Mariners made it back to .500 today with a 7-3 victory. Thought you'd like to know.
Everyone wants to talk about home runs, great pitching performances, and bad calls as avenues to winning or losing.
Tonight illustrated the importance of defense.
An error in the first leads to a run for Arizona; a misplay in the outfield leads to Seattle's first run later on. A nice running catch by Arizona's left fielder saves two runs at the time. A dumb error by Seattle's second baseman allowed another run to score for Arizona and left the outcome of the game if not in doubt, at least within worrying range. Arizona's shortstop made two excellent plays. The game ended when Seattle's left fielder climbed the short wall in foul territory and reached in between two fans to make the final out. Seattle's catcher scored by evading a lackluster tag at the plate after a poor throw by an Arizona outfielder. Arizona's pitcher deflected a batted ball off his own glove, preventing his teammates from turning a double play.
The M's would have won this one 1-0 in a cleanly fielded game. Or lost it 2-1 if the Diamondbacks had been less sloppy.
The next few weeks will illustrate just how important defense is to the Mariners: starting left fielder Endy Chavez is out for the season when a poor defensive teammate ran into him and blew up his knee; third baseman Adrian Beltre, considered one of the top gloves at his position, is less than 100 percent with shoulder issues; and both middle infielders run the risk of being traded midseason, in part because of their subpar defense.
If the M's proceed to lose a lot of games 5-4 and 4-3 in the next few weeks, it should be easy to point nightly at a defensive meltdown that cost them a run. Don't automatically assume Ichiro should have gotten another hit or Griffey should have launched another homer, or Felix should have struck out one more batter.
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