Mariners 8 - 7 White Sox
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Mariners continue season-opening road trip in Chicago

Apr 5, 2013 - 3:01 PM

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(Sports Network) - The Seattle Mariners resume their season-opening, seven- game road trip to on Friday when they head to U.S. Cellular Field to take on the Chicago White Sox.

The Mariners split a four-game series at Oakland, although they dropped the final two contests. Brandon Maurer, Seattle's highly-touted rookie, made his major league debut in Thursday's series finale and gave up a leadoff single and a two-run home run in the first inning, and went on to yield six runs on eight hits in six innings of work.

The White Sox missed out on a chance for the series sweep over Kansas City on Thursday as they fell, 3-1. They were aiming for their first 3-0 start since 1992. Tyler Flowers and Gordon Beckham combined to reach base eight times, but only two other batters made it onto the base paths for Chicago.

"It's definitely not the end of the world," Beckham said. "We feel good about what we're doing. We played a hard game; we just didn't have it (Thursday)."

Through three games, the team is just 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position.

"That happens every once in a while," Flowers said. "It seemed like we had quality at-bats for most of the day, and tip your cap to (Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie). He's a quality pitcher."

Standing in Chicago's way will be right-hander Blake Beavan, who rebounded from a midseason demotion to Triple-A by posting a 3.40 ERA over his final 14 outings.

"I want to continue what I did the second half," Beavan said. "The second half is the pitcher I am. I know I can do that again. It's not rocket science. I figured out a lot of stuff when I got sent down and brought back up. A lot of it was confidence, trusting stuff. It's not a fluke for me. I know I'm capable of doing that. I know I'm capable of repeating and being consistent all year long. Now, I just need to go do it."

For the White Sox, southpaw Jose Quintana enters his second big league season with the stated goal of improving his strikeout rate. Quintana turned some heads with a 2.04 ERA through his first eight starts last year before fading down the stretch with a 5.01 ERA in the season's second half.

The Mariners have not committed an error through the first four games of the season for the first time since 2009.






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