M’s vs. Angels: Reaching home plate may be an elusive dream

Several players with the Angels are on the field doing early work, and at the momoent they’re running from first to third. It might help if they practiced going all the way to home plate.

You think the Mariners struggled to score runs over the weekend against the Twins (they went 16 straight scoreless innings before they flooded the scoreboard with two runs in the seventh on Sunday)?

The Angels are scuffling even more. They haven’t scored since the first inning Friday night, and go into tonight’s game against the M’s on a 26-inning scoreless streak and and a three-game losing streak.

Michael Saunders is back on the lineup card, playing left field and batting seventh, for the first time since an MRI on Thursday showed his ailing right shoulder was only bruised. He crashed into the wall Aug. 5 and hasn’t been well since. It probably won’t be written in ink until Saunders takes batting practice to test the shoulder, although he hit off a tee yesterday and said he felt fine.

Here is the Mariners’ lineup against Angels right-hander Ervin Santana (13-9, 4.13 ERA):

Ichiro Suzuki, right field

Chone Figgins, second base

Russell Branyan, DH

Jose Lopez, third base

Casey Kotchman, first base

Franklin Gutierrez, center field

Michael Saunders, left field

Adam Moore, catcher

Josh Wilson, shortstop

Right-hander David Pauley (2-5, 4.02 ERA), starting pitcher.

.