Philadelphia Phillies (43-26) @ Dustin Ackleys (35-34)

[Jeff23]

very good inning. I'm really falling in love with these young guns Ackley, Smoak, Halman and Carp.



No figgins today

[Jeff23]

my goodness that bat just got destroyed.

[Jeff23]

Does anybody here follow the sounders?

[Sweezo]

Disappointing. With Felix on the hill I liked our chances to ensure a series win but then our offense failed to do anything against a pitcher I've never ever heard of.

The M's seem to prefer Carp as a DH over LF, but what is Peguero doing to justify that? The team keeps struggling to find a guy to put behind Ichiro...why not put Carp in at DH and stick him at #2? Sure he's not a speedy guy and his contact rate probably isn't fantastic, but he knows how to take a pitch and can get himself on base. He may not be some power-heavy clean-up hitter anymore but that doesn't mean he is useless.

Does anybody here follow the sounders?

Yep. I'm currently watching the replay of the Toronto game on ROOT Sports...although I just saw a headline on the Seattle Times saying we won 1-0 in the 90th minute so I am not sure why I am still watching it.

[TTown]

Ugh, baseball. If Smoak's first inning shot was a couple inches higher, or if Victorino's bloop double was literally an inch to the left...

Now Vargas has to beat Hamels.

[TTown]

2-0 M's in the 7th. Vargas has been... masterful. Ackley with a triple!

[Sweezo]

2-0 M's in the 7th. Vargas has been... masterful.

He may not be completely consistent, but this is one of the most impressive games I've ever seen a Mariner pitch.

AHHH! He just gave up a bloop hit to Howard. C'mon...finish it...

[Sweezo]

GAME OVER! Great win. Beating the Phillies with Hamels pitching is extremely impressive.

[TTown]

2-0 final, Vargas with a 3 hit shutout. Only faced 5 over the minimum. Texas lost, we're back to a 1/2 game out.

[sharkz]

oh wow Vargas I didn't think you had another shutout in you. Back above .500 and a series win over Philly for the Dustin Ackleys!

I'm betting on an Ackley double next game, hes got a single, then a home run, then now a triple, so a double is the only thing left

[Bay_Areas_Finest]

What a performance by Vargas. That was one of the best outings I've seen by a pitcher in a while.

Ackley once again impressed, and Chone Figgins continued to be horendous.

Nice series win!

[Jeff23]

Vargas was terrific. Ackley is sure inserting some life in our offense. The Nats are next and they're on a roll, if we win that series we might have something in this team folks...

[Base]

My question is, why are they keeping Ackley so low in the lineup. He obviously is a great hitter to come up to the MLB, get hits and launch a bomb. To hit a homerun in Safeco is a big feat.

[Bay_Areas_Finest]

^Ackley is going to move up in the order. They probably just started him off so low because they didn't want to put too much pressure on the young kid.

I think we all imagine he will be our #2 hitter in the future.

[TTown]

Yep. Ryan batted batted .384 in May near the bottom of the order, got moved to the 2-hole, and has cooled considerably (.177). I'm not necessarily saying there's a correlation, Ryan might have just had a hot month, but Ackley was born to hit behind Ichiro in a line-up, and Ryan probably works best lower w/o the pressure.

Kudos to all who made the Ryan/Wilson swap possible this offseason, by the way. Coming off the disasterous Chone/Jose Lopez swap of 2010, I was leery of moving our infielders around again. But damn, Ryan is dirt cheap and more than serviceable until (idealy) Franklin comes up in a few years, and it cleared the way for Ackley. Turns out Chone and Lopez hit so poorly last year because they were terrible baseball players, not because they were learning different positions.