In what could be the local pitching matchup of the year, former Mariner Michael Pineda of the Yankees opposes Felix Hernandez at Safeco Field Monday night.
Author: Steve Rudman
Steve Rudman
Steve began his journalistic career in an era in which social networking mainly occurred in saloons. In the years since, he has been a reporter and columnist (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), a magazine founder and editor (The National Sports Review), the Director of Research at ESPN (once had the chore of looking up the history of rain delays in major league baseball), a radio talk show host (fired by KIRO because stupid people need radio stations, too, according to the program director), and the producer of a syndicated sports statistical feature (titled Wow!Stats), distributed by Universal Press Syndicate (quick, name three countries in which athletes are eaten when they fail to perform). He wrote (with Karen Chave) 100 Years of Husky Football, Who The Hell is Bob? (one of Seattles more remarkable people) and collaborated with Art Thiel (Sports Press Northwest) and Mike Gastineau (KJR-AM) on The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a ribald compendium of Seattle sports exotica that should be made into a movie (Brad Pitt playing Steve). He gained everlasting infamy in 1985 (at least in Corvallis, Ore.), when, in a column in the Post-Intelligencer, he called the Oregon State Beavers The Barney Fife of College Football, then sat stupefied as the 37-point underdog Beavers cast aside a 28-year slump and beat the Huskies. As of this writing, that game (which resulted in an official, Oregon State-issued game ball for Steve) still generates 314,000 Google pages, most of them from unenlightened (and presumably salt pillar-licking) OSU fans. Steve has yet to issue an apology on Facebook or Twitter and has no plans to do so.
The Mariners (17-20) have capable pitching, but if they don’t improve their hitting with runners in scoring position, they will miss the postseason for the 14th consecutive season.
The Mariners (11-17), with three walk-off losses on the just-completed 10-game road trip, are on a pace to shatter the franchise record for most walk-off defeats in a single season.
The Mariners are eight games back in the AL West race after only 25 games. Not since 1981 has a Seattle team found itself further in arrears at the 25-game mark.
Danny Shelton (Cleveland), Marcus Peters (Kansas City) and Shaq Thompson (Carolina) are the first trio of Huskies selected in the first round of the same NFL draft.
The Seahawks don’t have a No. 1 for the third year in a row (traded to New Orleans for TE Jimmy Graham), but they have a league-high 11 picks starting at No. 63
With 21 entering Tuesday’s game in Texas, Nelson Cruz is one of only four players in franchise history to produce 20 or more RBIs in a season’s first 20 games.
Coming off consecutive Super Bowl appearances, the Seahawks will play five prime-time games in 2015. For the first time since 2011 they will open with a pair on the road.
If not for two outstanding outings by Felix Hernandez and the eight home runs by Nelson Cruz, the Mariners would rank among April’s biggest flops.
Acquired from San Diego last winter, Seth Smith Monday became the first player in Seattle history to record three extra-base hits in an Opening Day game.