SEATTLE — Hideki Matsui homered and drove in three runs, and Joe Saunders improved to 7-0 in his last 10 starts against Seattle as the Los Angeles Angels beat the Mariners 7-1 on Friday night.
Saunders (4-6), who allowed seven runs on 10 hits against Seattle in a no-decision last weekend, permitted nine more baserunners in the first five innings in this start. Saunders allowed eight hits and two walks but only one run in six innings.
Even though Ichiro Suzuki had three singles, an RBI and his fourth stolen base in two nights, Seattle couldn’t get clutch hits behind him to keep its three-game winning streak alive.
Juan Rivera homered off Sean White in a three-run seventh, and the Angels won for the eighth time in 10 games to move above .500 for the first time since April 29.
Los Angeles won for the fourth time in five games on a 14-game road trip — its longest trek in eight years.
Matsui had his third three-RBI game of the season — two coming against Seattle in the last week.
Last season’s World Series MVP with the Yankees followed his season high-tying three hits Thursday at Kansas City by golfing a curveball from starter Ian Snell into the right-field bleachers in the second. That was after Snell walked Torii Hunter.
It was Matsui’s third home run in eight career at-bats against Snell.
Snell (0-4) allowed only three hits in five-plus innings, but two of his four walks scored.
After No. 9 hitter Maicer Izturis rolled a bunt single softly up the third-base line leading off the third, Snell walked Maicer Izturis. Both of them scored, on a sacrifice fly by Hunter and Matsui’s RBI single, and Los Angeles led 4-0.
Matsui is 10 for 14 (.714) in his last four games. His average has climbed from .229 to .265 since Monday.
Seattle’s Chad Cordero, who led the majors with 47 saves for Washington in 2005, completed his comeback from major shoulder surgery with his first appearance since April 29, 2008, when he was with the Nationals. He entered with one on in the seventh and allowed a double to Izturis and an RBI double to Howie Kendrick. He then struck out Bobby Abreu swinging at an 89 mph fastball.
Cordero arrived Thursday from Class AAA Tacoma to take the roster spot of the retired Ken Griffey Jr.
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