'General Hospital' Wins Big at Daytime Emmy Awards | Movies & TV ...

By Helena Zhu
Epoch Times Staff Created: June 25, 2012 Last Updated: June 25, 2012

The cast and producers of General Hospital accept the award for Outstanding Drama Series onstage at the 39th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on June 23, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

ABC?s longest-running soap opera ?General Hospital? garnered five awards at the 39th annual Daytime Emmy Awards in a sold-out gala of over 1,000 attendees at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.

The show won best drama for a record 11th time; actor Anthony Geary won best lead drama actor for a record seventh time; Nancy Grahn won for best supporting actress; Jonathan Jackson won best supporting actor; and the show?s directors also won best directing team.

The 80-year-old Regis Philbin, who aired his final episode of Live with Regis and Kelly before retiring on Nov. 18, 2011, received his last honor as the show won best entertainment talk show for the first time. Before Philbin retired, he often talked about the show never winning an Emmy.

The Daytime Emmy Awards recognized outstanding achievement in all fields of daytime television production and were presented to individuals and programs broadcast from 2 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the 2011 calendar year.

Despite the Emmy?s having proceeded on schedule, police were just at the famed hotel on Friday investigating the deaths of two people in what appeared to be a murder-suicide.

Below is a list of the evening?s winners.

Outstanding Drama Series
General Hospital, ABC *WINNER
All My Children, ABC
Days of Our Lives, NBC
The Young and the Restless, CBS

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Anthony Geary, as Luke Spencer on General Hospital *WINNER
Maurice Benard, as Michael ?Sonny? Corinthos, Jr. on General Hospital
John McCook, as Eric Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful
Darnell Williams, as Jesse Hubbard on All My Children
Robert S. Woods, as Bo Buchanan on One Life to Live

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Heather Tom, as Katie Logan Spencer on The Bold and the Beautiful *WINNER

Crystal Chappell, as Dr. Carly Manning on Days of our Lives
Debbi Morgan, as Angie Hubbard on All My Children
Erika Slezak, as Viki Lord on One Life to Live
Laura Wright, as Carly Corinthos Jacks on General Hospital

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Jonathan Jackson, as Lucky Spencer on General Hospital *WINNER
Bradford Anderson, as Damien Spinelli on General Hospital
Matthew Ashford, as Jack Deveraux on Days of our Lives
Sean Blakemore, as Shawn Butler on General Hospital
Jason Thompson, as Patrick Drake on General Hospital

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Nancy Lee Grahn, as Alexis Davis on General Hospital *WINNER
Melissa Claire Egan, as Annie Chandler on All My Children
Genie Francis, as Genevieve Atkinson on The Young and the Restless
Elizabeth Hendrickson, as Chloe Mitchell on The Young and the Restless
Rebecca Herbst, as Elizabeth Webber on General Hospital

Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series
Chandler Massey, as Will Horton on Days of Our Lives *WINNER
Eddie Alderson, as Matthew Buchanan on One Life To Live
Chad Duell, as Michael Corinthos on General Hospital
Nathan Parsons, as Ethan Lovett on General Hospital

Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series
Christel Khalil, as Lily Winters on The Young and the Restless *WINNER
Molly Burnett, as Melanie Layton on Days of our Lives
Shelley Hennig, as Stephanie Johnson on Days of our Lives
Jacqueline Macinnes Wood, as Steffy Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful

Outstanding Culinary Program
Bobby Flay?s Barbecue Addiction, Food Network *WINNER
Giada At Home, Food Network
Guy?s Big Bite, Food Network
Sandwich King, Food Network

Outstanding Culinary/Lifestyle Host
Sandra Lee, Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee *WINNER
Diada de Laurentis, Giada at Home
Rick Bayless, Mexico?One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless
Nate Berkus, The Nate Berkus Show
Paula Deen, Paula?s Best Dishes

Outstanding Talk Show/Entertainment
Live with Regis and Kelly, syndicated *WINNER
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, syndicated
The Talk, CBS
The View, ABC

