Aardsma shuts door again for Mariners

SEATTLE — Don Wakamatsu realized early in spring training how badly David Aardsma wanted to make himself a reliable late-inning pitcher.

“It was the extra work he did,” the Seattle Mariners’ manager said. “Most guys were doing it when everybody else was doing it during the drills. But he was doing extra. I’d drive by in my cart and see it. You remember those things.”

Despite a good spring training, Aardsma didn’t get the closer’s job to start the season. That went to Brandon Morrow.

But six months later, Aardsma not only is the guy in the ninth inning, he became one of the Mariners’ best.

Aardsma became the sixth pitcher in club history to record at least 30 saves in a season when he shut down the Oakland A’s in the Mariners’ 5-3 victory Wednesday night at Safeco Field.

It didn’t begin as the prettiest save, when Mark Ellis and Ryan Sweeney started the ninth with broken-bat flare singles, but Aardsma ended it in style. He struck out both Tommy Everidge and Nomar Garciaparra looking at third strikes, then got Adam Kennedy on a ground out to end the game.

“I want to be proud of it at the end of the year,” Aardsma said. “Coming into the season I didn’t have any expectations for anything like this.”

Kazuhiro Sasaki holds the club record with 45 saves in 2001, and he topped 30 saves three times. Other 30-plus closers are J.J. Putz and Mike Schooler twice, and Eddie Guardado and Jose Mesa once each.

“You know what? I’m here, so why just be happy with this? There’s still a month and a week left,” Aardsma said. “I can very easily make this number be forgotten by pitching bad. I want to go out there and just do what I’ve bee doing these last couple outings _ throw strikes, get ahead and just keep it up. Hopefully well be looking at 30 as nothing.”

To get his 30th save opportunity, the Mariners pulled off another solid pitching-and-defense performance, plus some opportunistic hitting that had been missing in recent games.

Mired in a 38-inning stretch when all their runs scored via home runs or errors, the Mariners varied their method in pulling off a sweep of the three games against the A’s.

Jose Lopez hit a two-run homer in the first inning and the streak reached 40 innings in the second even though Franklin Gutierrez delivered a key single with a runner in scoring position. Problem there was that Rob Johnson was thrown out at the plate by a wide margin.

The offense then converted.

Bill Hall drove in runs with a third-inning single and a fifth-inning sacrifice fly, and Mike Sweeney’s RBI single in the seventh drove home an important insurance run after the A’s had closed within a run.

Mariners starter Luke French gave up three runs in 5 2/3 innings _ working into the sixth inning for the fourth straight start _ and got 31/3 innings of quality relief.

Miguel Batista struck out Ryan Sweeney to end the top of the sixth and then pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, and Mark Lowe gave up a leadoff single in the eighth before retiring the next three.

Wakamatsu then turned to the man who caught his eye at spring training, Aardsma.

“David had a pretty good camp, but there were a couple of stretches late when he had command issues,” Wakamatsu said. “Historically, those were the issues he’d had with other clubs. (Bullpen coach) John Wetteland saw that David could be that guy out of the gate, but we kind of anointed Morrow that job. It was a nice problem to have, where we could kind of massage (Aardsma) into that role. That’s a nice problem to have where we can kind of massage this guy.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would have done the same thing _ allowing him to pitch in a situation where he got comfortable. The turning point for me was the two-inning save in Oakland.”

That was April 12, Aardsma’s first major league save.

“You saw a guy all of a sudden get it and earn our trust.”

In the process, Aardsma developed a trust in himself, and it has carried him to 30 saves, and counting.

Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com\marinersblog