SEATTLE — As if the Seattle Mariners didn’t have enough experience this season with the tribulations of a No. 4 hitter, they learned the hard way that even one with a .189 batting average can run into a ball or two.
Vernon Wells, having a season for the L.A. Angels that would make
even struggling Mariners DH Jack Cust cringe, hit two home runs Monday night in a 6-3 Angels victory at Safeco Field.
His second homer was the crushing blow, a two-run blast off Mariners starter Jason Vargas that broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning. The Angels also added a run in the ninth off reliever Chris Ray.
“It’s just baseball,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. “We made a couple of mistakes they capitalized on. We were right in the game there. (Vargas) was one pitch away from keeping that a tie ballgame.”
Wells entered the game batting .189 with four home runs and 13 RBI this season and ended it with a .196 average, six homers and 16 RBI. He hit a solo homer in the third inning off Vargas.
By contrast — or comparison — the Mariners entered the game with four homers out of the No. 4 spot in their order. And they ended it that way (Adam Kennedy went 1-for-4), thanks to Angels starter Dan Haren and three relievers.
“We made their guy battle,” Wedge said. “He had to work for it. We missed some opportunities that really could have changed the course of the game. We fell short on multiple fronts.”
Three games into the 19 they’ll play this season against the Angels, the Mariners haven’t scored more than three runs in any of them. They swept the Angels in a two-game series last month in Seattle, scoring five runs combined.
For a while Monday, three runs looked like a winning number against Haren.
Kennedy doubled home Ichiro Suzuki in the first inning for a 1-1 tie, Franklin Gutierrez’s RBI single in the second put the Mariners ahead 2-1 and, after the Angels tied it in the third on Wells’ homer, the Mariners scored in the fifth when Brendan Ryan hit a sacrifice fly to push home Chone Figgins.
That gave the Mariners a 3-2 lead with Vargas having settled into a rhythm after allowing Well’s third-inning homer. He retired 10 of 12 Angels through six innings, one of those reaching on Kennedy’s error at second base in the sixth.
Two big hits off Vargas in the seventh made the difference.
Jeff Mathis doubled to start the inning and he reached third when the next hitter, Maicer Izturis, grounded out to first base. Torii Hunter followed that with a sharp grounder to third base, with Mathis breaking toward the plate when the ball was hit.
Figgins’ throw home beat the runner but Mathis slid hard into catcher Miguel Olivo and knocked the ball loose. His run tied the score 3-3.
“Figgy made a good play but it looked like Miggy got hit right as the ball got there,” Wedge said.
Vargas got Bobby Abreu to fly out but he fell behind Wells two balls and a strike, then threw a fastball that was down in the strike zone but over the middle of the plate. Wells drove it into the Mariners’ bullpen beyond the left-field fence.
The Mariners threatened in the eighth against Angels reliever Scott Downs when Brendan Ryan reached on an error with one out and Justin Smoak followed with a single. Kennedy grounded out and Olivo struck out to end that inning, and the Mariners went down 1-2-3 in the ninth against right-hander Jordan Walden, who struck out both Carlos Peguero and Mike Carp.
Peguero and Carp each struck out three times.
Suzuki went 2-for-4 in his third straight multi-hit game and is 6-for-13 since Wedge gave him a day off Friday. Olivo, who’d hit eight home runs in his previous 21 games, went 0-for-4 and struck out to end the firsts and eighth innings with runners in scoring position.
“We’ve got some young kids up here, but we need our veteran guys who’ve been there and done that before to be right there along with us,” Wedge said.
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog and follow his Twitter updates at @kirbyarnold.
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