SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners would prefer blowouts to ease the stress on everyone, but with a minimalist offense and a pitching staff that has consistently held down opponents, a personality has taken hold two months into the season.
The Mariners have a major league-leading 27 one-run games among the 56 they’ve played this season, including another Saturday that gave them their 15th one-run victory.
They beat the Minnesota Twins 2-1 when Ken Griffey Jr. doubled to the left-center field gap to score Ichiro Suzuki from first base with two outs in the eighth inning.
David Aardsma finished a day of strong pitching with his ninth save and, at least until today’s series finale against the Twins, all was good again with the Mariners even though their nerve endings were numbed just a little more.
“A guy like Griff comes up there and there’s no heartbeat,” manager Don Wakamatsu said. “You’d like for some of the younger players to be able to understand that. If you’ve never played in the playoffs, you don’t know what the feeling is like. If you don’t play in a lot of one-run ballgames, you don’t know how to win them.”
If every game were a one-run game, the Mariners would be three games over .500. Instead, Saturday’s victory pulled them back within two of that mark, and winning today would give them their fifth series victory of their past seven.
“That’s what we wanted since we came in here,” Wakamatsu said. “We wanted to at least have the fans feel like this is a team that might not be the most talented offensively, but with pitching and the way we play defensively and the way we manufacture some things, they get their money’s worth when they get to the ballpark.”
Two infield singles, each followed by a two-out double, scored both Mariners runs.
With the Twins leading 1-0 after scoring in the fourth inning, Franklin Gutierrez beat out a two-out bouncer up the middle in the fifth, then scored from first when Ichiro Suzuki doubled to right-center field.
In the eighth, Suzuki led off with an infield single and, after Twins reliever Luis Ayala got the next two outs, Griffey came to bat needing one swing to put the Mariners ahead.
Not, not a home-run swing. Griffey simply got a pitch from Ayala over the outer half of the plate and didn’t try to do too much with it.
It was a little thing Wakamatsu hopes his young players noticed, that Griffey didn’t try to muscle up and pull the ball out of the park.
“You’d like to think that they do learn something from a guy like him who’s done it over and over again,” Wakamatsu said.
What’s the benefit of playing so many close games?
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we feel like we have a chance,” Aardsma said. “I’d like to think that guys get accustomed to the pressure. When you play games like this constantly, it gets you ready for the playoffs. Hopefully we’re in there. Those games aren’t blowouts. Those are tough ballgames where you have to scrap out any runs that you can. We know we can do that.”
Depending on how you look at this season, pitching has given the Mariners a chance to win these close games, and also sidestep the offensive problems that otherwise would ruin a season.
“It’s because we pitch so well,” said Jarrod Washburn, who gave up seven hits and one run in six innings, and made the play of the game when he tagged out Delmon Young at the plate after a wild pitch in the third inning.
“We’re in every ballgame and every guy who takes the ball to start gives us a chance to win, and the bullpen does a great job after that. We keep the damage down keep the games close.”
The bullpen backed up Washburn against a Twins team that has pounded the Mariners a few times this season. They’d scored 36 runs in seven games going into this series.
Brandon Morrow, Garrett Olson and Chris Jakubauskas each pitched two-thirds of an inning after Washburn, and Aardsma survived a hit, a walk and a passed ball in the ninth.
Wakamatsu called Olson’s stint the key to the victory when he had to get dangerous Joe Mauer with runners on first and third with two outs in the seventh, then Justin Morneau leading off the eighth.
“The game revolved around what Olson did,” Wakamatsu said. “To have to pitch against those two guys and do what he did, that’s an awfully good feeling.
“It’s a credit to all these guys. The way they’ve pitched, you couldn’t ask for any more, especially with as many one and two-run games as we’ve had.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com\marinersblog
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