Manager Don Wakamatsu cited two key moments that were most responsible for the Mariners’ 5-1 loss tonight to the Angels.
One was obvious, Roy Corcoran’s two-strike pitch that was up and over the plate, where Mike Napoli got solid wood on it for a two-run single. It was the key blow in the Angles’ five-run sixth inning, when they wiped out a 1-0 Mariners lead.
The other that stood out to Wakamatsu was Wladimir Balentien’s strikeout with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the fourth. The Mariners had scored off Angels starter Joe Saunders and they had their best opportunity to pull off a big inning if Balentien could come through with a hit.
Instead, the impatient Balentien swung at the first two pitches, both off the plate. Sunders never threw one in the strike zone the rest of the at-bat, and for a while it looked like Balentien might resurrect himself. He laid off three straight to work a full count, then got over-eager again and swung at another pitch that wasn’t close.
Corcoran, as you’d expect, was kicking himself for leaving that pitch up to Napoli. “Anywhere but up,” he said. “That’s just putting it on a tee for him.”
If the Mariners want to get nit-picky about little things that make a big difference, then the Napoli at-bat probably shouldn’t have even taken place.
With one out, runners on first and third and starter Chris Jakubauskas still pitching, catcher Rob Johnson threw a pea of a pickoff to first base after Chone Figgins drifted far off the bag. The ball arrived well ahead of Figgins, but first baseman Russell Branyan spun the wrong direction — to his right — to make the tag. By then he was too late; had he swept his glove to the left, he’d have gotten Figgins.
Get used to that.
Branyan remains a bit of a project at first base. He has spent most of his career at either third or the outfield, and he’s getting some true on-the-job training on the other side of the diamond.
Franky, he’s done better there than I’d expected early in the season. Branyan made a nice back-hand catch of a short-hop throw from third baseman Adrian Beltre in tonight’s game, and he has done nothing to make me think he won’t be a nice player at first. But there will be footwork issues and other awkward moments as he learns.
Like the little things the Mariners have done right to win six in a row, it was these little things they did wrong tht broke that streak.
Well, those and a nice pitching performance from Saunders. He gave up only three hits in seven innings, and only Ichiro Suzuki’s single in the fourth reached the outfield.
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