ANAHEIM, Calif. — The season may be ending, but the late-inning misery continues for the Seattle Mariners.
On Friday night, they suffered their 13th walk-off loss of the season. Chris Iannetta singled over the head of center fielder Michael Saunders to score Kole Calhoun in the bottom of the 11th inning to give the Los Angeles Angels a 3-2 win.
Mariners lefty Bobby LaFromboise, who pitched much of the season with Triple-A Tacoma and hadn’t been a part of the late-inning issues, was indoctrinated into the club, taking the loss.
It was the 20th time the Mariners have played extra innings this season, one short of the club record of 21 games in 1982. And they’ve lost 14 of them.
For a while it looked like neither team had much interest in scoring as starters Erasmo Ramirez and Matt Shoemaker turned in solid efforts.
The Mariners finally broke the 0-0 tie in the seventh inning. With the bases loaded and two out, Michael Saunders hammered a fastball into left field to score two runs.
After making some minor swing adjustments in St. Louis, Saunders is 6-for-13 (.461) with four doubles and one triple over his past four games.
But the reason Saunders got that chance to drive in the runs was due largely to the hustle and speed of Dustin Ackley, who beat pitcher Michael Kohn to the bag on a hard ground ball to first base with two outs to keep the inning alive.
However, the lead was short-lived. The Angels tied the game in the bottom of the seventh.
A throwing error from Kyle Seager and a walk from Ramirez to start the inning put the Mariners in trouble. Ramirez then was forced out of the game with a sore right groin. Mariners manager Eric Wedge turned to his bullpen, which has been a risky proposition all season. Wedge tried to go situational with his pitching matchups, using Oliver Perez against Erick Aybar, who bunted the runners into scoring position.
Angels’ manager Mike Scioscia called on right-handed hitter Collin Cowgill to bat for Hank Conger. Wedge decided to call on right-hander Chance Ruffin to replace Perez. Scioscia countered with lefty-swinging Efren Navarro to face Ruffin. Ruffin struck out Navarro, but he couldn’t close out the inning. Andrew Romine laced a single into right to score two runs and tie the game. The Angels could have taken the lead moments later. But Ackley made a beautiful diving stop on J.B. Shuck’s hard one-hop ground ball to the right side. He got up and fired to first to get Shuck and end the inning.
The game stayed tied as the much maligned Mariners bullpen navigated out of trouble in the eighth inning thanks to a big strikeout of Josh Hamilton by Lucas Luetge with runners on first and second and no outs. Carter Capps came on to get a pair of fly outs to end the inning. Capps then worked a scoreless ninth to send it into extras.
Ramirez gave the Mariners another solid start before leaving with the injury.
He pitched six innings, giving up two unearned runs on six hits with a walk and three strikeouts.
The Angels got a good outing from Shoemaker, who tossed five shutout innings, giving up two hits with two walks and six strikeouts. Not bad for a guy who was filling in for Jered Weaver, who was scratched Thursday with forearm tightness.
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