Outstanding Talk Show/Informative
The Dr. Oz Show, syndicated *WINNER
Anderson, syndicated
The Doctors, syndicated

Outstanding Talk Show Host
Regis Philbin & Kelly Ripa *WINNER
Anderson Cooper
Dr. Mehmet Oz
The Doctors (entire cast)

Outstanding Morning Program
Today, NBC *WINNER
Good Morning America, ABC

Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program
Last Shot with Judge Gunn, syndicated *WINNER
America?s Court with Judge Ross, syndicated
Judge Joe Brown, syndicated
We the People with Gloria Allred, syndicated

Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show
Jeopardy! syndicated *WINNER
BrainSurge, Nickelodeon
Cash Cab, Discovery Channel
Let?s Make A Deal, CBS
Wheel of Fortune, syndicated
Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, syndicated

Outstanding Game Show Host
Todd Newton, Family Game Night *WINNER
Ben Bailey, Cash Cab
Wayne Brady, Let?s Make a Deal
Meredith Vieira, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Outstanding Children?s Animated Program
Penguins of Madagascar, Nickelodeon *WINNER
Curious George, PBS
Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Nickelodeon
Peep & The Big Wide World, American Public Television
Sid the Science Kid, PBS
SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon

Outstanding Performance in a Children?s Series
Kevin Clash, as Elmo on Sesame Street *WINNER
Dakota Goyo, as Josh on R.L. Stine?s The Haunting Hour The Series
Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, as Abby Cadaby, on Sesame Street
Caroll Spinney, as Big Bird on Sesame Street

\>");

zac brown band aubrey born to run pranks pregnancy test april fools day 2012 ja rule

Total of 79 Potentially New Shark Species Found

News | Evolution

A genetic analysis suggests more overlooked species than scientists anticipated, raising concerns that populations of new species are quite small and endangered

By Daniel Cressey and Nature magazine ?| June 25, 2012

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Xvic

Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does ?free will?...

Read More??

From Nature magazine

A genetic study of thousands of specimens of sharks and rays has uncovered scores of potential new species and is fuelling biologists? debates over the organisation of the family tree of these animals. The work also raises the possibility that some species are even more endangered than previously thought.

Sharks and rays are key predators in marine ecosystems, but the life cycles and population numbers of many species remain poorly understood. The family tree of these animals ? which are part of the elasmobranch subclass ? has proved similarly opaque, with little agreement among researchers over their evolutionary relationships.

Gavin Naylor, a biologist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and his colleagues sequenced samples from 4,283 specimens of sharks and rays as part of a major effort to fill the gaps. The team found 574 species, of which 79 are potentially new, they report in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.

Naylor says that he was ?flabbergasted? by the result, especially because the sequencing covered only around half of the roughly 1,200 species thought to exist worldwide.

The huge number of new species found raises immediate conservation concerns ? the reason that some of these purported new species have gone undetected is probably their close resemblance to already-identified species. The populations of such species may, therefore, be even smaller than estimated, as what was thought to be one population may instead be several smaller populations of separate species.

For example, Naylor?s work suggests that the endangered scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini) is actually two separate species. ?Scalloped hammerheads in general have taken a huge hit, so it may be even worse than has been documented if there?s more than one species out there,? he says.

Naylor is now working on a project with the US National Science Foundation to catalogue the diversity of sharks and rays and is working to assist the International Union for Conservation of Nature to map which species are where in the world.

?This will have an impact on what is considered endangered and the fragility of different organisms,? he says. ?These are sentinel species of all sorts of other organisms in the sea which are probably undergoing similar or worse kinds of impacts.?

Circling the answer
One of Naylor?s collaborators, William White, an ichthyologist at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Hobart, says that their work also highlights some of the problems with the use of genetic information in zoology.

The increasing use of molecular techniques provides a new means to scrutinize the relationship between sharks and rays, he says. But it also shows that some of the existing ideas about their relationships are problematic. ?Part of the problem is some researchers mining data blindly without a good understanding of where that data has come from in the first place and presuming the names are correct which in many cases they are not.?

