Beltre walks off M’s streak

SEATTLE – You want desperation baseball?

This is what it’s like, for a New York Yankees team trying to maintain its division lead and the Seattle Mariners just needing to win a game.

After 10 pitchers, five pinch-hitters, two pinch runners and three intentional walks turned Tuesday night’s game at Safeco Field into a battle of matchups and a tie score through eight innings, the Mariners won it in the ninth on Adrian Beltre’s walk-off home run.

Beltre also hit a two-run homer in the first inning and helped account for another run when his hard slide to break up a double play enabled a run to score when the Mariners tied the score in the seventh.

The 6-5 victory was the Mariners’ first since Aug. 9 after they’d lost 11 straight on their last road trip.

“You knew eventually that it would end,” Mariners manager Mike Hargrove said. “I don’t think any of us imagined it would end in dramatic fashion. For it to end that way was pretty special.”

Beating the Yankees, who maintained their 6-game AL East lead over Boston, also was special, although Hargrove wasn’t particular after what the Mariners had experienced.

“Right now, it’s just nice to beat somebody,” he said. “It’s been 11 games since we’ve been able to say that. In those 11 games, we didn’t play especially good baseball. Everybody, everybody contributed in some form or fashion tonight.”

And he meant everybody.

When it ended, the only Mariners who didn’t play were relief pitchers Joel Pineiro and J.J. Putz. Hargrove’s bench was empty in the eighth after he used Willie Bloomquist, and when the game ended, the only move Hargrove didn’t make was putting a pitcher in the outfield.

It began with two starting pitchers just up from the minors, Yankees right-hander Jeffrey Karstens in his major league debut and Mariners righty Cha Seung Baek taking the place of recently traded Jamie Moyer, and ended with the Mariners’ bench out of all but pitchers and the Yankees down to a backup catcher.

In between was a game memorable for its home runs early and lineup changes late.

The Mariners took a 2-0 lead when Beltre lined a two-strike pitch from Karstens over the left-field fence for a two-run homer in the first inning.

The Yankees pulled ahead in the third when Baek put two runners on base with two outs, then threw a first-pitch fastball that Bobby Abreu crushed over the center-field fence for a 3-2 Yankees lead.

The Mariners tied the score 3-3 when Richie Sexson hit his 27th home run, and Baek maintained the tie the next two innings before Hargrove brought in left-handed rookie Eric O’Flaherty in the sixth. Alex Rodriguez, the former Mariner who was booed again in his return to Safeco Field, greeted O’Flaherty with a two-run homer into the upper deck in left field, giving the Yankees a 5-3 lead.

The Mariners came back despite Yankee manager Joe Torre’s methodical march to the mound three times in the next two innings. In one sequence, he used three pitchers to face two Mariners hitters.

Mariners right-hander Sean Green escaped the top of the seventh with a double-play grounder that ended a bases-loaded jam, and the Mariners pushed home two runs in the seventh to tie the score at 5-5.

Ichiro Suzuki singled and Chris Snelling doubled off Wright, who walked Beltre to load the bases. Richie Sexson hit a fielder’s choice grounder to shortstop that drove in Suzuki on a play marked by Beltre’s hard slide into second baseman Nick Green to break up the double play opportunity. Torre brought in lefty Ron Villone to face Raul Ibanez, who worked a 3-0 count and grounded a single into right field, scoring Snelling to tie the score 5-5.

The score didn’t change for another 11/3 innings, although the lineups did.

Bloomquist, backup catcher Kenji Johjima and rookie outfielder T.J. Bohn, in his first major league appearance, were on the field at the finish.

They were among the receiving line at the plate for Beltre, who drove a two-strike pitch from Villone the opposite way over the right-field fence for the winning home run.