Real grass, real sunshine....

Just how bad was the M's offense yesterday? They were complete game shut out by Kirk Saarloos. His previous long outing for the season was 6 innings.

The M's struck out 7 times. Saarloos struck out no batters in his last 3 starts (17 innings!). None! He was averaging under 2 strikeouts per 9 innings prior to yesterday. Yeeesh!

Hey Franklin! Shut your yap!. The lack of run support is so consistent it is starting to border on statistically significant, but dude, you are a 5 ERA starter in an extreme pitchers park. You gave up 11 hits yesterday and Reed saved you from two more. You should probably stay away from, "I could've gone nine innings and given up one run -- doesn't matter," Franklin said. "We'd still lose." And you should definitely not say, "you can't win like that no matter how good pitching you get. We have to score." If you pitched well you might be ok saying those things but you were pretty bad yesterday yourself.

On the other hand, it was a beautiful day, the beer was cold, and we got a surprise visit at our seats from an ex-coworker, who shall we say, gives truly outstanding hugs!