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Might 19, 2012|Reuters

Millwood, 37, pitched Sunday in Yankee Stadium with Andy Pettitte making his return to the Yankees, and the Mariners veteran basically out-pitched the New York lefty by permitting just 3 hits and one run in seven innings.

Then Millwood came back Friday and threw his initial shutout in almost a decade. Immediately after carrying a no-hitter into the sixth inning, back-to-back singles ended the no-hit bid. But when the inning ended with center fielder Michael Saunders throwing out Marco Scutaro at third base, Millwood regrouped and place Colorado away en route to a 4- win.

“It was nice they (broke up the no-hitter) with two out,” Millwood said. “When Saunders was in a position to throw the guy out at third, I was in a position to come off the field and regroup.”

Millwood allowed just a single much more man to reach base, issuing a two-out walk in the ninth as he earned his 1st shutout since Aug. 1, 2003 with his 22nd profession full game.

The Mariners are two-6 on the road trip with two games nonetheless to play, and Millwood has both of the wins. Possibly as important Friday was that he was in a position to give the beleaguered bullpen a night off.

“It was just an outstanding performance,” manager Eric Wedge mentioned. “We genuinely necessary that as a ballclub, gave our bullpen a break, significantly required, we had been going to try and stay away from 3 guys down there. I can’t say enough about what he did.”

The Seattle bullpen blew a 4- lead Thursday in Cleveland and has had a miserable time of it on the trip with a 6.27 ERA.

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MLB Team Report – Seattle Mariners – NOTES, QUOTES

–3B Kyle Seager continues to earn more playing time as the cleanup hitter. He delivered an RBI single with two out in the initial Friday, added a sacrifice fly in the sixth, then closed out his night at the plate with a triple in the ninth that created the Mariners’ final run. The RBIs each came against Colorado’s Alex White, his college roommate at North Carolina. It was the initial time they’d ever faced every other.

–RHP Kevin Millwood had a no-hitter for 5 innings Friday, gave up back-to-back singles in the sixth, but then retired the subsequent six batters and nine of the final ten en route to completing his very first shutout considering that Aug. 1, 2003. It was his 22nd profession full game and his sixth profession shutout.

–C Jesus Montero, struggling on this road trip, was given a second consecutive day off by manager Eric Wedge Friday. He is 3-for-23 on the trip. “He needs it,” Wedge stated. “When there was all the enterprise early on about him playing every single day he’s just not prepared to play every single day. We’re going to get him in there as a lot as we can. He has a lot to process mentally.”

–C Miguel Olivo, still on the disabled list with a strained appropriate groin, joined the team Friday in Colorado. “He’s going to go through every thing here in the subsequent couple of days,” manager Eric Wedge mentioned. “I am assuming every thing will go nicely, and we’ll get him out (on a rehab assignment). He feels excellent, even though.”

–1B Justin Smoak, who had just two hits on the last homestand, has 11 hits in the 1st eight games of the current ten-game road trip. He’s at .333 for the trip, raising his common from .173 to 뒂.

–CF Michael Saunders tripled and scored Seattle’s very first run Friday, but his largest contribution to the Mariners’ second win of the road trip came in the field. Saunders threw out Marco Scutaro, who was trying to go from initial to third on a single by Jordan Pacheco in the sixth. Scutaro, who was the only Colorado runner to get past initial base, was the third out of the inning.

–LF Mike Carp only has three hits on the road trip, but all three have been for further bases — a double and two homers, which includes a monster to center field in the second inning Friday.

BY THE NUMBERS:Ł — Total game for the Mariners this year following RHP Kevin Millwood’s sixth profession shutout Friday.

QUOTE TO NOTE: “I felt terrible in the bullpen.” — RHP Kevin Millwood, on his two-hit shutout Friday in Colorado.

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MLB Team Report – Seattle Mariners – ROSTER REPORT

MEDICAL WATCH:

–C Miguel Olivo (appropriate groin strain) went on 15-day disabled list May 1. He resumed baseball activities May 7. Olivo rejoined the Mariners on Could 18 in Colorado, but there nevertheless was no timetable for his return.

–LHP George Sherrill (strained left elbow) went on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to April 10. He underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery in early Could.

–OF Franklin Gutierrez (partially torn right pectoral muscle) went on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to March 24. He resumed throwing in late March, but he was slowed in late April due to plantar fasciitis. He resumed operating May possibly two, then was shut down for a couple of days May 9. There was no timetable for his return.

