Nightcap: 8/8/07 @ Orioles

The M's win the second game of this hot series in Baltimore in similar fashion to last night's 10-3 beating as they win 8-4 tonight. Like last night, both teams pounded out double-digit hits; the Mariners with 15 and the Orioles with 11. Also like last night, only one Mariner starter did not contribute with a hit, that being Kenji Johjima tonight who went 0 for 4. Jose Vidro, Jose Guillen, and Raul Ibanez (2-3-5) contributed four, two, and one runs batted in respectively, and each added a homerun. Ibanez now has three of his nine homeruns in the first two games of this season. The winning pitcher is Felix Hernandez after allowing four earned runs on ten hits in 6.2 innings, and watched Sherrill, Morrow, and Putz close the game out giving up only one hit. For Putz, who again came in during the eighth inning, recorded his 33rd save of the season.

Before the game, former Oriole World Series MVP Rick Dempsey said how he would pitch to Ichiro. He said that he put a shift on where the leftfielder would play the line, the centerfielder would play in the gap, and the rightfielder would play almost in center. He said he would also put the second baseman behind the bag. When Dempsey's co-anchor asked him if Ichiro was good enough to pull the ball to avoid the shift, Dempsey said NO! I couldn't believe the stupidity of that idea. I understand that Ichiro kills the Orioles, hitting like .380 career, but theres no way that you can put a shift on Ichiro because he can pull the ball ten times out of ten if he wanted to.

Umpires: HP--Tony Randazzo. 1B--Charlie Reliford. 2B--Greg Gibson. 3B--Larry Vanover (RAZZLE DAZZLE BEHIND THE PLATE!)

Time: 2:42 (Nice quick game even with 26 combined hits)

Attendance: 17,511 (Almost 10,000 less than yesterday due to increased heat and no Jeremy Guthrie T-Shirt giveaway)

Weather: 101 degrees, partly cloudy (I wasn't there tonight, but I definitely believe it)

Wind: 6 mph, left to right