Monday, May 28, 2001 (W: SEA 13 - KC 3 37-12)

If you had Paul Abbott in the "First Mariner Pitcher to Throw a Complete Game in 2001" Pool, you're a winner.

Paul Abbott pitched the first complete game of his career today, and the first of the M's season, as the Mariners won 13-3, to reach 25 games over .500 for the first time in their history. The Memorial Day Monday game completed the 4-game sweep of the Royals.

Ichiro robbed Mike Sweeney of a HR with a leaping catch in the bottom of the fourth. The next batter, Jermaine Dye, went the other way, with a HR over the wall in left. Later, Sweeney got his revenge, as he smashed a ball over Mike Cameron's head, out of the park in center. The Royals' final run was scored during a shaky ninth by Abbott. However, the veteran pitcher worked out of the jam, and completed the game in an economical 119 pitches.

The M's will be home tomorrow night, for the first game of a season-long twelve-game homestand. Cal Ripken and the Baltimore Orioles will start rookie Willis Roberts against Freddy Garcia.

Sunday, May 27, 2001 (W: SEA 5 - KC 4 36-12)

The M's squeezed out another one tonight, as Sasaki blew a save in the bottom of the ninth, but the M's pulled it out 5-4 after an eleventh inning rally.

Former Mariner David McCarty hit a solo shot off of Sasaki with one out in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.

In the eleventh, the M's played small ball, as Edgar singled, pinch runner Charles Gipson advanced to 2nd on a John Olerud single, and Bret Boone sacrifice bunted the runners ahead. The Royals elected to walk Ichiro to load the bases, and Mike Cameron came through with a deep sacrifice fly to center that Gipson scored on.

Norm Charlton worked a perfect tenth and eleventh to tally the victory.

With the victory, the M's are now 24 games above .500 for the first time in team history, and they're 21-5 on the road (kinda makes you wish a ceiling tile would fall, so the M's could play on the road all the time -- sorry, I live in LA, I don't care if I get to see them live at Safeco).

Raul Ibanez watch: Sasaki K'ed Ibanez, pinch hitting for the catcher again, this time in the bottom of the 9th. Ibanez is now hitting .143.

The M's are now 4-0 since Wednesday, when I got my Sports Illustrated with Ichiro on the cover. Jinx? What Jinx?

Cleveland lost, Minnesota won, so we're now four games up over Minnesota for the majors' best record.

Bob Finnigan had an article in today's Sunday Times about Olympic Hero Ryan Franklin. Despite his great performance this season, including Friday's career high 5-inning stint, the team has no plans to move him to the rotation, since Gil Meche and Ryan Anderson are on track to join the starting staff next season.

The same article mentions a few more former Mariners playing for the Royals: the "orignal Suzuki," relief pitcher Mak(oto), and tonight's starting second baseman, Wilson Delgado, who was traded from the M's back in May of 1995, along with Shawn Estes, for Solomon Torres, who is now out of baseball after being released by the Expos in January.

Finally, the M's are #3 in MLB for attendance, behind league leader Colorado (in LAST place in the NL West) and the Giants.

Saturday, May 26, 2001 (W: SEA 7 - KC 2 35-12)

No big comeback tonight, as the M's took an early lead and held it. Poulsbo native Aaron Sele is 7-0 after tonight's 7-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals. Only Pedro Martinez has won more games than Sele since the 1998 season!

Bret Boone hit his ninth HR of the season, a two-run shot in the seventh.

Al Martin's back. He went 1-4, with a walk, to raise his batting average to .171. Maybe concussions are what he needs to be effective. No word on whether he got married again while he had the concussion. His .171 average is still better than the M's backup left fielder from last year, Raul Ibanez. Ibanez pinch hit for Royals' catcher AJ Hinch both tonight and last night, failing to get a hit in either at bat, dropping his average to .147. Perspective is important when you're criticizing your own team's players. Ibanez's performance this year shows things could be much worse out there in left than Martin and Stan Javier (who's hitting .250).