ROTATION:

RHP Felix Hernandez

LHP Jason Vargas

RHP Blake Beavan

RHP Kevin Millwood

RHP Hector Noesi

BULLPEN:

RHP Brandon League (closer)

LHP Charlie Furbush

RHP Hisashi Iwakuma

RHP Tom Wilhelmsen

LHP Lucas Luetge

RHP Steve Delabar

RHP Shawn Kelley

CATCHERS:

Jesus Montero

John Jaso

INFIELDERS:

1B Justin Smoak

2B Dustin Ackley

SS Brendan Ryan

3B Kyle Seager

INF Alex Liddi

INF Munenori Kawasaki

OUTFIELDERS:

LF Mike Carp

CF Michael Saunders

RF Ichiro Suzuki

OF Casper Wells

OF/INF Chone Figgins

===

CLEVELAND — Carlos Santana didn’t thoughts the postgame pounding he took from his teammates Thursday. In truth, he enjoyed it.

Santana was greeted by his enthusiastic teammates immediately after the Cleveland Indians beat the Seattle Mariners 6-5 on his RBI single with 1 out in the bottom of the 11th inning.

“I didn’t care if I got hurt or not,” he stated. “They had been hitting me everywhere, but I really feel wonderful. I am so pleased.”

Santana’s clutch hit capped a two-run 11th. He was mobbed by his teammates in a celebration that spilled onto the outfield grass right after Cleveland won its fourth straight.

The comeback was the Indians’ second of the day. The Mariners led four-, but Cleveland scored a run in the seventh and Jose Lopez hit a three-run homer against Steve Delabar that tied it in the eighth. Although Seattle scored a run against Joe Smith (four-1) in the leading of the 11th, the Indians nonetheless felt confident.

“Everybody in the dugout said, ‘Let’s get two, we can do it,’” Indians manager Manny Acta said.

Michael Saunders’ run-scoring double in the top of the 11th gave Seattle a 5-4 lead, but closer Brandon League (-three) extended his startling lack of success against the Indians. League has blown seven saves in nine probabilities in his career against Cleveland, such as two this season.

“You do not get to closers very frequently,” Acta said. “The guys had been fairly confident since we had accomplished it before against him and we could do it once again.”

League, who is two-five and has allowed 17 earned runs in 16 2/three innings lifetime against Cleveland, took the blame for the loss.

“My control was just absolutely unacceptable right now,” he said after walking 3 and allowing two hits although retiring only 1 batter. “I was issuing no cost passes, and when I did get the ball more than the plate, it was proper down the middle.”

Lopez drew a leadoff walk and went to second on a wild pitch. After Shin-Soo Choo struck out, Jason Kipnis walked. Asdrubal Cabrera’s single to appropriate tied it.

Aaron Cunnigham, batting for Travis Hafner, walked to load the bases. Santana lined a 3-2 pitch to center for the winning hit.

Hafner was hit on the side of the correct hand by a pitch from Charlie Furbush in the ninth. He walked slowly to initial, but remained in the game following speaking with Acta and a team trainer. Hafner went to the on-deck circle in the 11th, but knew he would not be in a position to hit due to the fact he couldn’t grip the bat.

“It got swollen up,” he stated. “I iced it up. I assume there’s absolutely a likelihood I can play (right now). I saw the doctor and everything checked out very good.”

Hafner, who mentioned he didn’t have X-rays, has been hit by a pitch 80 instances in his career, a team record.

The Mariners, who have lost four consecutive games, are 1Lj on their 10-game road trip and are 1-12 away from home since April 28.

The Mariners wasted a strong outing by proper-hander Hector Noesi, who allowed a single run and 5 hits in 6 1/three innings.

Delabar came on to commence the eighth with Seattle leading four-1. He walked Santana major off, but retired the subsequent two hitters. Casey Kotchman’s double to appropriate moved Santana to third. Lopez then hit a 2- pitch off the railing above the 19-foot wall in left field to tie it at 4. The massive moment almost was spoiled when he forgot to touch first as he rounded the bases.

“I was watching the ball,” Lopez stated. “I knew I missed it so I ran back appropriate away and touched it.”

Lopez, who played for the Mariners from 2004-10, began at third base in place of the injured Jack Hannahan. He committed a fielding error that led to an unearned run in the fifth and grounded out weakly to the mound with the bases loaded to finish the fourth.

The Indians’ very first run came on Cabrera’s seventh-inning single.

Ryan broke an -for-17 slump with an RBI single in the sixth, and drew walks in the third and fifth when the Mariners scored their first two runs. His two hits increased his common from .ፉ to .153.

Seattle has been outscored 40-19 on the road trip.

Zach McAllister, starting again in place of the injured Josh Tomlin, allowed 4 runs in five two-three innings.

McAllister was called up from Triple-A Columbus on Saturday when Tomlin went on the disabled list with a sore proper wrist. McAllister got the loss that night in Boston, permitting four runs in seven innings.

Tomlin, who hasn’t pitched because Could 7, will undergo a second MRI on the wrist right now.

Hannahan missed his fourth consecutive game with lower back soreness. The Indians stated an MRI revealed mild back inflammation and Hannahan is day to day.

