By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – It wasn’t the same group that produced the best record in baseball this season.
What the Seattle Mariners threw at the Oakland A’s on Friday, however, was good enough to beat Mark Mulder.
The Mariners beat Oakland’s 20-game winner 5-3 at Safeco Field with a lineup that included Ramon Vazquez as a late replacement at shortstop for ill Carlos Guillen and Ed Sprague at third while David Bell recovers from a rib-cage injury.
Sprague drove home two runs with a double in the third inning and Vazquez had a single – only his second hit as a big-leaguer since being called up this month.
“We had a few people out, but we played hard and put some runs on the board early,” manager Lou Piniella said. “And the relief pitchers did a nice job of protecting and holding.”
Sounds like the formula the Mariners have used all season.
Freddy Garcia scattered six hits and three runs over six innings to push his record to 18-6. He did it with deep thoughts of his best friend, shortstop Carlos Guillen, who was diagnosed Friday with tuberculosis.
“I feel really bad,” Garcia said. “I had to go out there and do what I do. He was playing really well the last couple of weeks.”
The offensive catalyst, as he has been all season, was Ichiro Suzuki.
Suzuki tied the major league rookie record for hits when he smacked infield singles his first two times up. He has 233 hits to share the record with “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who did it with the Indians in 1911.
It’s what Suzuki did after those hits that drove Mulder and the A’s batty.
In the first inning, he went to third on a double by Stan Javier and scored on John Olerud’s fielder’s choice. Javier later scored from third on a bizarre double-steal when Olerud broke from first base and seemed like an easy out at second before A’s first baseman Jason Giambi dropped the ball for an error.
It was one of those plays Piniella likes to throw into the Mariners’ mix as they give playoff opponents something to think about.
“We pulled a double-steal in the first inning and I looked up at the Cleveland scout and said, ‘Write it down,’” Piniella said.
Scouts made note of what the M’s did in the third, too. Again, Suzuki started it.
A’s shortstop Miguel Tejada fielded Suzuki’s grounder up the middle and made a futile attempt to throw him out, but he threw the ball into the seats behind the Mariners’ dugout. It allowed Suzuki to take second base. Javier dropped a sacrifice bunt that pushed Suzuki to third and Bret Boone bounced a single up the middle to make it a 3-0 game.
Mike Cameron reached on a fielder’s choice, Olerud singled up the middle and Sprague blistered a double down the left-field line that scored two runs for a 5-0 lead.
Garcia stumbled only in the sixth inning, when he walked the first two hitters and gave up a run-scoring double to Giambi, an RBI single to Jermaine Dye and an RBI infield hit to Terrence Long.
Garcia got the final two outs to leave it a 5-3 game, and Norm Charlton, Arthur Rhodes and Kazuhiro Sasaki ate up the final three innings by allowing only two baserunners. Sasaki recorded his 43rd save.
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