A couple of defensive miscues prevented a possible series sweep for Toronto.
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Following an off day Thursday, the Jays open a seven-game homestand against the Yankees and Orioles, followed by a series at Fenway Park to end the regular season. He would strike again in the eighth via a long solo home run.
“Disappointing, no doubt, but it is what it is, you got to try to regroup and we got to get back to playing good baseball”, Mariners manager Scott Servais said.
“I just wanted him to hear from me that he did exactly what we asked him to do”, he said.
In the bottom of the 12th inning, with R.A. Dickey making his first relief appearance since July 21, 2012 with the New York Mets, Josh Donaldson made a two-base throwing error on a groundball by Guillermo Heredia leading off. Ben Gamel followed with an attempted sacrifice bunt, and first baseman Ryan Goins appeared to have Heredia at third, but the ball popped out of Donaldson’s glove on the tag.
Hisashi Iwakuma (16-12) was staked to a 2-0 lead, but gave up two-run homers to Russell Martin and Michael Saunders during the Blue Jays’ big inning.
In the end, Happ used up 99 pitches to get through his five innings, but probably could have gone an inning or two deeper if he had not been forced to get five outs in the third inning.
The Mariners stumbled out of the gate losing the opener of their pivotal three-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays 3-to-2 Monday night. “It was a big moment”.
Weaver (12-12), who struck out six and allowed four runs, joined Chuck Finley (165) as the only pitchers to win 150 games for the Angels. I was behind in the count. Both ground ball misplays were ruled base hits, including Robinson Cano’s two-run triple that caromed off Travis’s knee and ended up in the right field corner. We talked early in the year that was something that I thought needed to get better. But after a tough battle against reliever Evan Scribner, Kevin Pillar was robbed of a single on a diving grab by shortstop Mike Freeman. “This year, it’s understanding that you’ve got to go out there, get outs and keep your team in the game”. Edwin Encarnacion rounded out the frame with a two-run double. “The math is not good”, manager Scott Servais said. The only run against him came in the third when Jesus Sucre hit a one-out double and Nori Aoki just barely poked an 0-2 curveball to centre for an RBI single. We are really, really good or we kind of have some ugly nights.
Blue Jays: RHP Aaron Sanchez (13-2, 3.17 ERA) gets the start in the afternoon series finale at Safeco Field. Though he has lost just once in his last 13 decisions, the rough outing elevated his ERA above 3.00 for the first time in over two months. With the Mariners winning seven of 10 and the Blue Jays just 5-5 over their last 10, Seattle is a solid underdog play tonight. Toronto has not announced a starter for the first game of the NY series. Cruz was the Mariners’ Opening Day right fielder and was supposed to split time between the positions, but settled in as an everyday DH over the past five weeks. Saunders, a native of British Columbia who began his career with the Mariners, never hit more than 19 home runs during any of his six seasons with Seattle.
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Going into Monday’s Major League Baseball games, the M’s were 3.0 games back in the wild-card race, tied with Houston and a half-game behind Detroit. Hernandez is 7-6 with a 4.30 ERA and 91 strikeouts in his career against the Blue Jays.
