SEATTLE — Raul Ibanez doesn’t quite roll his eyes at the question, he’s a little too old for that. But when people ask him if he feels 41, which is often, he has the same reply.
“I don’t how what 41 is supposed to feel like,” he said. “I don’t even think about it. So I guess I don’t know what that means.”
He certainly isn’t playing like a 41-year-old.
The veteran left-hander continues to pummel Father Time with his Lousiville Slugger.
On Sunday, Ibanez hit two home runs off of A’s starter Jarrod Parker to provide all of the Mariners’ early offense in a 6-3 extra-inning win over Oakland at Safeco Field.
He now leads the Mariners in home runs with 17 and RBI with 42 in 56 games. A year ago, Ibanez had 19 homers and 62 RBI in 130 games with Yankees.
“He had something to do with the win today, that’s for sure,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said.
Ibanez jumped all over a 94 mph fastball from Parker in the first inning, blasting it into the right-field seats for a two-run homer.
“I’m just trying to hit the ball on the barrel and it’s working out,” he said. “I’m not trying to do too much. I got a couple balls in the air and they went out.”
Parker tried something different with Ibanez in the fourth inning, going with the breaking ball instead.
But Ibanez went down and got the 3-2 curveball, driving it over the wall in right-center.
“You can’t stay through a pitch any better than he did,” Wedge said. “To stay through that pitch, and drive it. That’s about as good as it gets.”
It was the 18th time in his career Ibanez has hit multiple home runs in a game. And the second time this season. He hit two against the Yankees on May 15 at Yankee Stadium.
“The first one I don’t know if we got it inside far enough and the second one looked like it was a good pitch down,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “He just went down and golfed it, so he’s seeing the ball pretty well.”
With the two homers, Ibanez passed Brett Boone (143) to move into sixth place on the Mariners’ all-time home run list with 144. Alvin Davis is next in line with 160.
Gutierrez injured again
Just over 48 hours after he was activated from the disabled list and proclaimed himself feeling normal, Franklin Gutierrez was in pain … again.
The oft-injured Mariners outfielder was forced to leave Sunday’s game in the sixth inning. The legs tightened up after making a leaping catch where he crashed into the wall in the fourth inning.
“We’ll see how he feels in a couple of days,” Wedge said. “This is not what we wanted that’s for sure.”
Off day
The Mariners are off today. Several players will be participating in their charity golf tournament at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge. They return to action Tuesday when they host the Pittsburgh Pirates in a two-game series.
Short hops
Oliver Perez, who pitched two scoreless innings to get the win, has not allowed a run in his past 13 outings and 11 innings pitched. His earned-run average dropped from 1.05 to 0.98. … Mike Zunino had his first multi-hit game in the majors, going 2-for-3. … Jeremy Bonderman has allowed just four runs in his past four starts, and is 1-0 with a 1.42 ERA over that span. He had his streak of 18 scoreless innings at Safeco Field snapped in the sixth inning of Sunday’s game. … With his first-inning single, Endy Chavez now has hits in 17 of his past 19 games. He is hitting .303 (23-for-76) over that time.
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