By Larry LaRue
The News Tribune
ANAHEIM, Calif. – In a week, the competition will change and the four best teams in the American League will finally get to play games that matter.
In the meantime, the Seattle Mariners will play what amounts to cannon fodder – on Wednesday, it was the Anaheim Angels – and if they can overcome a little boredom and a few injuries, they figure to pile up a few more records.
Spotting the Angels a 3-0 lead Wednesday, Seattle rode the work of the usual suspects to pull out a 4-3 victory that gave them 113 for the season.
Yawn.
Well, yawn until the bottom of the ninth inning, anyway, when the Angels had the tying run thrown out at the plate and then had two men on base and Darin Erstadt at the plate.
Yawn, until Erstadt hit a bolt headed toward the right field corner – and Ichiro Suzuki somehow beat the ball to the wall to make a fabulous, game-ending catch.
When they need it, the Mariners seemed to be saying, they’ve still got it.
Seattle is home now for four final games against the Texas Rangers, so concerned about what remains of the regular season that tonight they will start Brett Tomko and on Saturday hand the ball to rookie Dennis Stark.
In a one-run victory over the Angels, the Mariners seemed as sharp as they needed to be and not a bit more. With a third of their starting lineup missing – Edgar Martinez, Carlos Guillen and David Bell – the Mariners banged out 13 hits but turned them into only four runs.
This one had all the feel of one of those late spring training games, with the same general rule applying: Stay sharp, don’t get hurt.
Freddy Garcia stayed sharp with six solid innings. Suzuki, back in the lineup after a night off, looked like the same old Suzuki – four hits, his 54th stolen base, a run scored.
Bret Boone had a pair of hits, two walks and his 137th RBI.
And Stan Javier, irritated at himself because of fourth-inning error, hit his fourth home run of the season, a two-run bolt over the center field wall that tied the game in the fifth.
And late in the game, a bit after Boone’s eighth-inning RBI broke the tie, someone woke up the Mariners short men in the bullpen.
Rising and shining, Norm Charlton and Jeff Nelson blew through Anaheim hitters in the seventh and eighth innings. Then the call went out for closer Kazuhiro Sasaki.
Sasaki hadn’t pitched since earning his 43rd save last Friday, a span of five days. On the mound, every one of those days off seemed to show, and he gave up a leadoff double to Orlando Palmeiro, putting the tying run on second base.
OK, so the yawning stopped there. And no one in the Mariners dugout was yawning after Adam Kennedy legged out an infield roller to put two Angels on with no one out.
Sasaki turned a bunt into an out at third base, but when Charles Gipson tried to make it a double play, his throw to first was wild – and Palmeiro and Kennedy moved up to second and third with one out.
Manager Lou Piniella brought his infield in tight. Sasaki pitched for ground balls and got one when Jeff DaVanon hit a shot toward right field. First baseman John Olerud snared it, fired home and Tom Lampkin tagged out Palmeiro.
Two outs.
Up came Erstadt, who drilled a 2-2 pitch for what looked like a game-winning double. Suzuki turned it into a game-ending out, and the Mariners went back to looking like a team headed for the American League Division Series.
Garcia, who had to win both his last two starts to win 20 games this season, didn’t win either, but could have won this one easily.
A solid six innings – six hits, three runs, seven strikeouts – was his final tuneup before the post-season, but even that line was deceptive. In the first inning, he was tagged for two runs, but a double play ground ball ate up rookie shortstop Ramon Vazquez, who couldn’t an out on the play.
The Angels made Seattle pay for that mistake, and took a 2-0 lead.
That grew to 3-0 after infielder David Eckstein walked in the third inning, stole second and then third base, scoring on a Troy Glaus double.
Garcia seemed irritated by all of that. In the fourth inning – after Javier dropped a leadoff fly ball for a two-base error – Garcia struck out the Angels, getting DaVanon, Erstadt and Eckstein.
He finished up working 1-2-3 innings in the fifth and sixth, setting down the last nine men he faced.
No, he didn’t win his 19th.
Yes, he seems ready for a playoff start on Tuesday. And so do the Mariners. Now, they just have to play these next four games …
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