Witnessing history... Almost

WOW. I came so close to watching history unfold before my own eyes. I was lucky enough to go to the Mariners/Yankess game at SAFECO on Friday 9/5/08. Brenden Morrow the young flame thrower for the Mariners took the bump for the first time in his career to start a game. He was successful as a reliever at the big league level, however, long term plans were for him to be a starter. He was able to save 10 games while JJ Putz was on the DL and did very well. Once Putz came back they decided to send Morrow to triple A so he could develop his arm to last for more than just 1 or 2 innings. After 5 starts in triple A he was 1-2 with a 5 plus era. Not great stats, nonetheless they knew he had the stuff to compete at the major league level. Might as well throw him to sharks and have him open against one of the best offensive line ups in the league... The Yankees.

And Morrow had absolutely filthy stuff. He was consistantly in the 95-97mph range with his fastball and mixed in a 84-86mph offspeed breaking pitch. Morrow confused hitters all night long mixing up his pitches, hitting corners and throwing some serious cheese. NO HIT the Yankees through 7 2/3, also including strikeouts of A-rod, Jeter, Giambi, and Damon. I don't care who you are if you can strike out those 4 guys in one start you are doing something right. Giambi struck out in the second inning and he just looked completly clueless up there... just pure dominance. 4 outs away from history, but still the best pitching performance i've ever seen live.

With a performance like that it looks like the pitching staff for the Mariners might not be that bad next year... No.1 Felix Hernandez, No.2 Eric Bedard, No.3 Brenden Morrow??? Putz in the pen. Now offensivly they need to get rid of everyone except for Ibanez, and Ichiro. Pitching will be fine, but without some serious retooling on the offensive side the Mariners will continue to be between mediocre and poor. Keep Rigleman around, he is a no nonsence kind of manager and was really the only one with the stones to actually get rid of Ricky Sexon. Not to mention the Mariners are only about 5 games under 500 since he has started managing the team... Which is not good but with the team they have he has definately earned time to see what he can do with this team with a fresh start at the beginning of a season.

It's been a very tough year for the Mariners, but last night gave every person affiliated with the Mariners a performance they could be very proud of.

Trash