OAKLAND, Calif. — In this season’s many dramas, the Seattle Mariners have played the tragic character more often than not, but Saturday’s game gave them a happy ending for once.
Call this one, “The Old Man and the King.”
A day after he was signed by Seattle, Henry Blanco became the unlikeliest of heroes against the Oakland A’s. With the Mariners’ bats flailing and failing against A’s starter A.J. Griffin and the score locked in a 0-0 tie in sixth inning, Blanco belted a grand slam to left field to provide all the offense in the Seattle’s 4-0 victory.
Blanco, 41 years and 290 days old, became the oldest Mariner to hit a grand slam, supplanting teammate Raul Ibanez, who hit a grand slam against the Yankees on May 15 at age 40 years and 347 days.
“Raul had the record before me? Well, I got it now,” Blanco said grinning.
Couple Blanco’s blast with yet another stellar outing from Felix Hernandez — seven shutout innings — and the Mariners not only picked up their second straight win over Oakland, but secured a series victory over the A’s with the third game today. It’s the first series loss for Oakland since dropping two of three to the Texas Rangers in May.
“We came in here and they were the hottest team in baseball and really hot at home,” Wedge said.
Oakland was 21-7 over its past 28 games, and prior to Friday night’s loss to Seattle had won 11 straight at the O.co Coliseum.
“They’re a good baseball club,” Wedge said. “We’re still trying to find ourselves. We’ll continue to get better, too. We’re nowhere near what we should be health-wise. We’re nowhere near what we should be performance-wise offensively. There’s only upside to be had there.”
Blanco’s role in that upside is mostly as a mentor to Mike Zunino. He is known for his defense, his leadership and clubhouse presence. Grand slams aren’t something he’s known for. In his 16-year career, serving mostly as a reserve, he’d hit just 69 career homers coming into the game and one grand slam — coming more than a decade ago on May 12, 2000, when he was playing for the Brewers against the Pirates.
“It was a long time ago,” Blanco said. “It was off of Jason Schmidt. I got a fastball to hit and I hit it out. The same thing happened today.”
The gap of 13 years and 34 days between grand slams was the fifth longest such stretch, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“Hell, he’s only a couple years younger than I am,” the 45-year-old Wedge said. “And he’s in a hell of a lot better shape. He couldn’t get off to a better start — catch a shutout and hit a grand slam. Good for him.”
When Blanco found out he was making his Mariners’ debut on Saturday, a grand slam was the last thing he expected.
“You always to make a good impression the first time out,” Blanco said. “I didn’t know I would I make it that way, but it was good that it happened.”
Blanco still made his expected impression behind the plate, catching fellow Venezuelan Felix Hernandez.
“I thought he did a tremendous job behind the plate,” Wedge said. “You could see what he does back there and how he handles things and the way he makes it look so easy.”
Blanco and Hernandez didn’t have any major meetings about the outing. Blanco had caught him in a bullpen session in the World Baseball Classic in 2009. They’ve known each other for years.
“He was trying to talk to me before the game, and I was like, ‘Henry don’t talk to me, just call pitches and I will throw it to you,’” Hernandez said.
And that’s what they did. Hernandez carved up the A’s in his usual fashion. He worked out of minor jams along the way thanks to eight strikeouts and some nice defensive plays.
The biggest of those plays came in the fifth inning with the score 0-0. Hernandez gave up a lead-off double to Jed Lowrie, who advanced to third on a fly ball from Seth Smith. With one out, Chris Young lifted a fly ball to right field. Lowrie tried to tag, but Endy Chavez made a textbook play, anticipating that Lowrie would try to score and firing a perfect throw to Blanco to cut him down at the plate.
“I got myself ready before I caught the ball,” he said. “I started moving in on it. So when I catch it, my body is already in position to throw. I knew it had a chance.”
Hernandez was right in position to see Blanco field the one-hop throw and make a tough diving tag on Lowrie.
“I called him out,” Hernandez said. “I was excited. Endy made a great throw and that was the difference in the game.”
With his pitch count at 108, Hernandez was done after seven innings. Charlie Furbush worked a 1-2-3 eighth, but gave up a lead-off single to start the ninth. Wedge chose to go Yoervis Medina instead of Carter Capps or Oliver Perez.
Medina walked pinch hitter Derek Norris to put runners on first and second, but Wedge chose to stay with his rookie.
“It was just the third run at the plate,” Wedge said. “If that’s the fourth run at plate then I have to bring Oliver in.”
The hard-throwing right-hander responded, getting the always dangerous Yoenis Cespedes to fly out to center, striking out Brandon Moss looking and getting a nice sliding stop from Kyle Seager for a ground ball out on Josh Donaldson to end the game.
“The big out was Moss,” Wedge said. “I stuck with Medina and he did a nice job.”
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