Mariners-Yankees: Seattle Avoids the Sweep, 8-4

The 2009 Seattle Mariners seem to have quite the knack for pulling out improbable wins.

They’ve already done it twice in this road trip—first, in LA when we sent Garrett Olson out against Hiroki Kuroda, and tonight, in perhaps an even more unlikely occurrence, when we sent Jason Vargas against C.C. Sabathia.

Not just Jason Vargas, mind you, but a very sick Jason Vargas.

The M’s snagged the lead in the top of the first inning, and never let it go, winning 8-4.

Ichiro started the game off with a double, and scored on a Jose Lopez ground out. He had two hits on the night, one of them being a crucial two-run double in the fourth. He also stole his 17th base of the year.

Other standouts were Franklin Gutierrez, who had three hits including a solo bomb off C.C. Sabathia, and Russell Branyan, who delivered the fatal blow in the form of a mammoth two-run homer in the ninth inning.

The long ball certainly must have been a big relief for Russell, who struck out four times yesterday and three more times today.

The M’s were able to chase C.C. after only five-and-two-thirds innings of work. Sabathia was saddled with six earned runs and left the game with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth.

Jason Vargas was apparently very sick with the flu, and was only able to work four innings of four-run ball.

Fortunately for the M’s, Miguel Batista, Mark Lowe, and David Aardsma all stepped up to work a combined five innings of shutout relief en route to victory.

One of the other big stories of Thursday’s game was Ryan Langerhans. As you know, we acquired him a few days ago from the Nationals, and he made his Mariner debut tonight.

He had two hits on the night, one being a double that he ripped past Mark Teixeira, and the other being a line drive single to right that set us up to score a run nicely in the second inning. He also had a deep line out to center field.

This was a huge win, as it evened up our road trip at 3-3, and finished off this tough series on a high note as we head to Boston tomorrow. If we can just win one game against the Sox, I’ll consider this road trip a success.

Anything more is just a bonus.

Other News and Game Notes

•Ichiro’s hit streak is now at: one game.

•It looks as though the Angels are probably going to win tonight against Baltimore, so we’re likely to remain three-and-a-half games out of first place. We will gain half a game on Texas today, though.

•Felix Day is tomorrow!

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