Cleveland lost tonight, while Minnesota split a doubleheader with the A's. The M's are now 3.5 games ahead of Cleveland and 4 ahead of the Twins. Our AL West lead is 11.5 games over the A's. Eleven games back in May; I'd put the champagne on ice for the M's pennant celebration, if not for my fond memories of the 1995 M's, who were 12.5 games back on August 15th, yet came back to win the division! Just a little wake up call for everybody who thinks this season's a lock. 11.5 games back is NOTHING! The M's shouldn't rest until it's a 30 game lead over the A's, because they're sure not going to give up, and neither are their annoying fans or their front office!

Friday, May 25, 2001 (W: SEA 9 - KC 6 34-12)

The M's came back from behind again tonight to beat the Royals 9-6.

After starter John Halama gave up five runs without getting an out in in the third inning, Olympic Hero Ryan Franklin came in and pitched five innings for the win, giving up only one run on four hits.

The M's only extra-base hit was a first inning solo HR by Edgar. They had thirteen more singles and four walks to score their other eight runs (in addition to two Mariners thrown out at home -- Dave Myers is getting a little aggressive as far as I'm concerned). Edgar also got his second stolen base of the season. Every time he runs, I get nervous.

Sasaki pitched another perfect ninth for the save, number nineteen for him.

Cleveland won, Minnesota lost (to Oakland), so the M's are up two and a half games over the AL Central leading Indians, and eleven games ahead of the A's.

Larry Stone wrote an interesting article in today's Times discussing the potential for a local rival for the M's in Portland. Apparently, MLB executives are pretty interested in moving either the Marlins, Twins, A's, or Expos in the next few years, and Portland's one of the top relocation candidates. There are several stadium bills in their state legistlature, and if they pass, we could see a Mariner/Beaver rivalry soon.

Thursday, May 24, 2001

Another off day today for the M's.

Blaine Newnham wrote an article today about first base coach John Moses's perspective on Ichiro, calling Moses, "The Ichiro of his time." That's a poor comparison. To show how ridiculous that statement is, flip it around and call Ichiro "The Johnny Moses of today." I don't see that as the next M's commercial (although if anybody from the ad agency that makes the great Mariners commercials is reading this, and wants to use it, can I have some royalties? Are there royalties for commercials? Or anti-royalties? I don't want to have to help pay for the spots! Never mind. BTW, I love that commercial you're showing this season with Jamie Moyer and Dan Wilson telling scary stories about Edgar around the campfire).

The Indians won today to move into a tie in the AL Central, 2.5 games behind the M's.

Let's take a walk through the leaderboards, starting with the AL (to make it more fun, I added the leaders' approximate paces for the season in parentheses -- bold indicates a record pace).


Ichiro's leading the AL in hits with 76 (273) and stolen bases with 15 (54).

A-Rod's leading in HR's with 17 (59), no surprise after his defection to hitter-friendly Texas.

Manny Ramirez is first in RBI at 56 (201) and batting average at .405.

Oakland's Jason Giambi is number one in walks, with 44 (158). Edgar's second, only three back.

Russ Branyan and Greg Vaughn are tied for first in strikeouts, with 54 (198 and 190) each.


Dave Burba of Cleveland and Brad Radke are tied for the lead with 7 (25) wins each. Radke also has 3 (10) complete games.

Andy Pettite has pitched the most innings, at 76 (267).

Leading the league in ERA at 1.60, Pedro has 108 (388) strikouts, 43 ahead of second place Barry Zito.

Kaz Sasaki is leading the league in saves with 18 (64).

Kelly Wunsch, of the White Sox is out front in games pitched, with 24 (88), but Jeff Nelson and Sasaki are nipping at his heels with 23 each.


In the National League:

Rich Aurilia, having a career year at SS in San Francisco, is leading in hits, with 62 (213), and is 2nd in average at .371. That's what hitting in front of Barry Bonds, the league leader in HR's with 25 (86) will do. In a few years, some team will be really disappointed when they expect this kind of production out of Aurilia, while batting him in front of Ben Davis, Randy Winn, and Quinton McCracken (just to name three random major leaguers with no connection between them, except they can't hit).

