SEATTLE – It was over as soon as Aaron Sele hung a sinker to Aubrey Huff with one out and two on in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ half of the fifth inning.
Huff launched the pitch over the right-center-field wall, a ball that Ichiro Suzuki could have caught had he not lost it in a cloud.
Huff’s three-run homer gave the Devil Rays a 4-1 lead, more than enough for them to win their majors-worst fourth road game in 25 games.
“I made one mistake,” Sele said after Friday’s 6-1 defeat. “You can’t do that right now.”
What Sele didn’t say, but what he implied, is all you need to know about the 2005 Seattle Mariners. Although management spent $114 million in the off-season to spice up the offense, this team can no more score runs on a consistent basis than it can leap Mount Rainier.
The few rallies the Mariners come up with die either in inning-ending double plays or strikeouts. Runs are gold.
How bad is it? Going into Saturday’s game with Tampa Bay, the Mariners had 37 home runs. Only the Oakland A’s (30) had fewer. Opponents have swatted 63.
The M’s lack of punch is forcing the pitching staff to be better than it actually is. As Sele said, one mistake is too many.
Two games this week – Friday’s loss to the horrible Devil Rays and Wednesday’s 3-0 victory over the Toronto – showed 1) how bad it can get when Mariner hitters roll over and expose their own jugular; and 2) how difficult it is for this team, most of the time, to win.
On Wednesday, Gil Meche threw 62/3 scoreless innings and four relief pitchers refused to buckle. Meche was hardly overpowering, striking out one and walking two, but the M’s played good defense (making one meaningless error) and scored two insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth to give closer Eddie Guardado some wiggle room.
“It’s always good to have a little breathing room when you get into a ballgame,” said Guardado, who picked up his 15th save, tied for second in the American League, “especially a three-run lead. We hit the ball later and made things happen. That’s a good thing to see because at the beginning of the year, we’re not doing that. That’s exciting.”
Still, the Mariners could have made it easier on themselves.
Suzuki led off the game with a single and went to third on a double by Randy Winn. So the Mariners had runners on first and third, with no outs.
Adrian Beltre struck out. Richie Sexson walked to load the bases. Raul Ibanez hit into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.
In the third inning, Pat Borders, a 42-year-old catcher the M’s brought on board May 19 from Milwaukee when Miguel Olivo couldn’t hit his sister’s weight and Wiki Gonzalez pulled a hamstring, led off with a double. He advanced to third on Winn’s single. So, again, the M’s had runners on first and third with one out. This time, it was Beltre who hit into an inning-ending double play.
The crowd, increasingly irritated with Beltre’s slow adjustment to American League pitching (he was hitting just .236 with five homers going into the game), responded with boos.
“No one was more upset than I was that we didn’t score,” Seattle manager Mike Hargrove said.
Both Beltre and Ibanez came through in the eighth with RBI singles, but the first and third innings are prime examples of the chances Seattle has squandered all season.
Flash to Friday’s disaster against the Devil Rays.
One run, five hits. The Mariners had just six baserunners through eight innings.
But the opportunity was there. Devil Rays starting pitcher Casey Fossum left in the fourth inning with tightness in his left groin, and the Mariners had a terrible Tampa Bay bullpen to feast on the rest of the game.
So what happens?
In trots sometime-starter Dave Waechter, he of the 6.00 ERA, who proceeds to shut Seattle down on three hits in five innings.
Waechter got out of the seventh when Borders hit into a double play and needed just four pitches to retire the M’s in the eighth.
Chad Orvella tried to get the M’s back into the game by walking Sexson and Ibanez to open the ninth, but ended the game by retiring Bret Boone, Jeremy Reed and Mike Morse in order.
“I don’t think we were flat,” Hargrove said afterward. “I just think we were over-aggressive, swung at bad pitches and gave at-bats away. It wasn’t any one person. It was as a whole.”
And as a hole, the Mariner ship is sinking fast.
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