Seattle Mariners

The race is on, as the number of regular players who have yet to draw a walk in 2009 is down to three:

Yuniesky Betancourt (53 PA)
Bengie Molina (54 PA)
Ichiro Suzuki (33 PA)

4/23/09 - Felix Hernandez pitched seven shutout innings against the Tampa Bay Rays. Despite the Mariners netting three errors on defense, having a catcher playing 1st base, and Yuni Betancourt still shading 3rd base instead of playing short stop, the Mariners won the April afternoon game, 1-0.

In the first inning, Hernandez pitched through the order in three outs, striking out BJ Upton looking and Evan Longoria swinging. The bottom of the first was led off by Ichiro hitting a lead-off homer to give the Mariners a one run lead.

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Seattle Mariners o8.5 (100)
Tue Apr 21, ‘09 10:10p - MLB Odds
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After starting last season 1-8, the Detroit Tigers are 5-4 as they encounter their first west coast trip of the season. In this trip they will play the Seattle Mariners in a three-game set, then head down to southern California to face the Los Angeles Angels. They will then head back to the Midwest to play a division opponent, the Kansas City Royals.

The Mariners are 7-3 and are on top of the American League West by two-and-a-half games over the Angels, Oakland Athletics, and Texas Rangers.

Last night I was faced with a dilemma.

I sat down to my computer to do some work, and put MLB Network on for background noise. As I’ve done with ESPN for years, I watched—rather, listened—to the same highlights at least a half-dozen times.

Then, much to my enjoyment, a baseball came on, and my attention, unintentionally, was pulled from my computer. Initially I was only comparing the MLB Network’s announcing team with those from the NFL network.

Like he has so many times before, Ichiro Suzuki slapped a single through the right side of the infield.  Pretty routine if you think about it…but the historical significance was huge.

With that hit, Ichiro surpassed Isao Harimoto and became the all-time hit leader among Japanese baseball players.

With Erik Bedard and Jarrod Washburn’s successes in the past week, a 5-2 record going into the Mariners home-opener, and both Endy Chavez and Yuniesky Betancourt hitting over .350, there is a ton of reason to be optimistic as an M’s fan.

In 2001 the Mariners came into the season with a lot of questions.

Face of the Franchise:  Ken Griffey, Jr.
 
Manager: Lou Piniella

By now if you're reading this, it's likely that you know how the Twins lost, what went wrong, what could have went better, and everything in between. It was game one, and there are still 161 remaining.

With the heavily anticipated day now over, it's time to just focus on baseball and they'll start that tonight with Nick Blackburn against Erik Bedard.