Two shutouts in a row. Granted, it’s the Mariners, who have had offensive problems the last several years. But still. Won 7-0 yesterday. Won 5-0 today. You’ve GOT to love that kind of performance from your pitching staff. Yesterday the big deal was Yu Darvish. Today the big deal was.. well.. all of them. Because in the third inning, it looked pretty bad.
Nick Tepesch started the game, and was dealing. 1.2 innings, two hits, three strikeouts. No runs, no walks. Then he got hit in the arm with a batted ball. I didn’t see it. Or hear it for that matter – I was unavailable, and missed all of the game. But I did see Jamey Newberg’s initial tweet about it, which merely said:
Man, I'm pissed.Tep was dealing.Dammit.
— Jamey Newberg (@NewbergReport) April 21, 2013
As I’m writing this a couple of days later, the plan is still for him to make his next start on Thursday the 25th, but we’ll see how that goes as we get closer. Rumour is that Josh Lindblom may get called up to make a spot start in his place. That doesn’t thrill me at all. I’d rather have Roy Oswalt and his attitude back from last year making a start instead. All that aside, I hope Tepesch isn’t really hurt. We’ll see.
Derek Lowe stepped in after the injury and kept things going QUITE quite well. Obviously when you shut out the other team, the indvidual pitching performances are going to be good. But Lowe was QUITE good – going four innings, allowing NO hits, NO runs, NO walks. Struck out just the one guy, but man – 4IP and 0R on 0H is a line to be proud of. I know the temptation is to try and make him into a starter, but my gut feeling says he’ll do better right where he is.
Ortiz, Scheppers, & Frasor followed. Scheppers did his weeble impression, allowing 2 hits and 2 walks in 1.1 innings of work, but didn’t allow anyone to score.
Offensively we went back to the “not a lot, but just enough” kind of offense. We had just five hits in all. Two of them were home runs (solo, AJ & Murphy). Had singles from Berkman, AJ, & Leonys Martin. Four walks were in the mix too (two to Kinsler). Oddly enough the two solo home runs came in the fourth & seventh innings. Both of those innings the solo HR was the only run. We plated three in the eighth, with a walk around three of the singles. There’s your “bunch it together” offense. Outside of those couple of at bats, we realy didn’t have anything sustained offensively in this game at all.
But the pitching got the job done here. That’s the big story again.