Yesterday, reigning Cy Young Award winner and universally-acknowledged excellent pitcher Felix Hernandez had a characteristically excellent start, reminding everyone that he still is excellent pitcher Felix Hernandez, and will be for the foreseeable future. Against a subpar National League lineup, Felix pitched well and experienced neither particularly good luck nor particularly bad luck, and as such gave up a small but non-zero number of runs in his eight quality innings.
The Mariners offense was as anemic as ever, achieving only one hit (collected, appropriately enough, by non-hitter Felix Hernandez) through the first six innings. Fortunately, the small number of baserunners that the Mariners did manage happened through sheer chance to bunch together in a single inning, allowing them to collect multiple runs. A typical dinger from one-dimensional power hitter Miguel Olivo gave the Mariners enough room to comfortably score more runs than they allowed, causing them to win the game.
With the game in the books, the Mariners become one of many teams to defeat the Florida Marlins this season, and the Florida Marlins become one of slightly fewer but still many teams to be defeated by the Mariners. The win brings Seattle's record to .500 for the sixth time in the last month. The team's performance to date bears all the hallmarks of an average team, so expect them to remain near .500 for a while, unless something unlikely happens, which it probably will. Any individual sequence of events is unlikely, but it is extremely likely that one of them will happen. Will the Mariners win more than they lose in the next week, or will they lose more than they win? Either way, they’ll keep playing the games. Tune in tonight to see Jason Vargas pitch, in a game that will almost assuredly involve something happening.
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