Ibanez sends M’s fans home early

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, April 20, 2004

SEATTLE – Raul Ibanez says he isn’t a home run hitter.

And if you believe that, you might be convinced there’s a baseball team at Safeco Field that depends on home runs to win games.

If only for a temporary period, believe it.

Ibanez became the Seattle Mariners’ main power source for the third straight day Tuesday, hitting two home runs to give the M’s a 2-1 victory over the Oakland A’s.

“I’m not a power guy,” he said. “I just try to hit line drives.”

Nobody in the Seattle clubhouse is complaining that Ibanez’s line drives are falling in the seats these days. Monday’s homers were his third and fourth this season, all of them critical to the Mariners’ four-game winning streak.

On Sunday, his two-run homer accounted for the go-ahead runs in the Mariners’ 4-2 victory over the Texas Rangers. He homered again Monday in the Mariners’ 14-inning, 2-1 victory over the A’s.

And Tuesday, on a night the Mariners struggled to get a ball out of the infield against Oakland right-hander Rich Harden, Ibanez continued to prove why the Mariners made him a priority signing in the offseason.

He hit a cut fastball from Harden into the right-field seats in the seventh inning for a leadoff homer that tied the score 1-1, then ended the game in the ninth against reliever Jim Mecir with a drive off the base of the second-level cafe in right field.

“The last three games, every one of them meant so much,” manager Bob Melvin said of Ibanez’s home runs. “He battled through a little bit of a tough start. He’s such a hard worker, he’s out there taking extra batting practice every day. He’s not afraid to work.”

Ibanez’s modest view of his heroics?

“It’s awesome,” he said. “We get the win and we get to go home in the ninth.”

That also was a bonus, following Monday night’s 14-inning victory that lasted nearly five hours before a balk forced home the Mariners’ winning run.

Harden had limited the Mariners to little more than frustrating walks back to the dugout, holding the M’s to three hits and striking out nine in seven innings.

The Mariners had Harden in trouble only once, in the third inning when Ben Davis led off with a single – his first hit since March 14 in spring training – and Willie Bloomquist followed with a walk. Harden got Ichiro Suzuki on a grounder, John Olerud on a fly ball and Bret Boone on one of his three strikeouts to end the inning.

Harden then settled into a rhythm the Mariners couldn’t break, limiting them to just one hit and two baserunners the next three innings. Suzuki led off the sixth with a walk and immediately stole second, but Harden left him there when he struck out Olerud, Boone and Scott Spiezio.

Ibanez finally cracked Harden leading off the bottom of the seventh, pulling a 1-1 pitch over the right-field wall to tie the score 1-1.

That drive eliminated what was looking like a hard-luck loss for Mariners starter Ryan Franklin.

Franklin gave up Damian Miller’s second-inning home run and struggled with his control the first three innings, then settled into a groove that one-upped Harden. After allowing a one-out double to Marco Scutaro in the fourth, Franklin retired the final 11 hitters he faced.

A back-room talk with pitching coach Bryan Price between innings helped Franklin turn himself around.

“We went down in the (batting) cage and went over my mechanics,” Franklin said. “My front side was getting too low. In my stretch position, I didn’t have good command. But all of a sudden, it clicked about the fourth inning.”

Franklin’s high pitch count through three innings finished him after 105 pitches in the seventh.

Left-hander Ron Villone – who, like Ibanez, played with the Mariners early in his career – took over and kept the A’s silent in the eighth and ninth. He walked Esteban German with one out in the ninth but got out of the inning when Miller hit into a double play.

Moments later, Villone had his first victory of the season when Ibanez clubbed his second game-winning homer in the last three days.

The Mariners, winless in their first five games, have won five of their last six.

“This is what everybody on this team expects from us and it’s what the fans expect from us,” Ibanez said. “It’s good to be back here and I’m happy that we’re winning now.”