White and Naylor stress that molecular techniques are only of one many available tools and should be combined with conventional taxonomic work.

Ximena V?lez-Zuazo is a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan and the lead author of a 2011 paper² that Naylor says suffers from some of the flaws that stem from relying solely on molecular information. Though she strongly defends her group's work, she agrees that shark phylogeny is still a work in progress.

badgers badgers nbc sports network mendenhall demarcus cousins savannah brinson mount rainier

Health Care Services: Work Out Routines for Women: Why Visual ...

Expert Author NJ Rickman

The biggest problem with most work out plans for women is that they are designed by fitness trainers who focus mainly on building muscle. Now that's fine if you don't mind looking muscular; however, most women want to look lean and toned,but not like a smaller version of a male bodybuilder!

The common mantra of most trainers is that "Women don't have enough testosterone to build muscle." Really? Then how do you explain the bodies of female competitive cyclists or speed skaters? They tend to have huge thighs as a result of training hard. Many female swimmers have broad shoulders and muscular arms as a result of both weight training and the demands put on their upper body from their sport. Women CAN and DO build muscle!

Often, when a woman who wants to lose weight and tone up begins to work out at the gym with a trainer, she will notice that her jeans are starting to get a little bit tight at the thigh. She might mention this to her trainer, only to be dismissed and told to perform more squats and lunges.

You guessed it! Her thighs are getting increasingly large from this terrible advice. Frustrated because no one will listen to her concerns, the woman who was initially so excited by her progress ends up quitting exercising entirely. Consequently, she loses the muscle tone she sought out in the first place, and begins to pile her unwanted pounds back on. It's tragic, really.

Finally, someone has addressed women's fitness concerns and goals. Instead of trying to force women to become a junior version of The Hulk, Rusty Moore designed a spin-off of his highly popular "Visual Impact" work out plan just for women. Rusty himself is a long time bodybuilder who got fed up with the bulkiness he was developing. He realized that his ideal body was a lot more like Brad Pitt in "Fight Club" than it was with a huge, over-muscled body builder.

Taking the knowledge he gleaned from reducing his musculature from bodybuilder bulky to Brad Pitt sexy, Rusty decided that women were also in need of a program that would allow them to keep their feminine looks intact while losing unwanted fat and gaining a lean, yet curvy body in the process.

Rusty Moore's Visual Impact for Women is a revolutionary work out plan that flies in the face of conventional fitness programs. Rusty does not have you lifting heavy weights to failure, or performing squat after squat until your legs are shaking.

Rusty focuses more on cardio exercise in Visual Impact for Women to torch fat, while implementing low repetition work with weights. This is contrary to the what the majority of the fitness industry advises for women.

What's really special about Rusty's Visual Impact for Women is that Rusty has designed his program to fit your personal lifestyle. You will find work out plans for both gym and home, and also for four workouts a week and for three workouts per week. Highly flexible, and convenient for users.

Visual Impact's nutrition component is also different from much of what you see elsewhere. Instead of focusing on daily caloric intake, Rusty advices using weekly caloric intake instead. This change lets you have an odd glass of wine or nice dinner out without blowing your diet completely.

The two-pronged approach to fat burning and diet that visual impact provides can give you the body that you've been looking for.

Want to lose weight and get sexily toned without losing your feminine attributes? Go to http://visualimpactforwomenslim.blogspot.ca/ and watch Rusty's video about Visual Impact for Women today.

apple store academy barnes and noble nook 12 days of christmas a christmas carol arkansas football player dies anne mccaffrey

Google TV goes international, Sony NSZ-GS7 set-top box up for preorder in the US and UK

Sony mentioned during CES 2012 that its Google TV-powered hardware would come to Europe this summer, and now it's official. Along with Google, it's announced preorders are available for the $200/£200/$199 NSZ-GS7 internet streaming set-top box in the US and UK (showing a ship date of July 9th for now), with plans to launch in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico and Netherlands later this year. The NSZ-GP9 with integrated Blu-ray player will arrive in October, priced at £280/€300 overseas. UK users can expect localized content from The Guardian among other sources, and more reveals are promised at Google I/O this week. There's an internationally-aimed trailer (embedded after the break) and more information from Sony and Google at their respective sites, we'll see if the mix of reworked hardware and updated software makes this venture more successful than the last round.

