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Ryan Divish has been with Tacoma News Tribune since 2006, covering the Tacoma Rainiers and high school sports. Divish played baseball at Dickinson State University and also earned a journalism degree from the University of Montana.
E-mail Ryan.
Larry LaRue has covered the Seattle Mariners and Major League Baseball for The News Tribune since 1988. E-mail Larry.
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Back in May, he thought he'd be back in the Mariners rotation within a few weeks, so what happened to Ryan Rowland-Smith was more than a little surprising.
He was forced to grow up - in baseball, anyway - and re-learn to trust the pitches he threw and the way he approached hitters.
The 26-year-old lefty wound up making 10 minor league starts and winning the last four by dominating Class AAA hitters.
Now he's back to face the Cleveland Indians and make just the 14th big-league start of his career. He'll face three tough lefties tonight: Grady Sizemore, Shin-soo Choo and Travis Hafner.
It should mark the game in which Rowland-Smith claimed his spot in the Seatle rotation - a bit later than expected.
It's Rowland-Smith vs. Aaron Laffey.That works!
Don't you wish all innings were this easy? Rowland-Smith dispatches the Indians with eight pitches in the first inning - including a strike out.
He got ahead in the count and used his breaking ball and, after hitting Shin-Soo Choo, got Victor Martinez to pop up on a fastball away.
Easy, easy, easy.How's that possible?
A moment of silence, please, for ex-Mariner Jose Guillen, the Kansas City Royals outfielder who tore a tendon in his knee tonight - while putting on a shin guard between innings.
No, we didn't make it up. He will miss between a month and the rest of he season.
That's one
Single, double, sacrifice fly and a run - that's how the Indians scored first. Rowland-Smith got out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam allowing just that one run.
Not bad, but then it's one more run than Seattle has scored.
In the second: Indians 1, Mariners 0
Going down two at a time
The Mariners have had three hits and three walks in three innings - and have grounded into double plays three times.
That will gut the most promising of innings, and it has.
After three: Indians 1, Mariners 0
That's five innings down
Rowland-Smith isn't done, but he's already given Seattle five strong innings - allowing just two hits and a run.
One of the things that got him back in the majors was how deep he was going in Tacoma, where he pitched at least seven innings in each of his final three starts there.
Yes, he's behind. But the Mariners can't have hoped for much more through five.
Any time now, guys
Pitching and defense win games, yes, but Rowland-Smith probably wouldn't mind seeing a little offense show up.
Through seven innings, the Mariners have three hits against lefty Laffey, and have gone 10-up and 10-down over the last three-plus innings.
Now it gets harder - Hafner just hit his 10th home run with Jhonny Peralta aboard, and Ben Franciso hits a solo home run.
After seven: Indians 4, Mariners 0
It's the ninth inning - duck
Miguel Batista in to pitch, and he quickly allows more hits (5) than the Mariners have all night, and as many runs (4) as Rowland-Smith allowed in seven innings.
It's a final: Indians 9, Mariners 0
A warm welcome back to Franklin Gutierrez back to the Mariners line-up and the confines of Safeco Field where all the walls were padded. Chris Shelton not only survives the roster cut, but he also gets the start at DH.
Indians (38-58)
Sizemore, cf
Cabrera, ss
Choo, rf
Martinez, c
Peralta, 3b
Hafner, dh
Garko, 1b
Carroll, 3B
Francisco, lf
----------------------------
Laffey, lhp
Mariners (51-44)
Ichiro, rf
Branyan, 1b
Lopez, 2b
Shelton, dh
Gutierrez, cf
Langerhans, lf
Johjima, c
Hannahan, 3b
Cedeno, ss
----------------------------
Rowland-Smith, lhp
Umpires:
HP - Ron Kulpa
1B - Dale Scott
2B - Delfin Colon
3B - Mike DiMuro
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Roy Corcoran, the right-hander who had a career season for the Seattle Mariners last season, has been designated for assignment to make room for tonight's starting pitcher, Ryan Rowland-Smith.
p>Corcoran, 29, can be claimed on waivers before the team asks him to accept an assignment to the minors.
"I'm not sure what my best option is right now, but I want to pitch," Corcoran said. "I love these guys, they're like family, but I don't think I'm part of the future here. If that's the case, I might be better offer pitching somewhere else."
In 16 appearances this season, Corcoran has pitched 19 innings, allowing 25 hits and 17 walks, compiling a 6.16 earned run average.
Rowland-Smith has been activated and will make his first start since April for Seattle. "It wasn't an easy decision to designate Roy, he's a quality guy and has been a big part of this bullpen. That group is so close, you take any one pitcher out, it hurts."I'll be going on with Ian Furness at 1:40ish on KJR for my weekly segment and also I've fooling around with a twitter account against my better judgement, which you can get to at twitter.com/tntmariners.\
Unfortunately, I'm not talking about the Mariners, though they've won every game after the break that Garrett Olson didn't start. So with him out the rotation, they should be money.
No the "these guys" I was referring to is the Los Angeles Angels, who won yet again, this time scoring two runs in the ninth off of all-star closer Joe Nathan and later beating the Minnesota Twins in the 10th inning.
It was the Angels' 31st comeback victory of the season - the most in the majors.
Perhaps, David Aardsma put it best today following the Mariners win in Detroit.
"We just need the Angels to lose, Aardsma said. "We feel like we win they win, and when we lose they win. It feels like they can’t lose a game to save our lives. That’s all we can do is keep playing and when we get a chance to face them, take advantage of it."
Think about this, the Mariners were four games back at the all star break. They went 5-2 out of the break and still managed to lose 1.5 games in the standings
Oh this should make Mariners fans pleased, but owner Arte Moreno said that they are interested in acquiring an ace. Los Angeles has already inquired about Arizona's Dan Haren, and will are in the middle of the Roy Halladay sweepstakes, and now they may target Cliff Lee.
Here's the standings as of tonight ...
AL WEST W-L PCT GB L10
LA Angels 56-38 .596 - 9-1
Texas 52-41 .559 3.5 5-5
Seattle 51-44 .537 5.5 7-3
Oakland 40-54 .426 16 5-5
