Silva, Lopez power Mariners past Texas

SEATTLE — Hit strikes. Throw strikes.

Among manager John McLaren’s oft-uttered isms last month at spring training, the Seattle Mariners heard that one from him plenty. It seems so simple, but the free-swinging, high-pitch-count Mariners had made it look so hard in recent seasons.

Wednesday night they hit strikes, threw strikes and beat the Texas Rangers 4-1 at Safeco Field.

Jose Lopez, still in the experimental stage as the Mariners’ No. 2 hitter, worked his way out of a two-strike hole and hit a three-run homer on a full count.

Carlos Silva pulled off the most impressive outing by a Mariners starter so far, scattering three hits through seven innings and giving up only Ben Broussard’s home run in the sixth.

And when the Mariners needed a closer on the day J.J. Putz went on the disabled list, they yanked one of their starters out of the rotation. Miguel Batista, who’ll start Saturday in Baltimore, got three outs in the ninth for his first save since Sept. 27, 2005, when the Blue Jays beat the Red Sox in Boston.

The Mariners won their opening series with two victories over the Rangers, and now hit the road for four games in Baltimore beginning Friday, then three at Tampa Bay before they return home again.

So far, the Mariners’ starters have been close to advertised, even with Erik Bedard’s five-innings of labor in the opener Monday. The starters have allowed two earned runs in 21 innings.

“This is what everybody was expecting from the start,” said Silva, new to the rotation after signing a four-year, $48 million free agent deal in December.

He admitted being nervous before his first outing as a Mariner.

“A lot of things were going through my mind,” he said. “I want to do so good. I tried to relax and be myself and pitch my game.”

With the exception of a high fastball that Ian Kinsler smoked for a double to start the game, Silva did just as he wanted. He kept the fastball-happy Rangers off-kilter with his sinker, cutter and changeup.

“These are good fastball hitters and when I was throwing the fastball, they jumped for that pitch,” he said. “I used my cutter and changeup a lot.”

Jose Vidro gave Silva a 1-0 lead with a second-inning homer to right field in the second inning.

In the fifth, when the Mariners seemed to be going down meekly against Rangers right-hander Jason Jennings, Yuniesky Betancourt started a two-out rally that Lopez finished.

Betancourt hit a flare single to center and Ichiro Suzuki followed with a single to left.

Jennings quickly got two strikes on Lopez, whose mission — along with everyone else’s on this team, this year — is to stop swinging at bad pitches. Lopez did that, holding himself back when Jennings threw three straight balls.

“With 3-2, two outs and with Raul Ibanez hitting behind me, I knew he had to throw a strike,” Lopez said. “He doesn’t want to walk me and load the bases with Raul coming up.”

Jennings threw a fastball just above the belt, and Lopez drove it over the left-field fence for a three-run homer and a 4-1 Mariners lead.

Silva took the game to the eighth, where right-hander Sean Green retired the Rangers in order. Green started the ninth but walked the first hitter, Josh Hamilton.

That’s when McLaren, fond of saying he has five No. 1 starters, dragged out one of his numerous closers now that Putz is down.

Batista, whose last relief appearance was last June 10 at San Diego, became a closer again, just like he was in 2005 when he saved 31 games for the Blue Jays.

This was a one-time-only occurrence, however, and he pulled it off. Hank Blalock hit a fly to left, Milton Bradley a fly to center and Frank Catalanotto a grounder to first, ending the game.

Afterward, Batista admitted that maybe it was in the stars that he close this game.

He’d eaten Chinese food earlier in the day when he opened a fortune cookie. The message inside read: “Someone will need your help this month.”

Batista showed it to pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre just before the two of them were called into McLaren’s office Wednesday afternoon.

McLaren was about to tell Batista that he needed to be ready to close. Stottlemyre took the fortune from Batista.

“Before you say anything,” he told McLaren, “look at this.”

In the ninth inning, Batista’s fortune came true for the Mariners.

Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com

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