SEATTLE — On their way toward a streak of offensive futility for the ages, the Seattle Mariners delivered something they’d gone without most of this week:
A run.
And then a victory.
Franklin Gutierrez’s one-out single in the 11th inning Wednesday night scored Jack Wilson with the tying run and Chone Figgins with the winner in a 2-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox at Safeco Field. The runs came against Sox closer Bobby Jenks.
Until that hit, the Mariners had gone 27 straight innings without scoring a run, falling two innings short of the franchise record.
Gutierrez’s winning hit followed something else the Mariners hadn’t done especially well this season. They executed the little things necessary to score.
They would have lost had they failed at that, because Omar Vizquel gave the White Sox a 1-0 lead in the top of the 11th with his RBI single.
In the bottom of the 11th, Jack Wilson led off with a bunt single, Ichiro Suzuki moved him to second with a sacrifice bunt and Figgins singled to center field, putting runners at first and third.
Figgins, thrown out trying to steal in the fourth inning, stole second this time without a throw. Gutierrez followed with a sharp single to center field, scoring both runners to win the game.
“You probably couldn’t execute any better than that,” manager Don Wakamatsu said.
Not this week especially.
The Mariners hadn’t scored since the first inning Monday night against the White Sox, and they added to their series of baserunning mistakes when Ryan Langerhans and Jose Lopez were thrown out.
Langerhans had singled with one out in the fifth inning and, when he saw right fielder Andruw Jones bobble the ball, bolted for second base. Jones quickly threw back to the infield and Langerhans became an easy out after a rundown.
In the ninth with runners on first and second with one out, Lopez was caught off first base for an inning-ending double play after Milton Bradley looped a fly to shallow right field. Jones tumbled and caught the ball just before it hit the grass, but Lopez already had broken toward second base and was doubled off.
“People talk about the baserunning and there’s no excuses,” Wakamatsu said. “But you’ve got to look also at the fact that when you don’t score a run in 27 innings, there’s some anxiety. Langerhans, he made the wrong decision. Lopez, you look at the umpire and he didn’t make the call until (Jones) rolled over and (showed) he had the ball.”
Felix Hernandez held the White Sox to two hits in eight of the most efficient innings he has pitched this season, needing just 93 pitches to get that far.
Wakamatsu pulled him, however, and brought David Aardsma into the game in the ninth inning because Hernandez’s innings are piling up this season. Hernandez already has thrown 1532/3 innings and its only July.
“You’re sitting there at 93 pitches, and do you send him back out? In any other situation, to ask him to pitch that in eight innings, you take it,” Wakamatsu said. “But it’s at that time of year when you’ve got to protect him a little bit.”
Hernandez, who has good-naturedly challenged Wakamatsu to leave him in games this season (he has gone nine innings five times), wasn’t jovial about it this time.
“I was going to go out (for the ninth),” he said. “I was at 93 pitches.”
Asked if he understood Wakamatsu’s reason to hold down his innings, Hernandez said he didn’t.
“I don’t worry about the innings,” he said. “I feel good. I feel strong. What do you want me to say? Talk to the manager.”
Wakamatsu didn’t last much longer in the game than Hernandez. Second-base umpire Jeff Nelson ejected him when he argued that Chone Figgins had tagged out Juan Pierre when he stole second base.
“As a manger, you’ve got to trust your players and their reaction,” Wakamatsu said. “Figgy felt that he had him.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog
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