SEATTLE – As the Seattle Mariners’ offense went back on ice, the Oakland A’s champagne came off.
Rich Harden held the Mariners to two hits in five shutout innings and the A’s pummeled M’s pitching in a 12-3 victory Tuesday night at Safeco Field, clinching the American League West Division championship.
The A’s celebrated their 14th division title with the customary mob scene on the field, then champagne in the clubhouse afterward. After a tight race through the first four months of the season, the A’s pulled away in August, when they went 21-6. They lead the Angels by six games with five to play.
“They played really well the second half and pitched really well,” Mariners manager Mike Hargrove said. “They held up well under the pressure that the Angels put to them. Hopefully, things will be different for us next year.”
It’ll have to be a lot different than Tuesday, when the A’s dominated the Mariners in every aspect of the game.
They led 6-0 after four innings and Harden silenced the Mariners by allowing only back-to-back singles in the third inning by Chris Snelling and Rene Rivera.
Harden has spent much of the season on the disabled list, first with a strained back and later with a sprained right elbow. Tuesday’s start was just his second since coming off the disabled list on Sept. 21.
“If they can get him to where he can help them in the playoffs, he’s a big arm for them,” Hargrove said.
Mariners starter Jake Woods and three relievers were no match. The A’s rocked Woods with 11 hits and six runs in four innings, and they finished with 19 hits for the game.
Woods allowed three hits in the first inning, including Frank Thomas’ RBI single to center, four runs in the second when Milton Bradley hit a three-run home run and Nick Swisher hit a solo homer, and a sixth run in the fourth on Jay Payton’s RBI single.
“They didn’t miss many pitches,” Hargrove said. “When he got to two strikes, he couldn’t put anybody away. You don’t throw down the middle of the plate waist-high in the big leagues and get away with it.”
Jorge Campillo, called up Monday to reinforce the Mariners’ injured and beleaguered pitching staff, pitched for the first time in three weeks and was effective.
For two innings.
He retired the A’s in order in the fifth and sixth, then wore down when Oakland scored four more runs in the seventh. Emiliano Fruto finished that inning, then gave up two runs in the eighth.
“Ugly game,” Hargrove said. “We didn’t pitch well at all. Campillo had a couple of good innings and got a little tired. The only bright spots of the whole game for us were the fifth and sixth innings.”
The Mariners’ only offensive outburst occurred in the sixth inning when Adrian Beltre and Raul Ibanez hit back-to-back home runs off reliever Kirk Saarloos.
The A’s began their celebration mildly in the eighth with a few back-pats and handshakes after the score of Texas’ 5-2 victory over the Angels was posted on the scoreboard. That outcome clinched a tie for the division title.
One inning later, the A’s clinched it outright.
The Mariners scored their third run in the ninth – Greg Dobbs, who’d led off with a double, scooting home on Mike Morse’s RBI ground out – to leave only one bit of suspense remaining: Would Ichiro Suzuki get into the game?
He didn’t start because of a bruised right quad muscle, but still had a consecutive-games streak to extend. That didn’t happen as Hargrove unloaded his bench of everyone except Suzuki and catcher Kenji Johjima (sore back).
When Rene Rivera made the final out, Suzuki’s streak ended at 396 games, going back to July 6, 2004.
“I’m not going to run him into a game like tonight just to pinch hit,” Hargrove said. “He didn’t come to me and ask for it.”
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