SEATTLE — Brett Cecil pitched into the seventh inning and Kevin Gregg hung on for the save Wednesday night as the Toronto Blue Jays beat Seattle 3-2, sending the Mariners to their fifth straight loss.
The Mariners put two runners on base with two outs in the ninth, but left fielder Fred Lewis ran down Mike Sweeney’s long fly into the alley to end it.
Milton Bradley returned to the Mariners and had his fourth two-hit game of the season. He was out for two weeks after asking the team for counseling help to deal with personal and emotional issues.
Cecil (3-2), a Triple-A starter to begin the season, featured a 96 mph fastball while allowing two runs and seven hits in 6 1-3 innings. He had lasted just two innings and giving up eight runs against Texas Friday.
Gregg retired pinch-hitter Ken Griffey Jr. on an infield popup and Ichiro Suzuki on a fly out before walking Chone Figgins in the ninth. Franklin Gutierrez singled and Sweeney flied out, giving Gregg his AL-leading 12th save in 13 chances.
Seattle’s Doug Fister entered the night leading the AL with a 1.72 ERA. Then in the first four innings Fister (3-2) allowed three runs, as many as he had allowed in any of seven previous starts this season.
Fister retired the last 14 batters he faced. But Toronto had done enough damage by then to improve the majors’ best record since April 29 to 15-5.
Bradley thanked the team for its support for an ongoing process, and Seattle’s fans for what he called an “overwhelming” amount of encouraging mail and cards while he was gone on the restricted list.
A sampling — 19,208 — of those fans gave him a warm, brief ovation when he first batted in the second and struck out swinging. Baseball’s self-described bad guy had a broken-bat single in the fourth, then hit an infield single against Scott Downs to become the potential tying run with one out in the eighth.
Jose Bautista doubled, John Buck singled and Lewis hit a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0 in the third. Then Fister threw 31 of his 108 pitches in his messy fourth.
Alex Gonzalez’s single scored Adam Lind, who had doubled leading off. Fister walked Bautista to load the bases and hit Buck in the left elbow with a 2-2 fastball. That forced in Lyle Overbay to make it 3-0.
Suzuki, singled home Josh Bard in the seventh. That was Cecil’s last batter and Figgins, at .189 after three hitless at-bats, singled home Josh Wilson off Shawn Camp to bring Seattle within 3-2.
NOTES: Toronto recalled former Mariners OF Jeremy Reed from Triple-A Las Vegas, after the Blue Jays granted 1B Randy Ruiz his release so he could sign with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in Japan. Manager Cito Gaston said other, younger players in the minors were hitting better than Reed but didn’t deserve to come up and play only sporadically like Reed likely will. … Seattle sent RHP Sean White to Triple-A Tacoma to make roster room for Bradley’s return.
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