Continue reading Google TV goes international, Sony NSZ-GS7 set-top box up for preorder in the US and UK

Google TV goes international, Sony NSZ-GS7 set-top box up for preorder in the US and UK originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 01:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Google TV Blog, Sony Store, Sony UK  | Email this | Comments

nick carter sister recruiting rankings san onofre paula deen birth control recall nick carter leslie carter

Samsung Galaxy :: [ROM]ParanoidAndroid

Voila. Marre d'attendre ICS, j ai install? aujourd'hui cette rom. Avantage de pouvoir choisir de passer le t?l?phone en mode tablette ou en mode hybride.

En mode tablette, on a un ICS tablette.
En mode hybride, on garde le launcher t?l?phone. Mais les applis comme gmail, settings sont en mode tablette. Je suis actuellement avec ce mode qui a l'air pas mal du tout.

Sinon. Je retrouve enfin l'interface ICS de base. ?a me fait vraiment du bien apr?s 4mois de touchwizz. D'ailleurs, j'?cris en ce moment sur mon note et je m'aper?ois que le clavier de base ICS est vraiment performant.
_________________
Free Mobile

Samsung Galaxy Note Blanc

anciens t?l?phones :
HTC TOUCH HD - HTC MAGIC 32B - HTC HERO - HTC HD2 - HTC DREAM - HTC DESIRE - LG Optimus 7 - Google Nexus S

north korea threat brandon jacobs brandon jacobs brian dawkins askew emma roberts north korea news

Facebook allows fix for embarrassing mistakes

[ [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 2]], 'http://yhoo.it/KeQd0p', '[Slideshow: See photos taken on the way down]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 7]], ' http://yhoo.it/KpUoHO', '[Slideshow: Death-defying daredevils]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['know that we have confidence in', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/LqYjAX ', '[Related: The Secret Service guide to Cartagena]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['We picked up this other dog and', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JUSxvi', '[Related: 8 common dog fears, how to calm them]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 5]], 'http://bit.ly/JnoJYN', '[Related: Did WH share raid details with filmmakers?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 3]], 'http://bit.ly/KoKiqJ', '[Factbox: AQAP, al-Qaeda in Yemen]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have my contacts on or glasses', 3]], 'http://abcn.ws/KTE5AZ', '[Related: Should the murder charge be dropped?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JD7nlD', '[Related: Bristol Palin reality show debuts June 19]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 1]], 'http://bit.ly/JRPFRO', '[Related: McCain adviser who vetted Palin weighs in on VP race]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]

[ [ [['did not go as far his colleague', 8]], '29438204', '0' ], [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]

ian stewart odom vt vt los angeles angels los angeles angels lindsay lohan’s playboy cover leaked online

Seattle Mariners Successfully Play Professional Baseball

(The Padres are on the verge of being sold by John Moores. The O'Malley group and Gary Jabara are the two reported finalists, and they're bidding at least $800 million. It's expected that a buyer will be announced shortly.)

Moores: So if you-
Moores: /checks score on phone
Moores: /clenches fist
Moores: ...if you just step right in here, you can watch the team in action!
Everybody: /hits
Runs: /score
O'Malley: Wow!
Jabara: What an unbeatable squadron!
O'Malley: This team is better than I thought, I will increase my bid.
Jabara: I will in turn increase my bid as well!
O'Malley: Not as high as me!
Jabara: I have caught the Padres fever!
Moores: Terrific.
Moores: One moment.
Moores: /answers phone
Moores: Yes
Moores: Yes
Moores: Yes, now you may eat.
Moores: Only Kix.
Moores: Against the Mariners, only Kix.
Moores: /hangs up

Black: /hangs up
Black: /pours Kix
Black: /eats dry Kix
Black: /smiles

Lately I've been more about the bigger picture than usual. Maybe because the smaller picture has been unpleasant, and I don't want to devote too much of my time to that which is unpleasant. But I think it has to do with having missed a whole week on vacation. Coming back from that, I realized how silly it is to care that much about the daily games in a season like this. It's not the games that are important. It's the progress, and how much of it is being made. You can't measure progress if you focus on one game, then the next game, then the next game. You need to take a step back, because it's like a section of sidewalk. From where you stand, it seems to be flat. From the other side of the road, you might notice a slope.

