Mariners win series finale over Angels 9-4, somewhere Jerry Dipoto laughs maniacally

Angels 4  Mariners 9

The first inning of today's Mariners/Angels game took almost 40 minutes, with starting pitchers Matt Shoemaker and Wade Miley combining for nearly 70 pitches thrown, and when all was said and done, the Angels found themselves down 4-3. It was a rough start for a day that would only go further south for the home team; an eternity, or so it seemed, of watching Shoemaker give up homers or the defense committing errors. But it wasn't an eternity. It was just the first inning.

Shoemaker would finish with 3.0 IP that included a couple home runs and a lot of solid contact hitting. We've seen a couple different Cobblers on the mound in 2016, and some days it's not the one that helps the Angels win ballgames. He was fooling nobody up there...but at the same time, he also had a few errors committed by the defense behind him, so it's not like he was getting the support he needed. By the time he got yanked, the Angels were in a 7-3 hole.

Seattle starter Wade Miley really only showed some weakness in that crazy, novel-length first inning. The Angels scored three runs off of him, including two from an Albert Pujols deep ball. Pujols sure knows how to break a career-lowlight hit-less streak, doing so today via a 448 home run. He'd get another hit later in this game, a single, perhaps signaling to the Pujols Doom and Gloom patrol out there that he's got something left in the tank, and we should all get off his back. Well, i'll make this promise, Albert: another couple games in a row like today's, and I shall zip my lips.

After Miley gave up those three runs in the first, he got his bearings and proceeded to utterly baffle the Angels for the rest of the game(or until the 8th, when he was finally pulled). That 36 minute first inning led us to believe we might see a shootout today, but instead we saw one team with guns a'blazing, while the other struggled to get their pistol out of the holster.

After Shoemaker was taken out, the Halos went to their bullpen with great success. Jose Alvarez pitched two innings , giving up just one hit, and Cory Rasmus pitched four complete innings, giving up a two run homer to Seth Smith, and extending the Seattle lead to 9-4.  Three Mariners homers for the day, 9 runs scored, on just 8 total hits. Somewhere, Jerry Dipoto is beaming.

If you were within the ranks of Halos fans who also had little to do on their Sunday afternoon other than watching the game on televsion, then please take this trauma blanket and have a seat while I tend to your self-inflicted baseball wounds. Here at Halos Heaven, you're among others that suffered the same plight; like a support group for victims of toothless lineups and unstable pitching squads.

Round one of 2016's Scioscia vs. Dipoto feud, sadly, goes to Jerry Dipoto. A loss to Iwakuma and a loss to Miley, yet escaping with a win against King Felix((or The Game Where Mike Trout Did Stuff). Definitely not how I saw this playing out, but can't say i'm shocked, either.

The Royals come into town next. Batten down the hatches and stock up on Bodyarmor, because the lives of Angels fans probably wont be getting easier any time soon.