Indians left fielder Johnny Damon singled in the fourth and moved into a tie with Tony Perez for 55th location on the all-time profession hits list with 2,732.

Ackley extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a 1st-inning single.

Know what the Mariners need as they pass the quarter pole of an additional woeful season? They require an additional left fielder.

Yeah, you answer, but they currently have about 12 guys who can play left-field, a couple of them even competently.

Appropriate, so you happen to be thinking the team demands a baker’s-dozen left fielders the way, say, Wiley Coyote demands one more run-in with the Roadrunner.

The issue is, it wouldn’t just be any left fielder. This one would be Carlos Peguero, who, for the duration of just 11 games with the triple-A Rainiers this year, has 15 hits, like four doubles, a triple and four home runs.

Friday, as the M’s were shutting down Colorado four- during their, nicely, woeful four-city, three-6 road trip (as of Saturday), Peguero had a solo dinger for Tacoma to go with a base hit, raising his batting average to .375.

Granted: His mere 40 Coast League at-bats this year scarcely qualify as an adequate sampling for projecting large-league production. Nor was he specifically a Rookie of the Year candidate final year, when the then 24-year-old played 46 games for Seattle and hit .196. But among his 28 hits in 2011 had been six extended balls.

Property runs haven’t been a massive element of the M’s repertoire for the greater portion of a decade. Getting into the Saturday game with Colorado in which they picked up one much more homer during a ten-3 win, the Mariners’ 34 round-trippers left them 11th in the 14-team American League.

This season, Jesus Montero leads the team with 5 extended balls (one a lot more than Ranger Josh Hamilton had Could 8 in a single outing) but sat for the Thursday and Friday games right after lunging for a quantity of negative pitches he apparently imagined placing over the fences. At least the 22-year-old has shown something like aggressiveness at the plate, unlike teammates who have conspicuously left an abundance of runners in scoring position on the way to an 18-24, final-spot record in the division.

How to make room for Peguero? At some point management is going to have to swallow the Chone Figgins contract: bad debt to rival particular documents from the housing crisis. In the absence of a Figgins selection, there are other individuals who could benefit from taking swings in triple-A.

And there are two other factors for bringing back Peguero. One: At 6-feet-5 and 245 pounds he’s a Large Get in size alone.

Yet another would be the nostalgia aspect. Unless you had been the Angels’ Torii Hunter, one of the — literally — warmest, fuzziest moments of the 2011 season occurred precisely a year and ago at Safeco Field. From the deathless memories cluttering the Crosscut.com archives, it’s recounted beneath in the written drivel of your own humble correspondent:

The sun won a game in Seattle? Seattle . . . Washington?

Yes, and the phrase â€�seeing is believing” isn’t really suitable. �€œNot seeing” tends to make far more sense in this context.

In the bottom of the ninth Thursday (Might 19) [2011], with the game knotted at 1 and the Mariners with two outs and a runner on third, recent contact-up Carlos Peguero lofted a routine fly to center, precisely the play that had practically resulted in a dropped ball by M’s center-fielder Michael Saunders half an inning earlier.

This time the Los Angeles Angels’ Torii Hunter lost the ball in the cloud-much less afternoon glare. Jack Cust walked residence with the winning run to the delight of 18,374, none, from what I could see, wearing a parka.

For his portion in that game alone, Carlos Peguero is a Mariners immortal and belongs — even if just in some mascot function — with the large-league team.

Might 17, 2012|Reuters

RHP Hisashi Iwakuma pitched four innings of one-run relief Wednesday in Cleveland. He has allowed just two runs in his final seven innings, bringing his ERA down from 9.00 to five.25.

3B Alex Liddi got a likelihood to begin against a correct-hander when manager Eric Wedge utilized him against Cleveland’s Ubaldo Jimenez on Wednesday. Just 24 hours earlier, Wedge said he wanted to give Liddi, who’d mostly played against lefties, much more possibilities. “He’s a very good young player with some damage capability,” Wedge mentioned.

3B Kyle Seager, who got the begin at designated hitter Wednesday, had a ninth-inning single. That leaves him 17-for-34 profession against the Indians, and he has a seven-game hitting streak.

RHP Felix Hernandez had a streak of ten consecutive good quality starts against Cleveland before the Indians knocked him out of the game in the fourth inning having reached him for eight runs (six earned). The 10-game streak had been tied for the fourth-longest active streak of consecutive good quality starts by one pitcher against one team.

LF Mike Carp was in the original starting lineup, but he had to be scratched when his correct shoulder started acting up. He originally injured his shoulder while trying to make a diving catch for the duration of the season opener March 28 in Tokyo against Oakland. Manager Eric Wedge stated he was offered as a pinch hitter, but Carp didn’t get into the game.

