M’s are at their best
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, September 1, 2001
By Larry LaRue
The News Tribune
BALTIMORE – For five months, it has been a marathon for the Seattle Mariners. Now, it’s a sprint.
Opening the final month of their season, the Mariners shook off the afternoon shadows to show a national television audience Saturday that they plan on treating September like they’ve treated everything that preceded it.
Twenty-seven games left on the schedule. Fine. Come from behind, beat the Baltimore Orioles 6-4 – cut that magic number for clinching the third division title in franchise history to nine.
And now there are 26 games left.
“I don’t know that it’s any big difference, September or August,” Bret Boone said, “except now we know we’re closer. It’s not two months away, it’s not six weeks away. October is right there, and we’ve got to keep doing what we do best.”
There was a pause as the Eastern media stared at Boone, who seemed surprised anyone needed an explanation.
“We win,” he said. “That’s what we do best.”
For five innings, Boone might have forgiven any doubters. Afternoon shadows that gave pitchers the edge over hitters dominated, and Baltimore’s Jose Mercedes made the most of them.
“The first five innings, you couldn’t see the ball,” Mike Cameron said.
“We hit a lot better once we saw it.”
Mercedes got through the first five innings allowing only one run, that coming on Mike Cameron’s 21st home run. Paul Abbott, making his first start in 10 days – shut down by a mild groin strain – wasn’t nearly as sharp.
Abbott gave up a home run, too, but his was a three-run shot by Brady Anderson. That 3-1 deficit became 4-1 in the fifth inning, when Abbott wild-pitched home a run.
“I didn’t know where anything was going,” Abbott said. “I threw 105 pitches in five innings? That should get me six, seven, eight innings. The only positive was I got out of some jams. I never gave in. I never gave up.”
After five innings, however, Abbott came out. Then he did what a Camden Yards crowd of 45,668 and an across-the-country TV audience did. He watched the Mariners wake up, better late than never.
“We don’t have the record we have because we can’t come back on somebody,” Abbott said. “Two outs into that sixth inning, nobody on base … wow.”
Wow, indeed.
“We were pretty dormant the first five innings,” manager Lou Piniella said. “Then we put something together and they couldn’t stop it.”
Two outs, nobody on, trailing 4-1, Boone singled up the middle – the second of his three hits.
Cameron doubled off the wall in left-center field, pushing Boone home with his 88th RBI.
“All I know is that whenever I get a few RBI, our magic number goes down,” Cameron said. “I’ve got to get hot again.”
Stan Javier doubled, driving home Cameron, and it was 4-3. David Bell walked, and the Orioles pulled Mercedes for a left-handed reliever – B.J. Ryan – and Piniella made the most dramatic pinch-hitting switch of the season.
Jay Buhner batted for Tom Lampkin, and in his first at-bat since last October, Buhner worked a walk out of Ryan to load the bases.
“It was good just seeing that old bird out there again,” Cameron said. “It made everybody smile.”
When he came to the plate, Ichiro Suzuki brought a 5-for-9 .556 batting average for the season with the bases loaded. Ryan kept pitching inside, inside, inside, then tried a fastball away.
Suzuki lined it up the middle, where it ricocheted off Ryan’s leg and into right field – a two-run single that put Seattle ahead to stay, 5-4.
In the dugout, Abbott was suddenly in line to win his 14th game of the season. All he needed were three innings from his bullpen.
He got them. Ryan Franklin, Norm Charlton and Jeff Nelson shut out Baltimore until the ninth inning, then Piniella waved in Kazuhiro Sasaki.
Sasaki retired the Orioles and picked up his 40th save, a plateau no Mariner had ever reached. But then no Mariner team has ever won 97 games, either.
Of Seattle’s 12 hits, nine were evenly divided between Suzuki, Boone and Cameron. Boone was asked about the big game by all three men and couldn’t resist being … well … Boone.
“Ichiro and I do this every day,” he deadpanned. “Cameron? His game was a fluke.”
Halfway across the clubhouse, Cameron broke up.
It is September, and the Mariners clubhouse is as loose as it was in March. Today, however, Seattle has an 18-game lead in the American League West and the near certain knowledge that, in one month, the playoffs will begin and the Mariners will be in them.
“You’re not going to see any let up in here or on the field, that’s not the way we play,” Boone said. “Except for me, nobody in here is cocky – and most of the time, I’m just joking when I’m cocky.”
