
But Zaun hits a soft line drive single to center. Mac stays in the game, in the DH spot (he ran for Stairs in the 8th). Again, I hate the bunt. With Zaun's speed (isn't there a better word there, Zaun's speed, is like jumbo shrimp, an oxymoron) and with the M's knowing we are bunting the bunt has to be perfect to work and even then it will be close. The bunt isn't perfect but pitcher Mark Lowe's throw to second barely pulls Lopez off second base and we have runners on first and second, no one out.
Rolen is up and again he's bunting and again the bunt has to be perfect because Zaun is on second and it takes him 2 minutes to run from second to third. I hate the bunt, Rolen's bunt is very good, but Zaun is thrown out at third by 3 or 4 steps. Have I said I hate the bunt? But we still have runners on first and second and only one out. But Lind, my hero, flies out, 2 out 2 on. Wilk is up, frig. Wilk draws a seven pitch walk!!! Wow. Bases loaded, two out. Inglett up. Inglett has been cold of late.
Inglett smokes the first pitch on a line over Ichiro's head....no other right fielder gets near that bad....Ichiro....it goes off his glove. He almost had it....it was so close, just off his glove. WOW....couldn't have been closer. A walk off win! Again! What's that three now? Why couldn't we have done this earlier in the season, we could be in the race.
Anyway, Jays of the Day? If you are reading out loud, take a breath. Inglett, of course, (.724 WPA), Stairs (.279), Wilk (.261), Mac (.184), Zaun (.135), BJ (.143) and Camp (.116).
Suckage Jays, Rolen (-.521), Rios (-.271), Lind (-.191), Scoot (-.168) and Cy (-.291).
What went well....Parrish went 5 innings and gave up 3 earned but he was a lot better than his last start, I would think he's earned on more start. The pen pitched 5 innings and only allowed 1 run. They were great again, even League pitched a 1,2,3 inning! Stairs! Stairs went 3 for 4, with a homer, a double, a run and two RBIs. That's the way to break out of a slump. Lind went two for four brought his average up to .312. And, of course, Inglett was only 1 for 4 but drove in 3 and had the big game winning hit.
Not so good, Rios and Rolen each went 0 for 5. Rolen's had a tough month, batting .206 so far this month. The people that were cheering JP for the wonderful trade of Glaus for Rolen are singing a different tune now. We really won't know who got the better of that trade for a couple of years. Glaus is clubbing the ball lately. We could use someone that could do that in our lineup.
We have a four game winning streak! Four games! Who would have thought we could do that. And in other good news Vernon Wells took batting practice before the game. No idea yet on when he will be back in center but things look good.
Tomorrow we have a 1:00 Eastern start time. David Purcey vs R.A. Dickey (2-5, 3.93). Let's continue the streak. We are only 7.5 games back of the Wild Card spot. I'm building fences tomorrow but I'll get the game thread up and likely will get to watch some of the game. Go Jays.