Sexson’s blast leads M’s over Bosox

SEATTLE – Go ahead and rip on Richie Sexson for his strikeouts, his .200-something batting average and his place on a Seattle Mariners team that needs hitters to extend rallies and not kill them.

Sexson is what he is, and that’s a power hitter who occasionally will plant baseballs into the seats and, the Mariners hope, have some of them win games.

He did it Tuesday night, hitting a two-run homer in the sixth inning to break a tie score and give the Mariners an 8-7 victory over the Boston Red Sox at Safeco Field.

Sexson, while hitting .213 with 56 strikeouts, has 15 home runs and 46 runs batted in.

“I’ve said it ‘til I’m blue in the face and tired of saying it, but with big power hitters, especially streak hitters, you have to wade through the bad to get to the good,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “And with Richie, when it’s good, it’s awfully good.”

The victory, while not particularly stylish from a pitching and defense standpoint, was the Mariners’ fourth straight and helped them gain a game in the American League West standings for the second straight night.

Thanks to old friend Gil Meche, who pitched the Royals to victory over the first-place Angels, the Mariners are six games out of first place. And, in beating the Red Sox in the first two games of the series, the M’s have won six of their past eight series.

It took a big bop from Sexson to do that, and then some spectacular relief pitching.

Batting in the sixth inning with a runner on base after the Red Sox had come back twice to tie the score 6-6, Sexson drove a pitch from Red Sox reliever Javier Lopez the opposite way, barely clearing the right-field wall.

Then the game came down to the strength of the Mariners’ bullpen – left-handed setup specialist George Sherrill and closer J.J. Putz in another extended save situation – in the eighth and ninth innings.

Brandon Morrow put on two runners in the eighth, Coco Crisp with a walk and Dustin Pedroia on a bloop single to right, with nobody out before Hargrove brought in Sherrill. His task: Get David Ortiz out.

Sherrill did it with a flourish, striking out Ortiz to leave the runners at first and third.

Hargrove then turned to Putz, needing him to get the next five outs.

Putz got Kevin Youkilis on a sacrifice fly to center field that scored Crisp to make the score 8-7, then J.D. Drew on a bouncer to first to finish the Red Sox in the eighth.

Then, with the crowd of 35,045 into full song with their chants for both the Red Sox and Mariners, Putz blew away the Sox in the ninth. He struck out Mike Lowell on a chest-high 95 mph fastball, Jason Varitek on a 96 mph pitch as he couldn’t keep from checking his swing, and then pinch-hitter Manny Ramirez on another high fastball that he swung and missed.

Putz remained perfect in 22 save opportunities in what many believe will be an All-Star year for him.

“If you can get the right matchups, you have the ability to do that,” Hargrove said. “Sherrill has been very good against left-handers this year. And J.J. has been awfully good this year.”

Mariners starter Felix Hernandez wasn’t nearly as sharp as he was in his 3-0 victory over the Pirates last week, and it was apparent in the first inning. The first four hitters reached base, including Kevin Youkilis on an RBI single, before Hernandez pulled a great escape by striking out J.D. Drew and getting Mike Lowell to ground into a double play.

Hernandez pitched only one 1-2-3 inning, but he also never trailed after the top of the first.

Part of the was because of Red Sox starter Kason Gabbard’s wildness, when he walked five and hit a batter during the Mariners’ three-run first inning. Willie Bloomquist led off the second inning with a home run and the Mariners again had Gabbard in a bind when Ichiro Suzuki and Jose Lopez followed with back-to-back singles.

A double play helped Gabbard escape again. Jose Vidro grounded into it, the 13th time this season he’s hit into a double play, and Gabbard struck out Sexson – who whiffed three times in the game – to stop another Mariners threat.

Still, the Mariners had given Hernandez a 4-1 lead and he seemed to have straightened himself with a perfect second inning. That was his last easy one.

Sexson’s error on a grounder by Coco Crisp helped the Red Sox get one run back in the third on another RBI single by Youkilis, and it took a double-play grounder and a key strikeout of Crisp for Hernandez to wiggle out of fourth after he’d allowed a leadoff single to Jason Varitek and a walk to Eric Hinske.

Hernandez didn’t escape the fifth when he gave up three hits, including Lowell’s two-run triple to left-center field to tie the score 4-4.

Then the teams played tennis with the lead.

The Mariners got both of those runs back, roughing up Red Sox reliever Manny Delcarmen with Bloomquist’s RBI single and Suzuki’s sacrifice fly to take a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the fifth.

The Red Sox tied it again in the sixth when Hinske drove a pitch off the face of the second deck in right field for a 392-foot leadoff home run and Ortiz singled to left off reliever Eric O’Flaherty to score Alex Cora for a 6-6 score.

The Mariners returned the jolt in the bottom of the sixth against Red Sox left-hander Javier Lopez. Vidro singled with one out and Sexson, who’d walked and struck out twice, hit his winning homer