September 16: Mariners 4, White Sox 1
On the first pitch of the game, Ichiro Suzuki laced a double to left-center.
Yet it was the second pitch — a strike to Franklin Gutierrez — that carried the bad omen. Floyd did a baby hop off the mound, and would do it on just about every other pitch.
He managed to strike out Gutierrez on a good curve, but he had trouble missing bats the rest of the night. His slider lacked movement, his fastball was a tick slower, and the Mariners hit him all around the yard.
Floyd lasted only three innings, and left the game with a sore left hip. So there you go.
It was a minor miracle that the Sox only trailed 3-0 by the time Floyd left, although Jermaine Dye made a great throw from right to end the first inning by catching Adrian Beltre trying to stretch an RBI single to a double. A Mike Carp solo homer off D.J. Carrasco would be the only one allowed by Sox relievers in five innings of work.
But it didn’t matter, because the Sox didn’t want to hit a man with glasses.
The begoggled Ryan Rowland-Smith, making his first-ever appearance, shut down the Sox despite an unimpressive selection of offerings. Really, the only pitch that he had was a straight change that didn’t have a lot of movement. But the Sox, who were trying to pull the fastball, couldn’t stay back on the off-speed stuff long enough to make it hurt.
Gordon Beckham’s solo homer in the eighth inning was the only form of offense the Sox could mount. A couple other promising rallies were cut short.
In the second, the Sox had two on and one out after a pair of singles. Carlos Quentin then ended the inning on the first pitch he saw, rollowing over on an outer-half fastball for a 6-4-3 double play.
Quentin then singled in his next at-bat on a bloop to right, but he thought it would get away from a sliding Ichiro. He ended up corralling it rather easily, and Quentin was dead meat between first and second.
The Sox had the first two hitters reach in the seventh, and they advanced one base on Quentin’s deep fly to right. But Alex Rios, who had two singles, tapped out to the catcher, and Jayson Nix struck out swinging to end the threat.
One bright spot: Carrasco struck out Ichiro on a ball in the dirt, and the ball caromed off A.J. Pierzynski’s shinguard and up the first base line. Because Ichiro didn’t react right away, Carrasco could take his time on the throw to first, recording the rare K 1-3.
Record: 72-74 | Box score | Play-by-play
