Giants 3, Mariners 3 - 10 innings

Kevin Correia started todays game and gave up all 3 runs scored by the Mariners. Again, much like yesterday's appearance by Lincecum, I really didn't think Correia pitched all that badly. No question he was wild and threw WAY too many pitches........but with a little help from his defense, his line could have looked much better.

In the first inning, Ichiro Suzuki got his first hit of the spring on a groundball to 2B. For some reason, Justin Leone, who was playing 1B, dove for the ball even though he was 8-10 feet from making the play. We used to call that "false hustle". It was an easy play for Eugenio Velez, but once Leone needlessly took himself out of the play, no way was Ichiro going to lose a footrace to the bag with Correia and he was called safe by a half a step or less. The next batter moved Ichiro over on a 5-3 groundout. The next batter hit an RBI single to drive him in. It had to be called a hit and an RBI........but if Leone had stayed home and played his position......Ichiro is out and never scores in the first inning. Leone struck again when with 2 out in the 1st the batter hit the ball maybe 8 feet to Leone's right. Leone looked to be surprised by the ball and sort of half lunged and half dove to try and snag it. Needless to say all he succeeded in doing was looking silly as the ball went between his glove and his shoulder for a single. Again, the ball never touched Leone and had to be called a hit.......but Leone managed to make Daniel Ortmeier look like JT Snow in the 1st inning.

In the second inning Correia gave up a clean single to start the inning. The second batter hit what I thought was a double play to Eugenio Velez. The ball hit Velez' glove, but he muffed it and had to go back and pick it up off the ground. Instead of going to 1B for the sure out, he tried to step on 2B to force the lead runner. The runner was just safe at 2B. Then Velez threw to 1B and because of the delay trying to get the runner at 2B, the batter was just safe there. Apparently, the official scorekeeper had never heard of a fielder's choice, because not only did he not score it an error, he called it a base hit rather than batter safe on a fielder's choice. After the lead runner was forced out at 3B by a nice diving stop on a 3 unassisted by Kevin Frandsen, the batter who was safe at 1B on Velez' gaffe, scored the second run of the game.

In the 3rd inning, Correia gave up his first clean run of the game on a 1 out solo HR to Miguel Cairo. After Correia got the 2nd out of the 3rd, he was removed from the game. Officially, Correia gave up 3 earned runs on 7 hits and 2 walks while recording 3 strikeouts. In Correia's defense, 2 of the Mariner's runs and 3 of their hits were tainted by poor Giants defense. Lest you think Correia was totally without blame.....he certainly didn't make things any better by throwing a total of 72 pitched in his 2.2 innings........41 of them for strikes. Like Lincecum the day before, Kevin went to a number of 2 strike counts before losing the batter.