SEATTLE – Just like old times, Seattle Mariners fans cheered Randy Johnson.
It happened 20 minutes before Tuesday night’s game between the Mariners and Baltimore Orioles at Safeco Field, where all eyes – including a good number in the M’s dugout – turned to the stadium video screen for the last three outs of Johnson’s perfect game for the Diamondbacks at Atlanta.
Then, that moment of inspiration evaporated into an unsettling night at Safeco, where another lanky pitcher tossed the Mariners deeper into their hitting funk in the Orioles’ 7-2 victory.
Daniel Cabrera, a 6-foot-7 right-hander who was pitching at the Class A level a year ago, held the M’s to six hits over 62/3 innings.
The loss pushed the Mariners another game back in the standings, leaving them 121/2 behind first-place Anaheim in the American League West Division.
Asked if there was anything positive he could take from the game, even the Mariners’ Mr. Positive, manager Bob Melvin, was moved to near silence by the question.
“I’m a guy who can somehow find a silver lining,” Melvin said. “We didn’t play well. We threw the ball around a little bit. As a whole we didn’t play very well.”
Besides the sporadic hitting, the Mariners made two errors and never threatened to score beyond Raul Ibanez’s home run in the second inning and Bret Boone’s homer in the sixth.
The 22-year-old Cabrera made it look like they were facing, well, Randy Johnson.
The only other Mariners to even touch second base were Dave Hansen, after reaching on an error and Dan Wilson’s walk in the fourth, and Boone, after a walk and a stolen base in the eighth.
Neither of them got any farther, Hansen stranded by John Olerud’s pop foul and Boone by Wilson’s ground out after a 14-pitch battle with Orioles reliever B.J. Ryan.
Ichiro Suzuki was the only Mariner with more than one hit, going 2-for-4 to raise his average to .322 and push his hitting streak to 16 games. Suzuki needs five hits to reach 2,000 in his career; he has 717 since coming to the Mariners from Japan in 2001.
Both of Suzuki’s singles came with two outs, both after the Orioles were comfortably in the lead.
“Offensively we have to put some pressure on a team, especially early in the game,” Melvin said.
The Mariners’ best chance was the fourth inning when, trailing 3-1, they had runners on first and second with two outs and Olerud at the plate.
Olerud swung at the first pitch and hit a pop foul for the third out, on his way to an 0-for-4 game that spun his average to .238. Melvin said Olerud won’t play today against Orioles left-hander Erik Bedard.
“In his defense, look at all these averages,” Melvin said, scanning the Mariners’ season statistics. It’s not like he’s the only guy. He’s got a track record and that’s one of the reasons there’s so much scrutiny on him right now. He’s a guy who’s not only a high-average guy, but a guy who knocks in runs. It isn’t a great start for him, but it isn’t a great start for a lot of our hitters.”
Olerud is among five regulars who are hitting .250 or less.
“We need to get our starters a lead,” Melvin said. “We’re constantly battling uphill.”
The victim Tuesday was Freddy Garcia, who gave up three runs in the first two innings, then kept the game close until Larry Bigbie’s two-run homer in the sixth inning made it 5-1.
“Up until then he kept us in the game,” Melvin said. “It wasn’t his best performance of the year, but at least he gave us a chance.”
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