Wednesday, May 16, 2001 (W: SEA 7-CWS 2 30-9)

Mariners 7
White Sox 2

Paul Abbott struck out ten Chicago batters for his second career double-digit strikeout game (in his 57th career start). It was the Mariners' first 10-strikeout game of the season.

Ichiro's hitting streak is now 21 games. He's now only 3 games away from tying Joey Cora's 1997 franchise record.

Cameron made a great catch in the sixth to rob Carlos Lee of extra bases and ended up skidding across the cinder warning track face first. The Safeco crowd rewarded him with a standing ovation at the end of the inning.

Earlier in the day, Jose Paniagua was suspended for 3 games for not hitting Manny Ramirez back on May 9th. The M's appealed, and I think they've got a pretty good case. Paniagua wasn't even ejected from the game, as the umpires working the game didn't think the brush-back was intentional. Hopefully MLB will reduce the suspension to 1 or 2 games. Paniagua is really starting to look good out there; tonight he picked up the save for the 2nd straight game. I'm not sure what's wrong with Sasaki.

Jay Buhner took batting practice before the game. Hopefully we'll see him out there in left soon!

The M's are still showing some fire, as Mark McLemore was ejected in the 2nd inning after tossing his helmet and bat in protest of a called third strike.

The Twins won again to up their record to 27-11.

One last thing. I got an email today from someone at MLB.com who asked me about my Beat the Streak picks. For those of you who don't know, MLB.com has a fantasy game on their site where you pick a batter for each day during the season. The goal is to compile a batting streak of as long as possible. There's prizes, and the game's free. Check it out (or don't -- I'm in first place, and I don't want any more competition).

Anyways, he "interviewed" me via email for his column on MLB.com!!! He wanted to know my strategy. I told him: Pick Ichiro every day. So, if you notice any excessive rooting on this blog for Ichiro's hit streak, it's because I've got prizes riding on it! Oh yeah, he also wrote that they may try to get me on MLB radio for a few minutes. What will I say!? I'll let you know more if I hear it.