SEATTLE – The Seattle Mariners might be a first-place team if the world was free of left-handers.
The Mariners tumbled to 1-7 when facing a left-handed starting pitcher, losing 5-0 Monday night to Jarrod Washburn and the Los Angeles Angels at Safeco Field.
Washburn held the Mariners to four hits – Ichiro Suzuki’s first-inning single, plus an infield hit and two doubles by Randy Winn – and continued their frustration against left-handed pitching.
They are hitting .204 as a team against left-handers, compared with .269 against right-handers.
“It’s one of those things,” manager Mike Hargrove said, maintaining his confidence in the hitters. “I think the hitters we have in our lineup can hit left-handers and we will hit left-handers. Right now, we’re not.”
Not even close.
Ichiro Suzuki, who made the best defensive play of the year when he climbed right-field wall and pulled back a home run, is batting .361 this season against left-handers, Randy Winn .281 and Jeremy Reed .278.
Those are the best against lefties. Of the rest, Adrian Beltre is hitting .154, Bret Boone .200, Raul Ibanez .188, Wilson Valdez .160, Richie Sexson .167 and Miguel Olivo .056.
Not even the 2004 Mariners, so inept at scoring runs that the club spent most of its offseason efforts rebuilding the offense, came close. By comparison, the ‘04 Mariners owned lefties, going 19-31 against left-handed starters. Their .281 team batting average against lefties was far better than the .266 they managed against right-handers last year.
Times have changed, and Monday’s game offered another example of what the Mariners have battled in their first 26 games.
They put runners in scoring position only twice with less than two outs and blew their only decent opportunity to score with a botched double steal in the first inning.
Suzuki singled to start the bottom of the first inning and was on second with nobody out after Winn walked.
Beltre lined out to second baseman Adam Kennedy, whose bad throw bounced away from shortstop Orlando Cabrera, allowing Suzuki to reach third.
With one out, runners at first and third, and Sexson at-bat, the Mariners could score with a grounder to the right side or a deep fly ball. Washburn got Sexson into a two-strike hole and Hargrove, who enjoys being aggressive, had both runners take off.
Sexson struck out and Winn stopped halfway between first and second base and was caught in a rundown. Suzuki then broke from third and was easily thrown out by first baseman Darrin Erstad.
After that, the Mariners got little going against Washburn.
“He threw his changeup when he was behind in the count, he threw his curveball behind in the count,” Hargrove said. “When a guy like Washburn is on with his stuff like he was tonight, he can be very tough against anybody. He threw a lot of offspeed stuff behind in the count. When you can do that and get it over (the plate) like he did, you’ve got a chance to do exactly what he did to us.”
Winn, who Hargrove has batted second against left-handers while he moves Reed to ninth, swung the only hot bat Monday. He reached base four times by walking in the first inning, grounding an infield single in the fourth and doubling in the sixth and eighth.
The lack of offense was nothing new for Mariners starter Ryan Franklin, who had gotten just three runs of support in losing his last three games.
Franklin held the Angels hitless for 3 1/3 innings, then found trouble.
He walked Garret Anderson with one out in the fourth and tried to fool Steve Finley with a 2-2 curveball. Finley lunged at the pitch and golfed it over the right-field wall.
“They don’t have a hit, then all of a sudden they get a walk and a blast and we’re behind 2-0,” Hargrove said
Anderson made it 4-0 the next inning. Frankin had hit Orlando Cabrera with a pitch before Anderson crushed his third home run of the season into the right-field seats.
Finley followed with a double and Juan Rivera hit a single for the Angels’ fifth run.
Anderson appeared to have hit another homer in the seventh when he launched a high drive to right off M’s reliever Julio Mateo.
Suzuki, though, sprinted to the wall, climbed it and caught the ball.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better catch,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said.
Suzuki said he never practices such a play, but he has imagined making it.
“I have imagined going up there like that,” he said. “It was something that I knew I could do. When I went up on the wall, the ball was right there. It looked like a basketball to me.”
The Mariners’ hitters could only dream of the ball looking that large.
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