Click photo to enlarge

Colorado Rockies’ Marco Scutaro hangs his head following becoming tagged out at third by Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager during the sixth inning of an interleague baseball game, Friday, Could 18, 2012, in Denver.

DENVER—The Colorado Rockies got what they needed from starter Alex White. They can’t say the exact same about their offense.

White threw seven effective innings, a uncommon feat by a Colorado starter this year, but it wasn’t sufficient against the Seattle Mariners.

Kevin Millwood tossed a two-hitter for his initial shutout in almost nine years and Mike Carp hit a solo homer, helping the Mariners snap a four-game skid with a four- win Friday night.

“We got a quite competitive work from Alex White, regrettably the Mariners got a tremendous work from Kevin Millwood,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy stated.

Millwood (2-4) comfortably cruised by means of this game and did not surrender his initial hit until Marco Scutaro’s single with two outs in the sixth. He struck out seven and walked one particular. He did not allow a runner to reach third until the ninth inning, but got Carlos Gonzalez to line out to finish the game.

After averaging 10 hits per game more than the final three, the Rockies located them difficult to come by against their former teammate.

“He was producing his pitches. It wasn’t like we were hitting a bunch of hard balls,” Scutaro stated. “He was banging the corners and he had late movement.”

White (-three) was the challenging-luck loser, dropping his sixth straight start off in a dubious string that dates back to Sept. 16. Immediately after struggling early, White settled into a groove. He gave up 3 runs—two earned—and seven hits in seven solid innings.

“That’s alright.

My job is to preserve the team in the game, get deep in the ballgame and give us a opportunity to win,” White said. “That is what I tried to do but Millwood was very good tonight.”

The Rockies hoped to get wholesome on this 5-game homestand but have lost two of their first 3 and 12 of 16 in May. They’ve slipped to a season-low eight games beneath .500 but the players aren’t giving up hope.

“I believe we’re close to going on a run, and it starts with our pitching staff, it starts with the starters keeping the team in the game,” White mentioned. “We have a excellent offense, they’re going to get going and score us some runs.

“It is Might, it is nonetheless mid-May possibly, there is a lot of the season left. If you look down this lineup we have a fantastic team and we’ll place it together.”

Right after bouncing about, Millwood might have finally located a house with the Mariners.

The journeyman pitcher shuffled about the minor leagues with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for a lot of final season. He joined the Rockies rotation final August in an emergency scenario, when Juan Nicasio was lost for the year right after taking a line drive to the appropriate temple and suffering a fractured skull along with a neck injury.

Millwood wound up 4-three wearing Colorado’s purple pinstripes.

He the moment once more had to prove himself this season, signing a minor league contract with Seattle. He began winless in his very first six games this season, just before beating the Yankees final Sunday.

He flirted with a no-hitter Friday, giving up his only two hits in the sixth inning. The very first was on Scutaro’s chopper that Seager couldn’t snare in the hole amongst third and brief. Jordan Pacheco followed with a single up the middle, but Scutaro was thrown out by Michael Saunders as he tried to advance to third.

“It was a negative play by me,” Scutaro mentioned. “I have to make sure to be safe. I thought I had a chance but I’ve got to be intelligent on that.”

Millwood already has one particular no-hitter below his belt as he bottled up the San Francisco Giants in a 1- win on April 27, 2003, when he was with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Relying on a 91-mph fastball and an successful slider, Millwood baffled the Rockies all evening.

“He pounded the strike zone all night. He pitched ahead all night,” Tracy said. “He used possibly a handful of curveballs, essentially did it with a fastball. Utilised his slider efficiently. When you pitch ahead all night long you get defensive swings.”

Carp hit his third homer of the season in the second, a towering shot to the deepest portion of the park. Kyle Seager had an RBI single and drove in another on a sacrifice fly. John Jaso added an insurance coverage run the ninth by bringing in Seager on a sac fly.

The Mariners enhanced to two-6 on their ten-game, four-city road swing.

A nifty slide by Ichiro Suzuki in the sixth staked the Mariners to a three- lead, which was a lot more than adequate for Millwood. The speedy Suzuki got a great jump as he tagged on Seager’s shallow fly. Though Gonzalez’s throw was on target—and arrived about the exact same time—Suzuki managed to steer clear of Wilin Rosario’s tag prior to slapping his hand on the plate.

The Mariners scratched out a run in the initial when Saunders laced a triple into the correct-center gap and was brought in when Seager blooped a single center.

NOTES: Seattle has a pair of no-hitters in team background, the last by Chris Bosio on April 22, 1993, in a 7- win over Boston. Randy Johnson has the other on June two, 1990, against Detroit. … Nicasio had a bruise on his right thigh right after becoming hit by a line drive in the very first inning Thursday. … LHP Jorge De La Rosa (shoulder) allowed 1 run and three hits over four innings in a rehab start at Double-A Tulsa on Thursday.