Notice the nine 'o's? Clever, huh?

Anyway, did I say something about the Mariners' offense seemingly cliking on all cylinders? About how the Mariners should feast on Rodrigo Lopez and his 8.07 ERA? And that Beltre would contribute to the Mariners' offense today- even possibly hitting a home run?

Can we just scratch that?

Baseball is a funny game. Its a law of averages, and pretty much even the most novice of fans are aware of a player's batting average. Batting averages tend to even themselves out- that's why they're called "averages." Richie Sexson is not a lifetime .206 hitter- that won't be his batting average at the end of the year. It will ride up as the year continues, and even if he doesn't reach his career average of .267 by the end of the year, it'll probably end up a little below it, not sixty points below. (I hope.)

The same goes for pitching. Rodrigo Lopez is not an 8.07 ERA-type pitcher. He's won 15 games twice, and his highest ERA in a season of 23 starts or more is 5.82. One would assume that it would only be a matter of time before Lopez began to revert to his 'average'- which would entail throwing some very good ballgames to balance out the very bad ones that his season has been full of so far.

Well, he threw his first very good ballgame today, combining with Chris Ray on a 2-0 two-hit shutout of the Mariners.

As I had a two-hour afternoon class, I only caught the first inning and the bottom of the ninth. Good thing, too, as I probably would've smashed my walkman into a million little pieces if I had to listen to the whole game. It probably would've been the most maddening game to listen/watch/attend. Gil Meche followed up his mastery of the Padres last weekend with another brilliant start- 7 innings of four-hit ball with ten strikeouts. For any other team, that's a win. For the Mariners, that means being on the losing side of their sixth shut-out of the season.

The Mariners weren't able to get anything going against Lopez. Absolutely nothing. He only threw 88 pitches- 65 of which went for strikes. The Mariners were obviously intending to be patient today and force Rodrigo to throw first-pitch strikes, which he did, forcing the Mariners' batters to continually be behind in the count, and popping up all over the infield. Only three runners got on base, due to singles by Ibanez and Sexson and a walk by Jeremy Reed, and none got to second. Beltre, obviously, going 0-for-3 and lowering his season average to .207.

What a horribly depressing and deflating way to end an otherwise succesful home-stand. Sure it was great to win five of seven games, but against a struggling pitcher like Rodrigo the M's have to wonder why they didn't go 6-1 as they head back out on the road.

Tomorrow night the M's play the Twins in the Metrodome, Felix Hernandez versus the Twins' young phenom Francisco Liriano (who Beltre has never faced before). Contrary to a pitcher's duel, why do I have a sneaking suspicion that a few batters are going to add to their season stats in a big way?