The Story of Putz

What a weird game between Seattle and Detroit - Miller and Hernandez dueled for five innings, with each of them in constant trouble. Detroit scraped out 2 and Seattle 0, in spite of both teams having at least 6 men in scoring position, often with less than two outs.

The truly weird part was the one inning where the M's scored, maybe the sixth. The bases were loaded for Adrian Beltre, who hit a soft single into right, which Magglio threw to the plate to try to nail the man scoring from second. The throw was late, and the runner got in easily. Whoever was catching (not Pudge; he got tossed earlier after making contact with the ump during an argument) threw to second, where Guillen attempted to tag Beltre sliding into the base but missed. The umpire called Beltre safe, but he slid past the bag. Guillen chased him but couldn't apply the tag, although he was quite close. Rather than pursuing Beltre and catching him in a rundown, Guillen decided to appeal to the ump and pretend he'd made the tag. The ump wasn't buying it, so the inning resumed with Beltre at third. But then, in a call that thereafter went unexplained, Guillen tagged Beltre while standing on third base, and the ump called him out for not having touched second on the previous play - this in spite of the fact that the ump had originally called him safe! After that inning, no more runs scored, and J.J. Putz struck out none other than Magglio to end the game.

I was very pleased with the outcome because I'm starting to suspect that the Mariners will fade a bit in the second half, whereas the Tigers (frighteningly) could improve substantially with the return of some of their injured dudes. Offensively, the Mariners have been pretty lucky. It's really not cool to depend on Richie Sexson for anything; they've got some quality bats but down the stretch no one other than Ichiro will be *that* worrisome to opposing pitchers. Meanwhile, Putz and Hernandez are pretty green to be shouldering such an enormous burden. It's reasonable to expect that their numbers will fall to earth in the second half, even if they remain generally dependable. I also do not think that Jarrod Washburn is any longer capable of contributing 200 innings. His effectiveness and inning-eating ability will probably decline, as it basically has during the season anyway, and as it did last year. To make a long story short, if the M's can forestall their likely fall from contention for a few games, just long enough to sweep the Tigers while everyone is still feeling good, that would be sweet.