But what's the bigger picture? How big is the bigger picture? How big should the bigger picture be? The smaller picture right now isn't real good. The slightly bigger picture isn't much better. A slightly bigger picture than that still isn't a picture of unicorns riding dinosaurs. If you want a big picture that allows you to feel positive about the Mariners, even with all this losing, consider the segment where Dave Sims and Dave Valle had Bret Boone in the broadcast booth tonight.

At one point, the conversation turned to Boone's family, and Boone was asked whether, if everything broke right, he'd like one of his sons to play professional baseball. To carry on the family tradition. Boone didn't hesitate in saying yes, but then reminded the Daves of how the odds are so slim. Especially with baseball being more of an international sport now than ever before. Boone would like for one of his sons to play professional baseball, but he's certainly not going to just assume that it'll happen. You need otherworldly talent, and you need some strokes of good luck, although maybe fewer strokes of good luck if your last name is Boone.

Bret Boone was right - it's extraordinarily difficult to play professional baseball. It's only exponentially more difficult to play Major League Baseball. There are just so many levels to climb through, so many opportunities to fail. But look at the Seattle Mariners. Every single one of those players is a Major League Baseball player. From Felix Hernandez all the way down to Hisashi Iwakuma! Wow! It is just astonishing how much the various Mariners have accomplished in getting to this point. This is the highest level of baseball competition in the world, and all of those Mariners are right in the thick of it. Not a one of them has disapproving parents, not anymore, not now that they've all made it. All of them have made it.

The Mariners are not a very good baseball team, relative to other Major League Baseball teams. Of that we can be certain, even if the Mariners ought to have a slightly better record than they do. But the Mariners are playing against other Major League Baseball teams every single day, so how can you consider them failures? The Mariners' players are better than almost all of the other players in the entire world. They just happen to compete against many of the few who are better than them.

If that doesn't help you feel better about the Mariners then I'm sorry but I have nowhere else to go. Can't go much further than applauding the baseball players for being baseball players. I guess the next level would be applauding the players for having jobs. In this market? Shoot. Good for the Mariners. You don't want to be looking for a job in this market.

There was an alternate option for the first few paragraphs. I could try to save it for tomorrow or Sunday to save myself some thought exertion, but I'm coming out with it now instead because I am dreadfully impatient. For a while now we've been thinking that the Mariners have problems at home. In Seattle, they are 12-19, and they can't score runs. On the road, they are 18-23, and they can score runs. What people have assumed is that this must have something to do with Safeco, and its cavernous dimensions getting in the players' heads. But maybe it's not about Safeco at all.

Maybe it's about Mariners fans, and having to play in front of them. Maybe the Mariners don't like to win in front of Mariners fans for some reason. They struggle at home. They lost two of three in Arizona, and people kept saying how many Mariners hats and shirts they were seeing there. They lost tonight in San Diego, and one of my favorite things about going to Mariners games in San Diego was always how many Mariners fans came out to the ballpark. Maybe the Mariners can't stand support. Maybe the Mariners are trying to push us away. Maybe the Mariners are trying to break up with us?

The Mariners lost this game 9-5. There were 14 runs scored in baseball's most extreme pitcher-friendly environment. The Mariners slugged two home runs in the first two innings. Kevin Millwood had a 4-0 lead after two and a half. He gave it all back and then some, and to make matters worse, Clayton Richard helped his own cause with a perfect sac bunt, a two-run double, and an RBI single.

In the fourth inning, it was Richard who put the Padres in front 5-4. In the fifth inning, it was Richard who drove in a critical insurance run after the Mariners trimmed the deficit in the upper half. He wasn't getting lucky with fortunate batted-ball location - he smacked his double down the first-base line, and he hit his single hard and split the outfielders.

