Where have we seen this game before? Oh, a couple of other times at Safeco Field.
For all the Mariners have said about playing close games and giving themselves chances to win at the end, they’ve lost three of their seven home games so far by five runs or more.
The latest was ton
ight’s 8-3 loss to the Tigers at frigid Safeco Field when the Mariners led 2-1 through four innings, then:
• Wasted a point-blank chance to score in the fifth, when a failed double-steal and the inability of the No. 4 and 5 hitters to put the ball in play doomed them.
• Saw the Tigers tie the score in the sixth against starter Jason Vargas, who nevertheless pitched a strong game – six hits and four walks but two runs in six innings.
• Unraveled when the bullpen was called to hold down the Tigers. Josh Lueke allowed three hits, a walk and four runs. Chris Ray gave up a hit, two walks (one intentional) and two runs.
David Pauley and Tom Wilhelmsen each pitched a scoreless inning, but the six-run damage of the seventh was too much for this Mariners team to overcome.
Justin Smoak lined a home run to start the bottom of the eighth, but that’s all the Mariners could manage outside a few small glimmers of hope offensively. Catcher Miguel Olivo, batting .156 entering the game, looked lost in strikeouts his first two at-bats but finished with a single and a double. And Milton Bradley, whose two-run homer in the third gave the Mariners a 2-1 lead, also singled and drew two walks.
This one was lost in the fifth when the Mariners couldn’t add to their one-run lead, and then in the seventh when the Tigers rallied to win going away.
A huge play was Figgins being thrown out at third, running with Smoak at the plate and one out in the fifth. He and Bradley had drawn back-to-back walks with nobody out before Jack Cust struck out.
Wedge wouldn’t say if Figgins was running on his own; only that he applauded Figgins’ aggressiveness and that it took a strong throw by catcher Alex Avila and a nice tag by third baseman Brandon Inge to get him out.
“The catcher got rid of it quick, but Brandon Inge made a hell of a play at third base,” Wedge said. “If you’re out by a ways that’s one thing. But it was bang-bang.”
Wedge also indicated there’s nothing wrong physically with Lueke, whose fastball is in the low-90 mph range compared with the upper 90s last year in the minor leagues.
“I think we have to take in to consideration he’s a young pitcher at this level for the first time,” Wedge said. “He’s got a lot going on. What he needs to do is just go out there and pitch and not get too caught up in trying to do too much. He has a live arm. He’s aggressive. That’s what we need him to be.”
And finally, there’s the paltry crowds coming to Safeco Field this month. Blame it on the cold weather – 50 degrees at first pitch and in the low 40s by the final out – or the poor performance of the team. Or both.
Tonight’s crowd of 12,774 was the second-smallest in the history of the stadium for a Mariners game, beating the 12,407 at the previous home game on Wednesday against the Blue Jays. With about 32,000 tickets available for the remaining two games of this series and the first game of the Oakland series on Thursday, attendance isn’t going to get better anytime soon.
And right now, that’s pretty much the feel we get for this team’s chances of reeling off a stretch of victories.
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