The pitching was halfway decent this weekend! James Paxton went a strong 7 innings on Friday, only giving up 1 run. Iwakuma & LeBlanc combined to not shit the bed when given 14 runs of support on Saturday. And even Wade Miley came away with a Miley Quality Start, which is a lot like a regular quality start (6 innings, 2 runs), but should’ve probably been a lot better since he started to falter around pitch 70 and struggled to get through that 6th inning (and, not for nothing, but left the game at 89 pitches, yet had to be pulled before the 7th, because Miley).
All told, it added up to a series win, though fell short of a series sweep, because J.A. Happ has been a fucking machine ever since he left Seattle, because that makes sense. Because soft-tossing lefties like him – with all that space out there in Safeco Field – should be terrible in Seattle and BETTER everywhere else he’s called home. Yeah. That’s just fucking great. If Happ had been this version of Happ when he was with us, he’d likely still be in Seattle, and we wouldn’t have to suffer Miley’s mediocrity on a regular basis!
I don’t know what you can say about Sunday’s 1-hit effort, aside from it just being one of those days. Funny though, it seems like Sunday is ALWAYS one of those days, as the Mariners are a whopping 4-12 on The Lord’s Day. I don’t know what it says about the Mariners that they’re 8-8 on Shomer Shabbos; I think I’ll leave that for the comments section.
I’d like to point out that I’m pretty thrilled with what James Paxton was able to do, against a potent Blue Jays lineup. Part of me still believes we have something special in this kid, and should make every effort to keep him around. But, there’s another part of me who wouldn’t mind seeing Chris Sale in a Mariners uniform, and believes Paxton might be the centerpiece of a nice little trade package. Throw in D.J. Peterson, Vidal Nuno, maybe a couple of lower-level minor leaguers, I think that gets it done! Come on, we’ll take your prima donna off your hands!
In other news, Hisashi Iwakuma has 11 wins and an ERA under 4 for the first time in forever. Don’t look now, but he’s in a nice little groove.
Looking ahead, the Mariners have two off-days this week, which is insane when you look into August and see the Mariners will be on a streak – starting this weekend – where they play 33 games in 34 days. 23 of those games happen on the West Coast, so at least that’s something. But, I just hope everyone has a lot of fun today and Thursday, because those are the last easy days for a while.
2-game series in Pittsburgh starting tomorrow. Those should be fun. Then, a 3-game series against the Cubbies that I’m going to miss because I’ll be camping all weekend.