Ten games under .500

Always looking for new ways to lose ball games, last night the Mariners nixed thirteen walks allowed with a 12-run outburst to lose an extra-inning 13-12 game at the Ballpark in Arlington.  Kenji Johjima, who had been struggling all year, hit his first home run- a three-run shot that tied the game with two outs in the ninth inning.  An inning later, Brandon Morrow allowed the go-ahead home run to light-hitting Ramon Vazquez in the bottom of the tenth, for Vazquez’s second home run on the season.

Denied poor run support all season, the Mariners staked Erik Bedard out to a 5-0 lead even before he took the hill in the fifth.  Not knowing what to do with such backing from the M’s line-up, Erik quickly coughed up the lead, giving up six runs before being chased in the third after tossing 64 pitches, 31 of which went for strikes.  Indeed, the M’s pitching staff was allergic to the strike zone all night, resulting in 213 pitches being tossed by Mariners pitchers last night,  with just barely half (110) going for strikes.

Felix Hernandez is taking the hill tonight in the second game, and all I can say is that I own Felix in a fantasy baseball league, and I’m having him ride the bench.  Tonight’s game will be a rematch between Felix and Kason Gabbard, and the last time these two pitchers faced each other, Richie Sexson did a better job hitting Gabbard with his batting helmet than he did Gabbard’s offerings with his bat.  Sexson is serving out his five-game suspension for those antics, and I find it interesting that the M’s “brain trust”- and I use that term loosely- have decided to stick with the dangerous bats of Miguel Cairo and Jose Vidro at first rather than calling up Bryan LaHair and seeing what the Tacoma Rainiers first baseman can do in the bigs.  I mean, with the loss last night the M’s dropped to ten games below .500 and it’s not even May 15th, so how it could it hurt to give LaHair a few starts?

Rangers will win tonight, 5-3.