SEATTLE – Mired in a winless streak that is measured now by months, not just days and weeks, Ryan Franklin pitched well enough to win Tuesday night.
Backed by an offense that didn’t wake up until it was too late, Franklin didn’t have a chance.
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Seattle Mariners 6-5 at Safeco Field, where only those who stayed to the bitter end saw the M’s make it interesting.
Franklin pitched eight solid innings and left trailing 4-2, only to see the Devil Rays add two more off the Mariners’ rookie relievers in the ninth and then the Mariners score three times themselves when they finally strung together some hits.
Too little, too late and much too familiar for Franklin.
He’s 3-13 and hasn’t won since he beat the Chicago White Sox on June 5. He has lost nine times in the 14 starts since, the second-longest losing streak in Mariners history. Mike Parrott lost 16 straight in 1980.
“It’s not something you want to get used to, but I can’t control it,” Franklin said.
What he could control was another quality start, his 10th that lasted six or more innings since he last won a game.
“That’s all I can do, go as long as I can,” Franklin said. “I’ll take eight innings every time.”
He also didn’t mind the pitch that got the Devil Rays started in the first inning, an up-and-in fastball that Tino Martinez barely lifted over the right-field fence for his 20th home run and a 2-0 lead.
“I don’t think he hit it that good,” Franklin said. “It’s just with the roof closed, the ball carries better. That’s about the only place it can get out of here.”
Toby Hall made it 3-0 with an RBI double in the second before the Mariners came back with two runs in the bottom of that inning when Dan Wilson doubled and the Devil Rays aided the cause with a walk, wild pitch and error.
Just as suddenly as all those runs scored, the game turned into a pitcher’s battle.
Franklin retired 19 of the next 21 Devil Rays, including 13 straight before he walked Randal Simon in the eighth and gave up Julio Lugo’s RBI single for a 4-2 score.
Devil Rays starter Rob Bell mowed down 14 straight Mariners before Bret Boone led off the seventh inning with a single. It was only the Mariners’ third hit of the game and, despite a throwing error that put Boone on third, it produced nothing when Scott Spiezio and Wilson flied out and Jose Lopez struck out.
“We had three hits going into the last inning, which aren’t going to win you a whole lot of games,” Mariners manager Bob Melvin said.
The Mariners nearly did, though.
Trailing 6-2 after the Devil Rays roughed up Scott Atchison and Matt Thornton for two runs in the top of the ninth, the Mariners finally found some offense against right-hander Danny Baez.
Edgar Martinez led off with a single and Boone doubled with one out. Bucky Jacobsen dumped a two-strike, two-out single to center field that scored two runs – making the score 6-4 – and Lopez lined a single to left field that turned the onetime blowout into a one-run game.
That’s where it ended.
Baez got Willie Bloomquist looking at strike three to stop the rally and leave Ichiro Suzuki in the batter’s box awaiting a chance to get his 200th hit of the season.
Suzuki’s first-inning single pulled him within a hit of becoming the first player in history to get 200 in each of his first four seasons. After that, he struck out, grounded out and flied out in a 1-for-4 game that left his major league-leading average at .369.
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