By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – Their pitching has grown so thin they can’t use a young middle reliever without a note from his parents and the offense has shown the timeliness of a teen-ager with a curfew.
It’s been an uncommon week for the Seattle Mariners.
Despite injuries that have depleted the bullpen, closer Kazuhiro Sasaki’s sudden departure to handle family matters in Japan and an offense that has stranded 36 runners the past two games, the Mariners showed Thursday night there is one thing that won’t change: their willingness to push until the final out.
The Mariners beat the Toronto Blue Jays 8-7 when they scored three runs in the ninth inning – all with two outs – to tie the score and won it in the 11th when Mark McLemore blooped a bunt single over the mound and scored after Blue Jays rookie Corey Thurman walked three straight Mariners, including Mike Cameron on a 3-2 pitch to force home the winning run.
It made a winner of Ryan Franklin (3-1), who pitched two scoreless innings and struck out the side in the 11th.
The Mariners remained undefeated in four extra-inning games this season, two in the last two nights.
By the end, manager Lou Piniella had used everyone on his bench except catcher Dan Wilson and even dipped into his bag of rookies in the bullpen, getting a 1-2-3 ninth inning from right-hander Justin Kaye.
At that point, a victory seemed improbable.
With this team, which has come from behind for 13 of its 24 victories, even the improbable has become possible.
Trailing 7-4 after Toronto scored four times in the eighth, the Mariners had runners in scoring position each of their last two at-bats before they finally cracked Toronto closer Kelvim Escobar while down to their last breath in the ninth.
Cameron singled up the middle with one out and stole second base. Escobar struck out Carlos Guillen but, in the process of walking Ben Davis, unleashed a wild pitch that sent Cameron to third.
After the Jays allowed Davis to take second without a throw, Desi Relaford got the Mariners’ shortest hit of the game that produced the biggest result.
He topped a slow roller between the mound and first base, first baseman Carlos Delgado fielded it but threw wildly to Escobar covering first. Cameron scored easily on the infield hit and Davis sprinted home on the throwing error.
That made it 7-6 and Mariners manager Lou Piniella sent his designated run-scorer, Luis Ugueto, to first as a pinch-runner for Relaford.
Ugueto stole second and, with Ichiro Suzuki battling Escobar with two strikes, scored when Suzuki lined a single into left field.
That run tied the score 7-7 and only a wild sequence from reliever Dan Plesac kept it that way.
Plesac walked Mark McLemore and, with Ruben Sierra batting, McLemore and Suzuki pulled off a double steal that put runners on second and third.
Sierra, already with a home run and a double, got a two-ball count and ripped a sharp grounder to shortstop Felipe Lopez for the inning-ending out to send the game into extra innings for the second straight night.
The late-inning dramatics overshadowed early heroics for the Mariners on a night when their thin roster became apparent.
Jamie Moyer pitched seven effective innings but walked the leadoff hitter in the eighth and needed relief help.
Surprisingly, he didn’t get it from Arthur Rhodes, who struck out the first hitter he faced but gave up three straight hits – including a two-run double by Delgado, who had hit two solo homers off Jamie Moyer earlier in the game – and served up a bases-loaded walk.
Shigetoshi Hasegawa stopped the bleeding with two fly balls, but one of them – a drive to deep center field by Brian Lesher – scored the Blue Jays’ seventh run on a sacrifice fly.
Piniella turned to Kaye, who made his major league debut in the ninth.
Kaye retired the Jays in order to allow the Mariners to pull off another miracle rally in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.
Jays rookie reliever Thurman struck out Bret Boone to start the bottom of the 10th but loaded the bases with three walks and escaped after Jeff Cirillo hit a fly to end the inning.
Thurman didn’t escape the 11th.
He got Suzuki on a fly to center but McLemore popped a bunt in the best place possible. It sailed over Thurman’s head and died on the infield grass for a single.
Sierra grounded softly to second, allowing McLemore to reach second. Thurman intentionally walked Boone to pitch to Charles Gipson. He walked Gipson on six pitches to get to the guy he didn’t want to face: Cameron.
Thurman fell behind 3-1, got Cameron to swing through a fastball for a full count, then threw a breaking pitch in the dirt. Cameron barely checked his swing to draw the walk and force home McLemore with the winning run.
Until the Marines rallied, Delgado was the difference.
His two solo home runs – including a 436-foot blast into the second deck in right field in the sixth inning – were the only good swings the Jays got off Moyer in a four-inning span of dominance midway through the game.
Moyer had the Blue Jays so befuddled that Lesher broke his bat over his knee after striking out in the seventh for the third time.
When Moyer walked leadoff hitter Joe Lawrence to start the eighth, he was finished. Soon after, the Mariners looked like they were done, too.
The M’s had taken a 4-3 lead in the seventh when John Olerud drove in Sierra with a double to center field.
After Moyer started the eighth with a walk, Piniella brought in Rhodes, who has been Mr. Automatic the past week.
He struck out Lopez, his ninth strikeout in a span of 10 batters he’d faced in his last three appearances, for the first out in the eighth. Then something unexpected happened. Rhodes gave up two hits and loaded the bases.
Vernon Wells ripped a single up the middle, Jose Cruz Jr. pulled a hit to right field and Delgado stepped to the plate again with an opportunity for four more RBI.
He got two.
Rhodes got ahead in the count on Delgado, who got just enough of a two-strike pitch to loop it down the left-field line. It hit flush on the line and bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double and a 5-4 Toronto lead.
With first base open, Rhodes walked Raul Mondesi intentionally, but also walked Eric Hinske unintentionally. That one forced home Cruz for a 6-4 Jays lead.
Piniella brought in right-hander Hasegawa, who got two fly balls to end the inning, but not before Lesher’s drive to deep center field brought home Delgado for a sacrifice fly.
It put the Mariners in a desperate situation.
But this is a team that has thrived in desperation, and the Jays became the latest victims to learn that lesson.
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