Clayton Richard wasn't the only Padres hitter to have a big game, but this game could've gone mighty different had Richard been held in check. I will remind you that Clayton Richard is a pitcher, and I will point out to you that, for his career before tonight, he'd batted .109 with a .272 OPS. The average NL pitcher this year has posted a .324 OPS, so Clayton Richard has been a below-average hitter, for a pitcher.

The Mariners have been punished by bad hitters before. The first one that comes to mind is Jeff Mathis, who was better against the Mariners than he was against seemingly anyone else during his time with the Angels. It was embarrassing when the Mariners got punished by Jeff Mathis. But at least Jeff Mathis is a position player, somebody who knows which end of the bat you're supposed to hold in your hands. Clayton Richard looks like he thinks you're supposed to eat the bat. That guy delivered big hits.

This guy delivered big hits.

Richard has a sample of at-bats going back to 2009, his first full season in the bigs. To get the best idea of what Clayton Richard is as a hitter, we should consider his entire sample. But as far as 2012's sample is concerned, before tonight Richard was 1-for-25 with 17 strikeouts. Before tonight, Richard was basically you if you played at least one year of baseball in high school. Two run-scoring hits, and against a veteran in Kevin Millwood. We can't even blame Richard's success on a young pitcher making mental mistakes. Millwood didn't have it, and he really didn't have it.

You know the worst part? When the game was over, I started going over Richard's hitting stats, and I watched the video highlights, and I started thinking "that swing's not so bad." I started thinking "those plate discipline numbers aren't as terrible as I thought they would be." I started thinking "Richard has a better contact rate for his career than Josh Hamilton has this season." I felt myself starting to make myself believe that it was okay for the Mariners to get hurt by Clayton Richard. Not from the mound, but at the plate. I had to put my own foot down. "No, self," I told myself, "you cannot rationalize this. You cannot sell Clayton Richard as a guy who should get hits. You are too positive. Recognize and acknowledge the darkness in the world."

If you do want something to be positive about, since the Mariners lost, Kevin Millwood was bad, and Kyle Seager committed two errors, Charlie Furbush was great again over two innings of relief. Oliver Perez threw more strikes and wasn't as bad as two hits and a run. Miguel Olivo drew his first walk since April 27th and also yanked a home run down the left-field line. Ichiro finished with three hits, and reached base a fourth time when his speed forced an error. These are things to not be negative about.

But the big positive is Franklin Gutierrez. I have fond memories of Gutierrez blasting dingers in Petco, and tonight he blasted another, in the top of the first inning. Richard threw him a low 1-and-1 changeup and Gutierrez powered it out to left-center. So, there, Guti already has more home runs in 2012 than he had in 2011. Guti has more home runs in his last two games than he had in 2011. In 2011, he batted almost 350 times. Maybe you don't really count home runs in Chase Field, since everybody hits home runs in Chase Field. You count home runs in Petco Park. Especially home runs that clear a power alley.

Beyond the homer, Gutierrez singled three times. He was supposed to come back from his rehab assignment a little rusty, but instead he's batting .308 with power, and while one shouldn't read into those numbers, those aren't numbers that suggest rust. Franklin Gutierrez might be clicking, and where at some points it looked like he might have another lost season, it's still June. There's a lot of time left for Guti to play, and there's a lot of time left for Guti to re-establish himself as one of the better all-around center fielders in baseball. I'm not saying he's going to do that, but the early signs are positive. We got excited about his recovered strength, and already he's demonstrating that he's better.

Tomorrow Felix Hernandez opposes Jason Marquis. That is a mismatch of breathtaking proportions. The problem is that the rest of the Mariners oppose the rest of the Padres, too, and that might just even things out. Just because Felix is way better than Marquis doesn't necessarily mean it'll look that way tomorrow night. That's why you watch! For the surprises!

triple play virginia tech shooting james neal jackie robinson virginia tech emancipation proclamation april 16