Mariners Blog

Geoff Baker covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He provides daily coverage of the team throughout spring training, and during the season.

July 1, 2009 at 6:26 PM

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Mariners can't play the long ball game, lose 4-2 to the Yankees

Posted by Geoff Baker

The photo above shows Jarrod Washburn, waiting for an umpires' video review of one of three home runs he gave up tonight. New York scored all of its runs via the longball, including this solo shot to left by Melky Cabrera in the fifth inning.

Alex Rodriguez had the big blast again, a tiebreaking, two-run homer off Washburn in the sixth.

The Mariners countered with just one home run of their own, with Ken Griffey Jr. going deep to tie it in the sixth. It was the 44th park Griffey has homered in, leaving him one behind Sammy Sosa for the all-time lead. Time to bump steroid-using Sosa out of there, I'd say.

Anyhow, back to this game. The Mariners are not a team built to get into a slugfest with anyone and it showed tonight. Griffey did his part, but Russell Branyan went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts and has not been the power threat in the park some people figured he might be.

This game, for me, lacked some of the drama of last night's.

Perhaps it was the more efficient pitching, with both Washburn and Andy Pettitte showing they could command the strike zone. The game was played in about two thirds the time as last night's and maybe that's why it seemed Seattle didn't do a good enough job of making Pettitte sweat.

There were a few innings where I could barely stretch my fingertips before it was over.

The big missed chance for Seattle, of course, came in the second inning when the M's failed to score after putting two on with none out. Can't do that against Pettitte, even if it's 2009 and not 1999.

Once again, Washburn is victimized by his offense. You can't win very often scoring two runs or fewer. This road trip, looking so good about 26 hours ago, is now in serious trouble with C.C Sabathia taking on Jason Vargas tomorrow.

The Mariners stand a good chance of being swept here and then head off to Boston with Felix and a prayer.

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Comments (41)

"Once again, Washburn is victimized by his offense." Was it the offense serving up meatballs??? Nope.... this loss is on Washburn Geoff. Posted on July 1, 2009 at 6:57 PM by hitdeep. Jump to comment

god i hate a-roid. Posted on July 1, 2009 at 6:42 PM by kyle bleeds purple. Jump to comment

can't understand how we lost with Rob Johnson's presence and all. Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:32 PM by woodywould. Jump to comment

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Mariners can't play the long ball game, lose 4-2 to the Yankees

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