SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners ended the scoreless drought Saturday night at Safeco Field, but not the spell that has enveloped their season.
The L.A. Angels scored in the 10th inning to beat the Mariners 4-3 in a game decided, again, by the Mariners’ inability to score when they had opportunities in the seventh, eighth and ninth.
“You’ve got to be able to score runs when you need them,” manager Don Wakamatsu said. “We were in position to take the lead and we were in a position to win this ballgame and we didn’t do it.”
But at least they did score — two runs in the fifth inning to end a 22-inning streak without a run, and again in the sixth to tie the score 3-3.
Then the Angels and Mariners traded opportunities before Hideki Matsui lined a hit-and-run single to left field off closer David Aardsma, scoring Bobby Abreu with the winning run in the top of the 10th.
The Mariners, 11-19, have lost all eight games on the homestand and will try to avoid the cleanest of sweeps in the finale today. Then they’ll take their misfortunes on the road for eight games.
“We played a good game,” said second baseman Chone Figgins, who drew one of the Mariners’ nine walks but also grounded out twice with runners in scoring position. “They got the big hit, they made the big pitch. We were right there with them.”
At a time like this, the Mariners can only lean on positive signs. There were a few.
Pitcher Doug Fister recorded his fifth straight quality start (at least six innings with three earned runs or less) by allowing eight hits and three runs in seven innings. He walked two, including one to Abreu in the fifth inning that ended a streak of 172/3 innings without a walk by Fister. The Angels scored on Kendry Morales’ solo homer in the fourth inning and Torii Hunter’s two-out, two-run single in the fifth.
“He battled through some jams but still gave us seven innings and a quality start,” Wakamatsu said. “He just keeps getting better and better.”
The offense produced numerous opportunities against Angels starter Joe Saunders and three relievers before closer Brian Fuentes shut them down in the 10th. The nine walks tied their season high, but they left 12 runners on base.
Ichiro Suzuki’s two-run triple with two outs in the fifth inning gave the Mariners their first runs since the ninth inning Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays, ending a scoreless streak that spanned two shutout losses and the first four innings Saturday.
In the sixth, Mike Sweeney hit an RBI double, also with two outs, to tie the score 3-3. It was Sweeney’s first RBI since April 26, and just the eighth RBI by a Mariners designated hitter this season.
The Mariners couldn’t produce another run despite opportunities in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings when they had a runner on third base each time.
The ninth was the most difficult to take.
Angels right-hander Fernando Rodney walked Suzuki to start the inning and, after Figgins dropped a sacrifice bunt and Casey Kotchman grounded out, walked both Franklin Gutierrez and Jose Lopez.
That loaded the bases for Sweeney, who lashed at the first pitch and pulled a line drive just foul past third base. Sweeney fell into a two-strike hole before working his way back to a full count, then grounded out to second base to send the game into extra innings.
Aardsma, who’d escaped bases-loaded trouble in the ninth, couldn’t avoid it in the 10th. Abreu led off with a double and, after Hunter grounded out and Aardsma intentionally walked Kendry Morales, Matsui pushed an opposite-field single to left. It scored Abreu with the go-ahead run and was the 1,500th RBI in Matsui’s career combining his Japan and U.S. totals.
The Mariners were no match in the 10th for Fuentes, who began his career in the Mariners’ organization in 1996 with the Everett AquaSox. He got Ryan Langerhans to ground out before striking out Josh Wilson and Rob Johnson for his fourth save.
“You look at the offense and try to take some positives to get better,” Wakamatsu said. “No. 1, the nine walks and one hit batter. The unfortunate thing is we only scored three runs. It goes back to timely hitting.”
Rob Johnson, robbed of an extra-base hit in the third inning when third baseman Kevin Frandsen caught his line drive, singled in the seventh but struck out to end the eighth with runners on second and third. And Casey Kotchman, who has batted third much of the past week, went 0-for-4 to leave him 1-for-31 on the homestand.
“You ask your club to go out and compete, and I thought they competed tonight,” Wakamatsu said. “Going through this losing streak is not fun for anybody.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog
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