Doug Fister went up against John Lackey tonight in a game at Fenway Park in Boston going 5 2/3 innings in what can only be described as a gutsy performance by the lanky right-hander as the Mariners won again 2-0. Fister pitched-out of his first bases-loaded jam of the night in the first highlighted by a strikeout of Big Papi David Ortiz on what looked like a cutter, and promptly received a glare from the big DH as he headed back to the bench. As we all know Doug Fister is a finesse pitcher who tops-out at around 91mph, and tonight Fister used all of his pitches to keep the Bosox off balance in front of an intense and frustrated Red Sox sell-out crowd.
Fister seemed to have runners in scoring position all night but somehow Fister backed by some solid defense got out of jam after jam including a bases-loaded, no outs situation in the 5th. But King Neptune smiled on the Mariners for one more night as slugger Adrian Gonzalez lined into a double-play followed by a sweet catch of a pop-up by Justin Smoak to end the threat. Once again in the sixth the Red Sox had a couple on with two outs before manger Eric wedge took the long walk to the mound and pulled Fister to bring in lefty Aaron Laffey who managed to get the third out on a nice catch by Miguel Olivo to avoid disaster again. Brandon League came into the game in the 9th with the game on the line and got his 7th save of the year (Aardsma who?) The entire game almost felt like a playoff game as the Mariners battled to extend their winning streak to five games with King Felix coming to the mound for the final game of this series.
Offensively the Mariners had a wild third inning where Milton Bradley got the chance to play both the hero and the goat with his RBI double to score Ichiro, but then getting tossed from the game when he mouthed-off to the first-base umpire over a terrible call at first. In the 6th the Mariners managed to get another valuable run across the plate playing small-ball. Cust and Saunders lead-off the inning with singles and Brendan Ryan did his job with a bunt followed by a sac-fly from Jack Wilson to score Cust. Jack Cust picked-up a few more walks tonight to go along with his base-hit as he continues to start his comeback from a terrible start.
The Red Sox were 0-11 with runners in scoring position tonight and I am sure with all the money they spent on free-agents last off-season nobody expected them to be playing the way they have thus far, but coming from our perspective out here in Seattle I can’t really feel sorry for them. As all this is happening it easy to forget the man in the dugout Eric ” Popeye” Wedge who seems to be making all the right moves these days. Michael Saunders was quoted today as saying “He knows how to get the best from each player in the clubhouse” and there is no finer compliment that can be said about a manager. So here we go folks Felix on the mound as the 13-15 Mariners inch ever closer to .500, My Oh My! Go M’s! http://jeffsmariners.com