SEATTLE – The Seattle Mariners went through six weeks of spring training without finding a reliable left-handed relief pitching specialist.
One disheartening loss, 8-4 Tuesday night to the Minnesota Twins, showed they still might not have one.
The middle of the Twins’ batting order, with three left-handers in the lineup, rocked Mariners left-handed reliever Matt Thornton in a seven-run fifth inning at Safeco Field.
Thornton had relieved starter Gil Meche, who faded early in the fifth when he gave up four hits to the first five hitters in the inning. The bleeding continued with Thornton, who allowed four straight hits, including Jacque Jones’ two-run homer that completed the Twins’ seven-run rally.
“It was a good part of the lineup for a left-hander,” Mariners manager Mike Hargrove said. “Matt came in and hung that slider to Jones. It was just one of those innings where everything they did was right and everything we did wasn’t right.”
Until Jones’ homer, the Twins didn’t exactly pummel Meche and Thornton.
They simply hit the ball where the Mariners couldn’t reach it, including a key double-steal by Shannon Stewart and Jason Bartlett with Joe Mauer batting against Thornton. M’s shortstop Wilson Valdez broke to cover second base and Mauer grounded a single into left field to score a run.
The seven-run uprising wiped out a fast start by the Mariners, who jumped on defending Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana with four runs in the first inning.
Adrian Beltre drove in two runs with a line drive up the middle hit so hard it went for a double. Richie Sexson followed with an RBI double and Raul Ibanez drove in the fourth run with a single.
Then Santana settled himself.
He retired 14 of the next 15 hitters, allowing only Beltre’s leadoff single in the third and then finishing off the M’s in that inning by striking gout Sexson, Bret Boone and Ibanez.
“The good ones find a way, and he’s awfully good,” Hargrove said of Santana.
Santana pitched through the fifth before the Twins bullpen finished his work.
Right-hander Jesse Crain, left-hander J.C. Romero, and righties Juan Rincon and Joe Nathan held the Mariners to just two more hits – Ichiro Suzuki’s second infield hit of the game in the seventh and Greg Dobbs’ pinch-hit double in the ninth.
The bottom five hitters in the Mariners’ order had another rough game, with Ibanez’s first-inning single the only hit in two games by that group.
“We’ll be all right,” Hargrove said. “We’ve got good hitters up and down the lineup.”
After the Twins knocked Meche out of the game in the fifth, they presented Hargrove with a perfect chance to throw Thornton into the fire against the left-handed side of the Twins’ lineup.
“They hit some ground balls that found holes that got Gil in trouble and we couldn’t get out of it,” Hargrove said. “Later in the season I might have stayed with him a little longer, but this early we went to the bullpen and we just couldn’t stop them.”
Thornton, who the Mariners see as a hard-throwing anchor in the bullpen, especially against left-handed hitting late in tight games, struggled early in spring training last month. He pitched well in his final three exhibition outings and the Mariners entered the season with hopes he had turned himself around, especially the control issues that have hampered him in recent seasons.
Entering the game with two runners on, one out and trying to protect a 4-2 Mariners lead, Thornton gave up a hit to every batter he faced.
Mauer, Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter hit consecutive singles that scored three runs. Morneau was thrown out at third by center fielder Jeremy Reed after Hunter’s hit. It was the first out of the inning.
Thornton got ahead of the left-handed-hitting Jones with strike one, then tried to get a slider past him. Jones turned on it, smashing a drive into the right-field seats for a two-run homer and a 7-4 Twins lead.
Shigetoshi Hasegawa got Lew Ford, the 10th hitter of the inning, on a grounder for the third out. Hasegawa worked the next two innings, allowing three hits and a seventh-inning run on Jones’ RBI single for an 8-4 score.
Ryan Franklin pitched a 1-2-3 eighth and J.J. Putz gave up a hit but struck out two in the ninth.
The Twins, however, continued to keep the Mariners’ hitters quiet after their big first inning.
Santana found the touch that won him 20 games and the Cy Young last year, and the Mariners managed just five baserunners the rest of the game.
Among them was Dobbs, who pulled a pinch-hit double into the right-field corner with two out in the ninth off Nathan. Dobbs was left there when pinch-hitter Scott Spiezio struck out looking.
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