Of course, there’s more than one way to stop the bleeding. For instance, there’s physically running out of blood!
The Mariners got the W, though. That’s all that matters, I guess. Before the game, a number of moves were made:
- Andrew Albers was called up
- Sam Gaviglio was called up
- Casey Lawrence was sent to Tacoma
- Thyago Vieira was sent to Tacoma
- Christian Bergman was DFA’d
Albers we knew would be our starter last night. Lawrence we had a pretty good idea would be going back down, since he pitched 4 innings the night before, and Servais is on record as saying the Seattle-Tacoma shuttle is going to be in full effect for the rest of August. Vieira was also used the night before, and was really only up here for depth until we needed to activate Albers. Gaviglio makes as much sense as anyone to come back to Seattle. He can start, if the team feels like making a move (*cough* GALLARDO *cough*), or he can slide into a long relief role, which is probably what will happen. As for Bergman, we needed room on the 40-man for Albers, and if I’m not mistaken, we were able to DFA Bergman earlier this season and still retain him in Tacoma. I can’t imagine the market for a pitcher like Bergman is very big, unless Jerry Dipoto has a twin brother who is also a Major League GM.
Albers looked good! Kind of a shock to the system, but that’ll happen when you’ve done nothing but throw shit against the wall for the last week trying to see what’ll stick. 5 innings, 6 hits, 1 walk, 1 run, 4 strikeouts. The run was of the solo homer variety, but it’s not like we haven’t seen that before, from everyone else in this God-foresaken rotation. I’ll hold back on making any grand sweeping statements of positivity until I see him make a second start in a Mariners uniform, if it’s all the same to you.
At 3-1, this was the rare Mariners victory where the good guys scored less than 4 runs. The Mariners are now 60-61 on the season; this is only the FIFTH time the Mariners have won a game while scoring less than 4 runs, which is simply astonishing, yet it also explains literally everything about this year. In fact, 5-42 is the Mariners’ record when scoring less than 4 runs, which means they’re 55-19 (.743) when they score 4 runs or more. Holy mother of God.
Segura & Heredia get some kudos for having 2 hits apiece at the top of the lineup. Cano and Cruz had an RBI apiece, which is nice considering Seager was out with an illness.
The lion’s share of the kudos go to the bullpen, though. Emilio Pagan relieved Albers and went two very strong shutout innings, striking out 4. Scrabble and Vincent combined to lock down the eighth, and Diaz got his 26th save. Now that’s more like it!
The victory, combined with losses for all the teams ahead of the Mariners for the second Wild Card spot, means we’re back to 1.5 games back. It won’t mean much if the Mariners can’t keep it up. Winning this afternoon would be a good start. After that, it’s an off-day, followed by a 2-week East Coast trip to Tampa, Atlanta, New York (Yankees), and Baltimore.
Maybe it’s best for the M’s to get out of town for a while. If they’re going to totally implode, might as well be away from the booing onslaught of the hometown crowd at Safeco Field. Then, when they get back and it’s officially football season, we’ll all resume not giving a shit.
Baseball! Catch the excitement!