David Aardsma’s status literally is minute-to-minute as he and his wife, Andrea, await the birth of their first child. The due date is Sunday, which would make for an unbelievable Father’s Day for Aardsma.
“Still waiting,” said Aardsma, who will leave the team and be with his wife when things start “happening.” Unless the baby is born during Monday’s off day, Aardsma figures to miss one game.
“It could happen at any time,” manager Don Wakamatsu said. “We’re fine as long as it happens before the road trip.”
The Mariners begin a nine-game trip Friday at Milwaukee.
As for tonight, all the Mariners are asking for is another outing from Felix Hernandez like they got from Cliff Lee on Friday. Plus one run of support, of course.
That formula has worked awfully well the past two games, when the Mariners have scored a total of three runs and gotten two victories. Jason Vargas shut down the Cardinals in a 2-1 victory on Wednesday and Lee muffled the high-scoring Reds in a complete-game shutout Friday.
You could say that’s the kind of game we figured all along that the Mariners would need to win, although let’s get serious. Wakamatsu can stir up his lineups just about any way imaginable, but until this team finds a consistent home-run threat we’ll see four-plus runs only on the rare occasion. I mean, they haven’t scored more than four in their last three games combined.
Tonight’s stab at production against Reds right-hander Sam Lecure (1-3 with a 3.75 ERA) features the return of Casey Kotchman and his .184 average and .260 on-base percentage. He last started Tuesday at St. Louis, going 0-for-4. Here is the Mariners’ lineup:
Ichiro Suzuki, right field
Chone Figgins, second base
Milton Bradley, DH
Jose Lopez, third base
Franklin Gutierrez, center field
Josh Wilson, shortstop
Casey Kotchman, first base
Rob Johnson, catcher
Michael Saunders, left field
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