ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Braves at Mariners – 06/13/2003

I had a bad feeling about this game when Ichiro made a great play in the second inning to turn a Robert Fick double into a double play. Of course, I have bad feelings about games all the time, but this time I was right.

Russ Ortiz lost, but deserved a better fate. He allowed two first inning runs, one of them unearned, and then threw 6 2/3 shutout innings. It wasn’t enough. Trey Hodges retired the last Mariners batter on a strikeout with two on, and maybe he can pitch with inherited runners on after all.

The Braves had seven hits and three walks, but couldn’t manage more than one extra base hit, Marcus Giles’ RBI double in the eighth. It’s very hard to score runs if you don’t hit for power, and most of the runs the Braves have scored in their recent games seem to have been on homers. On the other hand, you get ten baserunners, you expect more than one run, and if the Braves keep getting that number of runners the runs will come.