M’s caught off base

  • Kirby Arnold / Herald Writer
  • Tuesday, October 9, 2001 9:00pm
  • Sports

By Kirby Arnold

Herald Writer

SEATTLE — Bret Boone straightened in his chair and feigned panic.

"We shook up the world," he said. "We lost."

Then he broke into a smile.

Boone wasn’t trying to be flippant, but it became big baseball news when the Seattle Mariners, the team that dominated the major leagues by winning 116 games in the regular season, started the postseason playoffs Tuesday with a 5-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

The Mariners have been in this position before, even during one of the most successful seasons in baseball history, and pulled themselves together.

Sixteen times this year the Mariners lost the first game of a series, and all but three times they came back to win those series.

The stakes are much bigger now, however. Behind 1-0 in the best-of-five American League Division Series, the Mariners must win three of the remaining four games to advance to the next round.

Boone realizes the importance, but he refuses to treat Tuesday’s loss as a cause for alarm.

"Right now, everything is magnified," he said. "But this was one loss. To make something more out of that is ridiculous. We lost. So what?"

The rest of the Mariners weren’t exactly settling into a so-what attitude, but they certainly were in a "that’s baseball" stance after being dominated by Cleveland pitcher Bartolo Colon.

The powerful right-hander used a fastball that peaked at 99 mph with precision, limiting the Mariners to six hits over eight innings. He struck out 10 and allowed only one Mariner as far as third base.

"He was on," Mariners shortstop Mark McLemore said. "That’s probably the best I’ve ever seen him pitch."

Colon struck out McLemore, Boone, Mike Cameron and John Olerud twice each.

Ichiro Suzuki, who became the first Japanese position player to appear in a major league postseason game, had three of the Mariners’ hits. Edgar Martinez, Stan Javier and Dan Wilson had the others.

Otherwise, there were a lot of swings, misses, called strikes and frustrated Mariners headed back to the dugout.

"It’s kind of tough when you have a guy throwing the kind of stuff he was throwing today," McLemore said. "You never say OK, he’s dominating us so we’re going to give up … "

But when the eighth inning arrived and Colon still was unwinding fastballs at 99 mph, the Mariners might as well have started to think about Game 2 on Thursday.

"He was throwing strikes when he wanted to," Wilson said. "It didn’t seem like we could get any offense generated."

The few chances they had, the Mariners left men on base.

Suzuki led off the bottom of the first with a single to right field and Colon, knowing he was dealing with the American League’s stolen base leader, threw to first five times, stepped off the rubber once and pitched out once to keep Suzuki close.

It worked. Suzuki never ran, Colon struck out McLemore and Boone, then got Martinez on a ground ball to end the inning

Suzuki slapped a single to center field with one out in the third inning and he took off this time, at precisely the wrong time. With McLemore behind 1-2 in the count, Colon threw a pitchout as Suzuki broke for second. Suzuki skidded to a stop more than halfway to the bag and was caught in a rundown that produced the second out.

Only Martinez made it as far as third base when he singled with two outs in the sixth, stole second after the Indians didn’t bother holding him on first base and made it to third on catcher Einar Diaz’s errant throw into center field.

On the next pitch, Olerud swung through a 99 mph fastball at the letters.

"If he’s throwing the ball well up in the strike zone, it’s a tough pitch to get to," Olerud said. "He was getting ahead of everybody (in the count). When a guy is throwing hard like that and hitting his spots and getting ahead in the count, it’s difficult."

Mariner starter Freddy Garcia sputtered twice and it cost him the game.

After holding the Indians to one hit in the first three innings — Ellis Burks’ two-out double in the second — Garcia couldn’t get anything past them in the fourth.

Roberto Alomar led off with a double, Juan Gonzalez broke his bat and blooped a run-scoring single to right, Jim Thome walked and Burks, Travis Fryman and Marty Cordova each slapped singles for a 3-0 lead.

With the bases loaded and still nobody out, Garcia cleaned up his own mess by striking out Diaz and Kenny Lofton, then getting Omar Vizquel on a fly to left.

The Indians added another run in the sixth when Fryman, Cordova and Diaz each poked infield singles for a 4-0 lead, and Burks made it 5-0 when he started the eighth with a second-deck home run to left field off reliever Jose Paniagua.

Colon and Indians closer Bob Wickman, who struck out two of the three he faced in the ninth, took care of the rest.

Beaten but not panicked, the Mariners could do nothing but look ahead.

"It’s a best-of-five," Boone said. "That’s how we approach it. Things become a little more important now, but our backs aren’t against the wall. Go down 0-2 and then your back is against the wall.

"But we’re going to come out fighting on Thursday, believe me."

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