SEATTLE – The season opener was falling just the way manager Mike Hargrove wanted it.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
The Seattle Mariners had come back to tie the score with three runs in the fifth inning against Bartolo Colon. Pitcher Jamie Moyer found his touch to keep the Angels’ hitters off balance and off the scoreboard. And in the sixth inning the Mariners loaded the bases against Colon with nobody out.
That’s when the golden moments tarnished into another season-opening loss for the Mariners. They turned the opportunity into a scoreless inning, and the bullpen gave up two runs in the ninth in a 5-4 loss Monday to the Angels at Safeco Field.
“We were in the ballgame the whole way and came back and tied it up,” Hargrove said. “If we play like that every day, we’re going to win a lot of ballgames. I really believe it.”
In lieu of victory, the Mariners will have to go with that.
They had their hitters and pitchers lined up to beat the Angels in the late innings, then couldn’t finish.
Adrian Beltre reached on an error to start the bottom of the sixth, Carl Everett singled, and Colon grazed Kenji Johjima with a pitch to load the bases with nobody out.
Having gifted the Mariners such an opportunity the Angels brought in left-handed reliever J.C. Romero and played hoping to keep the damage to a run.
Romero then unloaded his wicked sinker and silenced the Mariners.
He struck out Jeremy Reed, got Yuniesky Betancourt on a fly and Ichiro Suzuki on grounder, leaving the score tied 3-3.
“Romero is tough. His pitches have hard sink with a lot of action,” Reed said. “I was looking for the pitches I got and he beat me. He got me that time, but I’ll get him next time.”
The finish not only soiled the Mariners’ comeback against Colon, it reduced some impressive individual efforts to moments of encouragement.
Kenji Johjima, who made history by becoming the first Japanese catcher to play in the major leagues, hit a home run in the fifth inning for the Mariners’ first run.
Second baseman Jose Lopez, batting second because Reed hadn’t played most of the past week after spraining his right wrist, went 2-for-5 and drove in the Mariners’ second run with an opposite-field single in the fifth.
Betancourt also drove in a run in the fifth, when the Mariners tied the score 3-3 after having gone 31/3 innings without a baserunner against Colon.
“All aspects of our club played well,” Hargrove said. “We just had that one lapse when we left the bases loaded. We were in that game the whole way and a break here or there, we might win.”
The breaks included a strike zone by plate umpire Charlie Reliford that had both benches wincing during the game, but especially the Mariners during the crucial at-bats in the ninth.
Left-hander George Sherrill, who’d struck out Darrin Erstad to end the top of the eighth, appeared to have thrown strike three to Casey Kotchman but ended up walking him to start the ninth.
Later in the inning, with J.J. Putz pitching for the M’s and pinch-runner Maizer Izturis on second after a sacrifice bunt, Chone Figgins took a full-count slider that Reliford said was too high.
“It could have gone either way,” Putz said. “From out there, everything looks like a pretty good pitch.”
Putz thought the same about another pitch – high and away – he threw Cabrera, who grounded it sharply to center field to score two runs for a 5-3 Angels lead.
“I thought he hit a pretty good pitch,” Putz said.
The Mariners made it a one-run game in the ninth when Roberto Petagine, pinch-hitting for Betancourt, homered with one out off Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez.
That ended a string of 10 straight Mariners at-bats without a baserunner.
Rodriguez then struck out Suzuki and got Lopez to ground out to end the game.
“Our bullpen stepped up in a big way,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “Whether we won or lost is not going to matter in the long run, but with the win we can carry our momentum forward into the next games.”
The Mariners were left to ride the momentum of a game they played well, despite losing for the seventh time in the past nine openers.
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