At this late of a point in yet another lost season for the Seattle marienrs, there are only moral victories to reach for this team. Such as depriving the World Champion White Sox the opportunity to repeat as champions, and knocking them out of the play-offs in the final week of the season. ANd the Marienrs came a near two-hour rain delay in just accomplishing such a feat this afternoon.

After winning the first two games in commanding fashion- 9-0 and 11-6- the two prior games, the Mariners- behind a dominant effort from Felix Hernandez who had early command of his fiast-ball, throwing it for first-pitch strikes before baffling the Chicago line-up with his off-speed pitches- jumped to an early 7-2 lead before Felix struck out Brian Naderson to finish the fifth, thus making it an official game before the raindrops began falling.

Once the grounds crew was able to pull a tarp over a drenched infield that was slowly resembling a lake, the rain dealy had to be waited out. If the game was called, and with five innings underthe belt it wouldn't be forced to be remade as a part of a day-night double-header on Sunday, then Felix would've finished the final start of the season with a complete game victory, striking out six and allowing two runs in five innings.

Instead, the game resumed two hours later, just in time for the White Sox to rally in the sixth, thanks to a two-out throwing error by replacement shortstop Oswald Navarro (filling in for Willie Bloomquist) and five consecutive hits allowed by Eric O'Flaherty coughed up four runs- none earned- and the lead. The Mariners' bats were never able to recover and, including an all-too familiar implosion by Joel Pineiro who allowed five runs in the eighth, that was the ball-game.

The potential to hammer the White Sox' season shit slipped through the Mariners' grasp, as well as the actual 'W' that would've been registered. The loss was the Marienrs' 80th, bringing them dangerously close to the precipice of a fourth consecutive .500-or-less season, which if isn't crossed in tomorrow's game veruss the White Sox, then will be ingloriously reached in the following series at home versus the A's.

Beltre got the Mariners' offense to a fast start in this afternoon's game, hitting a first-inning home run to put up an early lead. Beltre's home run- and later double- increased his hitting streak to 13 games. Including his ninth-inning grand-slam in Thursday night's game, now mwans that Beltre has been batting .385 and slugging .923 so far in the Chicago series. Over the streak itself, Beltre has been batting .400 with a .727 slugging percentage. Ah, the Beltre we could've had all year....

Richie Sexson also joined in on the early-game offensive fire-works, with a two-run home-run off Mark Buehrle, his 32nd home run of the season, and his third in the past two games. As a team, and despite the bull-pen's late-inning blow-up in today's game, the M's have hit .321, slugged .536, and scored 27 runs in the first three games of the series. That's a nine-run average/per, but of course hardly any runs were needed Thursday night when Jake Woods made fools out of pretty much every Mariner follower by tossing seven scoreless innings against a hungry veteran team looking to recapture a play-off spot. Regardless of his outing on Thursday, however, I still wouldn't say that jake is out of the woods in securing a rotation start for next season...

At any rate, the team's offensive outburst agaisnt the White Sox will more than likely screech to a halt in tomorrow's game. The White Sox are starting former Marienr Freddy Garcia in tomorrow's game, and Freddy has been down-right masterful in his last two starts, allowing one hit in each to shut out the Detroit Tigers 7-0 and coming a few batters away from a perfect game in a 9-0 shut-out of the Angels. So, the Mariners do have their work cut out for them considering Freddy's current stretch of "being in the zone." Still, Freddy does hold a 6.47 career ERA against the M's in 32 innings to go a long with a 1-3 record, so the Mariners have had success when facing Garcia in the past. Rau Ibanez, in particular, has had success against Garcia, batting .581 with a 1.532 OPS in 31 career at-bats versus Freddy. However, Beltre has struggled against Garcia's offerings, only able to pick up four hits and a .496 OPS in 19 career at-bats versus Freddy.

Young left-hander Ryan Feierabend takes the hill for the Mariners in the match-up versus Freddy Garcia. After turning in six scorelss innings in relief, Feierabend makes a start in replacement of Jarrod Washburn, who tore a muscle in his right leg in his most recent start versus the Rangers.

How will the 21-year old youngster do in tomorrow's game? It's hard to say. Feierabend is an unknown quantity. There is no anayliss provided of him in the 2006 Baseball Prospectus, Hardball Times only has some lines from mid-summer minor league games, BP's website only offers translated stats, and Baseball America's site only offers Ryan's season stats for the M's AA San Antonio Missions. Although those numbers might be impressive- I'll take a 2.3 hit-to-walk ratio, and a 1:1 hit allowed per inning despite a 9-12 record- none of these offers any clue as to what type of pitcher Feierabend is and if he'll be able exploit, or will he be xploited by, the White Sox tomorrow. What I do no is that, as a whole, the White Sox hit right-handers nearly 30 points higher than they do left-handers (.291 to .263) with an OPS 90 points higher (.839 to .747). Considering the effort Ryan's contributed so far for the marienrs from the bull-pen, his numbers as a starter in AA, and the wide discprency of the White Sox's numbers versus left-handers against right-handers, don't expect to Ryan to fall flat on his face in tomorrow's ball-game.

However, don't expect him to win either. Though it'd be hard to expect that Freddy's streak of scoreless innings per start should trump the Mariners' recent success at scoring plenty of runs, the M's have been shut-out so many times this season that I feel hesitant to suggest they'll be able to scratch one across against Freddy. I think tomorrow's game will be the opposite of the past few games, with both pitchers contributing solid starts and the game will be decided by a few runs. Being said, I think Freddy and the White Sox will continue to hold on to their play-off hopes by their fingertips when they come out of tomororw's game on top of a 4-0 score.

Being said, Beltre will probably hit a first-run home-run just to spite me. In which case, I'd welcome it...