4/7/95 - 4/9/95: Three with the Brewers
After getting swept in Toronto, we get to head home for the home opener and a three-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers. The offense finally showed up in the first game, as the Mariners got their first win by a score of 9-2.
Rodriguez hit his first career homerun (also his first career hit that wasn't a single) in the 6th inning off of
Alberto Reyes to break the game open.
Tim Belcher had our first decent start of the year (6ip, 8h, 2r, 3bb, 4k) in the win. The only other thing of note is that the Brewers apparently have a terrible third base coach. He got two different runners thrown out at home, and neither play was particularly close.
Thanks to an off-day, we can avoid pitching our
Osvaldo Fernandez and instead give the second game in the series to
Randy Johnson. This turns out to be a good decision, as the offense scores just four runs -- none after the second inning.
Johnson meanwhile has the kind of start I remember going to watch as a teenager: 8ip, 2h, 1r, 3bb, 12k.
Jeff Nelson tried to give it away in the 9th, loading the bases with nobody out, but he got out of it thanks to two strikeouts and a weak groundball to 1b.
I was going to say something about suspecting the Brewers aren't very good, but then they came out and beat the Ms 10-2 in the third game of the series, racking up 15 hits.
Bosio was terrible for the second straight game. The only positive to come out of this game was
Tino Martinez hitting his first homer, but otherwise the team couldn't manage anything off of
Steve Sparks*.
*Sparks' nickname on bbref is listed as 'phonebook'. I thought that was odd, so took a look at his bullpen wiki page and it has this note:
In the spring of 1995 Sparks dislocated his left shoulder while trying to rip a phone book in half.