A miracle bottom of the 9th in last night's game gave us a 3 and 3 week instead of the 2 and 4 that seemed so likely after the 8th. We're still hanging around at 11.5 behind the Angels, but the Rangers and A's have moved closer to them than they are to us. We begin interleague play this week with an unusual Monday game and an unusual Thursday day off. We start with Houston for three games followed by three with Montreal. Apparently there is now no rhyme or reason to the interleague schedule, as most AL West teams are playing the NL Central, yet we play the Expos of the NL East. Meanwhile, we do not play The Cubs or the Reds. Missing the Reds is a real shame since Griffey will miss an opportunity to come back to Seattle. The other interesting note about this week's games is that we're still at home for a second straight week. Today we'll see Brandon Duckworth of the Astros against Clint Nageotte, who will presumably be the double-duty guy this week. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
In other news, Gil Meche finally got a well-deserved trip back to AAA Tacoma to work on his control problems after he had to throw 89 pitches to get through 2 innings of Wednesday's game against Toronto. The Mariners called up infielder Hiram Bocachica to take his place. Chief Northwest Baseball Corespondant Amy James was the first to break the story. Ramon Santiago has also been recalled to fill the hole Raul Ibanez left when he was placed on the 15-day DL. Ibanez is expected to be out for four weeks with a hamstring problem.
Mariner of the Week: This week's MOW again goes to Ichiro. He's continued his hot hitting through last week, going 11 for 24 (.458) with 6 runs and 4 stolen bases. He now has a commanding lead in hits, leading with majors with 84. The next closest competitors are Sean Casey in the NL with 81 and Melvin Mora and Michael Young in the AL with 78. He has also moved up to 4th in the AL in stolen bases though Carl Crawford is running away with it. He's also raised his average to .340, good for seventh in the AL.
Posted by chefchuddy at June 7, 2004 10:27 AM