Your Mariners of Fort Collins continued their winning ways Wednesday night, slowing down and nearly shutting out a talented Dominos Cardinals team 18-1 and improving to an 8-2 record in this 2022 campaign.  With 2 games to go before the playoffs, the Mariners are just beginning to hit on all cylinders and play a brand of baseball they write poems about.  And speaking of things to write poems about the 10 Mariners in the post game wrap last night voted and the mustache stays ... at least for 1 more game.  Your recap ...

Mariner Bats:  Did the lads really only have 12 hits?  From the third base box it sure felt like more.  Hitting from the 6 spot Wyatt went a sterling 3 for 3 with 4 runs driven in.  Cleanup hitting Luke O had 2 base knocks and 7 pitch 2-foul walk, scoring thrice and just causing an all around ruckus on the bases.  Leadoff hitting Turtle legged out an infield run scoring single in the 3rd and came around to score a few pitches later.  Cam plated 2 in the 1st with a clutch 2 out drive to LCF to make it 4-0 early.  The 4th inning brought some heroics from the bats of Jack, Kevin and Drew - otherwise known by their boy band names  JT, KR, and DC.  Triple to deep CF by Jack - triple to deep LF by KR - double over the head of the CF by Drew.  These lads finished with a collective 4 hits / 9 runs / 4 ribbies and a whole lotta stolen bags in between. 

Mariner Arms:  So let's not beat around the box score here.  Your Mariners gave up a single run.  That is just downright impressive.  Damian was 2 parts untouchable with a dash of textbook defense behind him.  3 full innings - 41 thoughtful pitches - 5ks - 12 dudes faced and 9 retired.  At one point D k'd 5 in a row, striking out the side in the 2nd with bookends in the 1st and 3rd to make it neat and tidy for the wanna-be journalists in the home dugout.  And how about Corte tossing darts for a solid 4th and final inning of Mariner ball.  Our favorite #0 induced two quick outs before running into a bases loaded situation.  He then dug deep and struck out the last batter on 3 straight pitches - strike looking, strike swinging, strike swinging.  Beautiful.  

Mariner Gloves:  Where there is great pitching you can always find great fielding - and last night at Edora was as complete a defensive gem as we've seen by the lads in blue.  How about the 2nd out of the 3rd inning - Turtle locking down LF - staring directly into the unforgiving Colorado late afternoon sun - just owning a smoking line drive with two hands and a smile.  T was also quick to fire in an honest base knock sent his way, firing the ball to the cutoff to keep the Cards to singles and not doubles, and 3rd base not home plate.  Scotty H aka Jack S aka the double-deuce hoovered up a grounder at 2B and scampered to the bag to end the 3rd inning.  He also corralled a sky high infield fly waving his hands in the air and calling for it and then putting it to bed like a pro.  Flat out execution.  

Mariners Around the Bases:  We had a perfect night on the basepaths.  Our guys were picking up the steal sign early and often and taking advantage of a pitcher rolling with the windup with runners on base which is just not something you see very often.  Corte was at 3rd base so often he started getting mail.  And while we were stealing bags and scoring on wild pitches / passed balls early in the game our dudes knew when to put on the brakes and move station to station.  Very proud of this Mariner team for playing baseball that tips their caps to our opponents, their fans, and the baseball gods.

Mariner Behind the Plate:  JT caught 4 innings, 2 pitchers, 68 pitches, 19 batters.  He picked off the first baserunner of the game at 1st after a solid single to CF, and nearly had another runner out on a dot to Luke at 2B.  As fans on metal bleachers and camping chairs we are getting treated to a backstop who controls the game with his glove and his arm and his incessant chatting up of the umpire.  Super fun.

Next Up:  Let's do it all over again this Friday shall we?  Friday the 8th to be specific, these Mariners of Fort Collins will take their show on the road - back to Loveland and the Centennial Baseball Complex.  First pitch at 7:30 with warm ups kicking off at 6:30.  We're facing a red hot Implant Dental team that has won 5 of their last 6 games and given up a paltry 52 runs all season.  

Nerd Alert:  In Team Trident's 5 game winning streak (dating back to June 17th) we've surrendered a total of 17 runs.  17!  To take that one nerdy step further we gave up nearly half of those runs to the Nats and have held opposing teams to scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 over the past 2 plus weeks.  On the season our run differential is +95 and that is with Coach dropping the anchor when we're up by double digits.  Dangerous team ladies and gents.  Dangerous.

Thanks for reading and for being part of this great season.  2 more regular season games to be awesome.  Go Mariners!

Coach