A’s living large in M’s heads

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, August 5, 2006

SEATTLE – This just in: The Mariners have allowed the Oakland A’s to sublet vast living space inside their craniums.

Pay no attention to the nattering denials from the M’s locker room. The A’s, winners of 11 straight games against the home nine, are in their heads.

Four straight constitute an irritant, a mosquito buzzing around your ear drum at 3 a.m. Six in a row are rhinos stampeding through your living room.

Eleven qualify as full and complete ownership of said victim’s thought processes. Think the Stepford Wives. The Manchurian Candidate. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

These things happen. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even something disgustingly biological growing out of a Petri dish.

Lose enough times to any one team in any sport, even the light-hitting A’s, and doubt overflows faster than Floyd Landis’ testosterone levels.

That’s why you’ll never hear M’s manager Mike Hargrove place any weight on any one game, even any one series, especially in early August. If he’d ever mentioned in passing that the three-game gala against the A’s was a “must-win” series, what message does that relay to a beleaguered clubhouse about the rest of the season if the A’s sweep, as they may well today at Safeco Field?

So, no matter the outcome, however dismal, Hargrove will never fail to point out, as he did Friday night and Saturday following a pair of 5-2 losses to the A’s, that “there’s a lotta baseball still to play.”

There is, but seven games in that “lotta baseball” come against, you guessed it, Oakland.

The first two games of the series were pretty typical of what’s happened between the two teams this season.

On Friday, the M’s hitters got next to nothing going against Barry Zito, whom they’ve not beaten in three seasons. This season, Zito (12-7) is 3-0 against Seattle and has allowed one earned run in 20 innings.

On Saturday, the Mariners had reason to be confident behind Joel Pineiro, who was coming off three straight solid starts.

But Pineiro had nothing and left under a hailstorm of boos. His line: 22/3 innings, eight hits, four earned runs, three walks and two strikeouts. He threw 76 pitches.

“No excuses,” Pineiro said. “I just got hit.”

On the other hand, A’s starter Dan Haren allowed Seattle just four hits (one a two-run homer by Adrian Beltre) in seven innings of work. He struck out seven and walked two. The last 18 Mariner hitters went down in order.

“He had good stuff,” M’s designated hitter Ben Broussard said. “He was throwing his splitter for strikes and he was throwing it down, too. It was tough to pick up.”

It could have been worse. The A’s left the bases loaded in two of the first three innings, yet led just 4-0.

The Mariners had a chance to gain ground on the AL West-leading A’s and blew it. Coming into the series 31/2 games out of first, Seattle could find itself 61/2 back after today. One item in their favor: today’s starter, Gil Meche, was the last Seattle pitcher to beat Oakland, 6-2 on April 6.

Yes, there’s a lotta baseball left, but it should be noted that 12 of the M’s next 15 games come against teams in the division. If they have hopes of stealing the division, now would be a prime time to put together a few win streaks.

There won’t be a lotta baseball left forever.

Logic says the only way to break a psychological hex is to come through with a victory or two. The Mariners show little inclination against Oakland.

These days, the A’s are finding Puget Sound cranial real estate on the cheap.