M’s botch rundown, get run over by Padres

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, March 16, 2004

PEORIA, Ariz. – The Seattle Mariners worked 30 minutes on rundown plays during their morning practice, then put the lessons into play Tuesday afternoon against the San Diego Padres.

The result?

Practice makes for, well, probably more practice.

The Mariners butchered a rundown that helped the Padres score three runs in the fourth inning of a 9-6 victory over the M’s.

Manager Bob Melvin has lived through plenty of spring training days when the morning fundamental drill repeats itself in the game that afternoon.

“But usually you run it right,” he said.

Hardly anything was right in the top of the fourth, when pitcher Joel Pineiro fielded a sharp grounder and turned to find the Padres’ Terrence Long trapped off second base.

Pineiro did his part, running at Long, then throwing to shortstop Willie Bloomquist near the second-base bag.

Then the play fell apart.

As Long broke toward third, Bloomquist lobbed the ball to third baseman Greg Dobbs, who had ventured so far off the bag that Long had run past him when he caught the ball. It left runners on first and third with nobody out, setting up the Padres’ big inning.

Pineiro was so puzzled by the play that he asked Myers (Melvin?) if he had done anything wrong. He hadn’t, but both Bloomquist and Dobbs had.

“One, Bloomie waited too long to give up the ball and then he lobbed it. He didn’t stick it in his chest,” Myers said. “Two, Dobbs closed the gap too fast.

“When those things happen, it usually means safe.”

It also might mean more rundown practice later in spring training.

Day off: The Mariners won’t play, practice or even report to the training complex today on their only day off of spring training. It’s apparently coming at a good time after a ragged game Tuesday against the Padres, when they made two errors.

“That was a sloppy game for us,” Melvin said. “I don’t know if it was like, ‘OK, we need a day off because it was a sloppy game.’ But it was sloppy.”

Progress in defeat: Pineiro gave up five runs on four hits and two walks in four innings, numbers that weren’t impressive.

Spring training isn’t just about numbers, though.

“He was real good,” Melvin said. “We got him to 65 pitches, which is where we wanted him.”

“I thought I had real good stuff,” Pineiro said. “But I was a little mad at the walks. I felt great, they wanted me to get to 65-70 pitches and I did.”

Tough day: Left-hander Randy Williams hadn’t allowed a run in two innings this spring, but Melvin wanted to see how he would fare in a jam against a left-handed hitter.

He got that chance Tuesday with runners on first and third and one out in the fourth inning, and the result wasn’t good.

Tom Wilson hit a sacrifice fly to center field before Sean Burroughs, Mark Loretta and Brian Giles each smacked consecutive run-scoring singles. Williams got Ryan Klesko on a grounder to end the threat.

“We wanted to bring him in where the heat’s on against a lefty,” Melvin said. “That’s what spring training is for and he’d been doing very well. We’d been giving him clean innings to start and we wanted to bring him in there against a lefty with some guys on, and it didn’t work out this time.”

Stat of the Day: Kevin Jarvis entered Tuesday’s game with a 21.21 ERA that didn’t bode well for his chances of making the team as a long reliever. Three testy innings didn’t change that, as Jarvis gave up four hits, two walks and three runs.

Stat of the Day, II: He didn’t play Tuesday, but more than one member of the Seattle media corps looked at the Padres’ statistics to see how ex-Mariner Jeff Cirillo is doing.

His line: 1-for-22, for a .045 batting average.