No place like road for Mariners

The Mariners are batting .283 on the road, and .233 at Safeco Field. Seattle Mariners manager Bob Melvin first said he doesn’t know the reason, although he knows what isn’t the reason. He ruled out the hitting background, which the new black batter’s eye has changed from “bad” to “tremendous.” Then he took a shot at explaining it:

”(Pitchers) know that to hit a home run here you really have to square it up,” he said. “As a pitcher, you go into a (smaller) park like Fenway or a park like Texas, (home runs are) in your head before you even go out there. Confidence is such a big issue in baseball. It’s the difference between your real good players and the ones who aren’t as good. Maybe that has something to do with it, that pitchers come into this park knowing that they can throw the ball out over the plate and it might not go out of the ballpark.”