The Mariner Monitor

 You couldn’t get a better Mother’s Day gift on Sunday if you were a Mariners fan.

Showing that the team does, in fact, care about its mothers, Seattle snapped a five-game losing streak with a 6-3 win over the White Sox.

The Mariners also snapped a 19-game losing streak (!) when trailing by two or more runs in a game.

Starter Miguel Bautista struggled early, which is like saying the Pope is Catholic, and gave up two runs in the first inning. But that’s all Chicago would score untill the sixth inning and in the meantime Seattle was busy reversing their disastrous trends.

After Seattle scored in the bottom of the first to cut the lead in half, Raul Ibanez gave the Mariners their first lead since Monday with a two-run home run that still hasn’t landed. Amazingly Seattle scored two more runs in the fourth inning and one more in the eigth.

Not only are the Mariners scoring runs but they’re also scoring insurance runs! Oh, Happy Mother’s Day!

The Mariners also reached double digits in hits for the first time since the end of April thanks in part to 3-for-4 performances from Ichiro and Jose Lopez. Miguel Cairo (he’s still playing?) and Yuniesky Betancourt both drove in two RBI along with Ibanez.

As if scoring runs and notching base hits wasn’t enough to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, the bullpen turned in an incredible performance. Arthur Rhodes, Sean Green, Brandon Morrow and J.J. Putz pitched a combined 3-2/3 innings and gave up just one hit, blanking Chicago for the remainder of the game.

Seattle may be turning around at the perfect time. The bats are heating up leading into a three-game series at the launching pad in Arlington. After a day off on Thursday, Seattle comes back home for an interleague series with the Padres.

Oh, and both Texas and San Diego have records comparable to the Mariners. Which is, um, really bad.

So this could be the start of something big! Or just another really depressing stretch of games. 

We shall see.