By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – John Farrell never realized what he started when he served up a fat one in the Kingdome on Sept. 16, 1987.
A 24-year-old Seattle Mariners rookie, just days into his major league career after being added to the roster, swatted Farrell’s pitch into right field to drive home Ken Phelps and lead the M’s to victory over the Cleveland Indians.
In the 14 years since, Edgar Martinez hasn’t stopped driving in runs for the Mariners.
On Wednesday, he added two more, including the 1,000th of his career with a fourth-inning home run, as the Mariners beat the Toronto Blue Jays 12-4 at Safeco Field.
“I remember my first hit and my first at-bat, but I don’t remember my first RBI,” Martinez said. “But this means a lot. I remember when I signed, I didn’t know how it was going to go.”
Martinez is 38 years old now and, while the agility afoot that once allowed him to play a solid third base has faded into a series of muscle strains and physical restraints that limit him to designated hitter duty, one element of his game has never wavered.
He still swings one of the meanest bats in baseball.
Ask Toronto pitcher Chris Carpenter, server of RBI No. 999 and 1,000.
Martinez, in his fifth game after returning from a quadriceps muscle injury, hit a run-scoring single to the right-center-field wall in the second inning off the Blue Jays right-hander, then a leadoff homer into the Mariners’ bullpen in the fourth.
The home run was one in a flurry of Mariners runs on Wednesday, but it became the focal point for the sellout crowd of 45,450. They didn’t stop cheering after Martinez took his home-run trot into the dugout, and didn’t quiet down until after he returned to the top step for wave of his helmet.
Then came the superlatives from the clubhouse.
“Edgar is a special hitter,” manager Lou Piniella said. “He just keeps putting up numbers. He’s had a heck of a career.”
“Reaching 1,000 RBI, that takes 100 RBI for 10 years,” Ichiro Suzuki said. “That’s amazing.”
It’s somewhat like the season all these guys are riding.
Unlike 1987, when a Mariners victory was a rare moment to savor, the M’s on Wednesday took another step on their march to a third division championship since 1995.
Jamie Moyer’s first complete game in two years, Suzuki’s four hits and two RBI, Dan Wilson’s four hits and David Bell’s three RBI easily were enough to push the Mariners to their 83rd victory.
Moyer settled into a rhythm after allowing three hits in the first inning and he retired 11 of the next 12 hitters he faced. As the innings passed, the Mariners built a big lead for Moyer – three runs in the first, two in the second, four in the fourth – and he didn’t nitpick with the strike zone.
Three of the Blue Jays’ runs came on solo home runs, and Moyer finished his 120-pitch night having allowed eight hits, one walk and two strikeouts. It was his first complete game since Sept. 19, 1999.
“We needed a complete game and tonight we got one,” Piniella said. “It really rested our bullpen.”
The magic number to clinch the American League West title is 30, meaning any combination of Mariners victories and losses by second-place Oakland totaling 30 will give the M’s the title.
That’s as inevitable as Martinez’s run to 1,000 RBI became as his career progressed.
He won the American League batting title in 1995 (hitting .356) and hasn’t hit less than .300 since his injury-shortened season in 1994.
It all started in ‘87.
Martinez led the Class AAA Calgary Cannons with a .329 average and was among the September callups when major league teams were allowed to expand their rosters.
His first hit was – get this – a triple off Cleveland’s Reggie Ritter on Sept. 14. Two days later, Martinez doubled off Farrell to drive in his first run.
There’s even a trivia answer in all this. The home plate umpire for Wednesday’s game, Derryl Cousins, also called balls and strikes in that 1987 game.
“I didn’t realize that. What a coincidence,” Martinez said.
Now that he is 152 RBI from the franchise record held by Ken Griffey Jr., Martinez has eyes for more. But, at 38, he’s also a realist.
“Hopefully I can be around to get there,” he said. “But you never know. At my age, you take them one year at a time.”
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