SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners always believed they had a winning streak left in them.
Another late rally Friday night, this time on Jose Guillen’s sacrifice fly to drive home Ichiro Suzuki in the ninth inning, beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 2-1 at Safeco Field.
The Mariners have won three straight, and the remaining 16 games will determine if this streak has come too late.
After suffering through a stretch when they won two of 15 games and lost the ability to determine their own playoff fate, the Mariners need help.
They didn’t get it in the wild-card race Friday, when the Yankees scored six runs in the eighth inning and beat the Red Sox, maintaining their 5&189;-game margin over the Mariners.
“We can’t worry about it,” said closer J.J. Putz, who pitched a perfect ninth and recorded his fourth victory. “We just have to keep winning and we’ll see what happens.”
The Mariners did gain a game in the never-over-till-it’s-over American League West. They are now 7&189; games behind the Los Angeles Angels, who fell to the Chicago White Sox and have lost two straight.
“We’ve still got four against Anaheim,” Putz said. “I don’t think anything’s over. I know it’s a tough hill to climb, but it’s definitely something that’s doable. We just need some things to go our way.”
Nearly everything did Friday, despite a rough night for the offense against young Devil Rays right-hander James Shields. He held the Mariners to four hits in eight innings, and they scored only in the fifth off him.
Jose Vidro led off with a double, moved to third when Kenji Johjima bunted up the third-base line for a single and scored when Willie Bloomquist grounded into double play.
With Felix Hernandez giving the Mariners a quality start at long last, it seemed that run would be enough.
Then Jonny Gomes led off the eighth inning with a single and, after Hernandez got the next two hitters out, Jorge Velandia hit a fly to center field that sailed over Suzuki, who was playing shallow.
“We wanted him close so he could throw out the guy (at the plate),” manager John McLaren said. “Felix just hung a breaking ball there.”
That was Hernandez’s final hitter in the Mariners’ deepest performance by a starter, 723 innings, since — brace yourself — Jeff Weaver went that far Aug. 18 in a victory over the White Sox. Weaver, in fact, has the last complete game by a Mariner, on Aug. 12 at Chicago.
Hernandez allowed six hits but, until the eighth, no runner advanced as far as second base.
Johjima got most of the credit for that. He threw out two runners trying to steal, Josh Wilson in the third inning and Greg Norton in the fourth, on strikeout-throw out double plays that ended those innings.
“One of the biggest improvements in Kenji’s game this year has been his arm strength,” McLaren said.
George Sherrill replaced Hernandez and got the final out in the eighth, Putz tore through the Devil Rays in the ninth and the Mariners put together a late winning rally for the third straight game.
Suzuki lined a single up the middle off right-hander Gary Glover and, with Adrian Beltre hitting, broke for second base. Beltre, protecting the runner, made contact with an eye-high pitch and bounced it into right field, sending Suzuki to third.
Raul Ibanez grounded an infield single to shortstop to load the bases and Guillen lifted a high fly to deep right field, easily scoring Suzuki with the winning run.
“That was a must-win game with the Yankees coming back like that,” McLaren said. “We feel good about ourselves. We just want to finish strong.”
With their fate in so many other teams’ hands, that’s all they can do.
“We’re not going to just lay down,” Putz said. “We’re going to play to the very end.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog about the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com.
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