By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners said it themselves earlier this week: One hundred sixteen victories gets them nothing now that it’s the postseason.
On Tuesday, they got nothing.
Cleveland Indians pitcher Bartolo Colon overpowered the Mariners with his 99 mph fastball for a 5-0 victory at Safeco Field in the first game of the American League Division series.
It put the Mariners, a team that tied the all-time major league record with 116 victories in the regular season, in an unfamiliar position. They trail 1-0 in the best-of-five series, meaning they need to win three of the remaining four games to advance to the next round.
Game 2 will be Thursday afternoon at Safeco Field, with Game 3 and a possible Game 4 scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Cleveland. A deciding Game 5, if necessary, would be played Monday at Safeco Field.
"If our team was affected by one loss, we would not have won 116 games," said Mariners right fielder Ichiro Suzuki, who got three of the Mariners’ six hits.
Edgar Martinez, Stan Javier and Dan Wilson were the only other Mariners to hit safely off Colon, a right-hander who struck out 10 in the eight innings he pitched.
The Indians scored three runs off Mariners starting pitcher Freddy Garcia when they strung together five hits in the fourth inning, scored again off Garcia in the sixth and got a home run from Ellis Burks off relief pitcher Jose Paniagua in the eighth.
Colon mowed down the Mariners, and it became obvious their best chance to score wouldn’t come until Game 2 on Thursday.
"I don’t see any sense of urgency," manager Lou Piniella said. "We’ll come out and play as well as we can on Thursday, and that’s all we can do."
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