Luis Castillo is leading the NL in stolen bases with 14 (50).

Todd Helton is first in RBI at 50 (172).

Houston's Moises Alou is leading in batting average at .392.

Sammy Sosa is at the top of the leaderboard in walks, with 41 (144).

Pat Burrell and Ray Lankford are tied for first in strikeouts, with 53 (190) each.


Curt Schilling has 7 (24) wins.

Randy Johnson has thown more innings than anybody else, with 78.2 (271), but is making them count, as he leads the league in strikeouts with 115 (396).

Kevin Brown of LA leads the league in ERA at 1.96. Mike Hampton is looking pretty good in 4th place at 2.80. I guess he really can pitch in Colorado.

His teammate, Jeff Shaw is first in saves with 14 (48).

After looking at all these numbers, I think there's an obvious reason hitters are hitting so many more HR's these days: They're swinging much harder for the fences. FOUR guys are on pace to break the single-season record for strikeouts, as teams are more willing to put up with K's to get the big HR (not to mention HR's bring more fans out to the ballpark, so team owners prefer them).

Wednesday, May 23, 2001 (W: SEA 5 - MIN 4 33-12)

I had a whole post here, then Netscape 7.1 crashed on me (I...uh...I mean, Netscape 3.1, since it's 2001, and Netscape 7.1 hasn't been invented yet)!

Starting over...

Today was another exciting come from behind victory, as the M's exchanged leads with the Twins several times before emerging with a 5-4 win.

Sasaki looked great, as he came in with only one out in the 8th and the bases loaded to get two quick outs. He then pitched a perfect 9th for his 18th save of the season. He looks healthy again; this was the 4th time this year he's pitched more than an inning.

The game went back and forth several times. Edgar put the M's up early with a solo shot in the top of the first. Torii Hunter answered back with a 3-run HR in the bottom of the 2nd off of M's starter Freddy Garcia. The Mariners clawed back with single runs in the 4th and 6th, before going back ahead with another single run in the 7th. Minnesota's exciting 21-year old rookie Luis Rivas chased Freddy off the mound in the bottom of the 7th with a DEEP sacrifice fly to tie it up at four.

Struggling David Bell, hitting only .185 coming into the game, hit a HR in the top of the 8th to put the M's ahead for good.

The Twins tried to make it interesting, loading the bases in the 8th before Sasaki came in and shut the door.

On Saturday, I wrote that you'll know Al Martin isn't okay if he starts telling crazy football stories. Based on that diagnosis, I think he'll be out a bit longer, as he told Bob Finnigan a very interesting one. From today's Times:

Outfielder Al Martin said the last time he had his bell rung like it was Saturday, when shortstop Carlos Guillen inadvertently kicked him in the head, was in 1986.

Back then he was playing strong safety for USC in a football game against Michigan.

"For some reason, probably because I was young and dumb, I decided I could make a head-on stop of Leroy Hoard," Martin said. "I hit him, or rather he hit me. You remember those big tree-trunk legs Hoard had? That's what hit me."

I checked. USC didn't play Michigan in '86. They played in the Rose Bowl in '88 and '89, and Hoard ran for over 100 yards in both games (he didn't get any carries in their first '88 matchup). I guess Martin's still a little dizzy, and he got his years confused. What's interesting about Martin is, he was drafted in 1985 by the Braves, and was playing A-ball in '88 and '89. Why he risked his future major league career by playing college football at the same time, I don't know. I can't find a box score that shows USC stats, so I don't know if Martin ever actually brought Hoard down for a tackle.

I can't fault Martin for saying dumb things with a concussion. I met my girlfriend when I had a concussion from a college football practice. Talk about dumb! (She doesn't like baseball, so I'm not worried about her reading this.) We've been together 3-1/2 years, so maybe Al Martin will meet his next wife this week.

The M's get another day off tomorrow, before going to Kansas City for a four-game weekend series.