Staying alive: Washburn pitches M’s over Angels

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Sometime soon, Jarrod Washburn will be pulling for his former Angels teammates.

He definitely wasn’t Friday night.

Washburn pitched seven shutout innings and the Seattle Mariners beat Los Angeles 6-0 to deny the Angels the AL West crown for at least another day.

“I think they’re the best team in the league, but I definitely wanted to knock them off and save their celebration at least one more day,” Washburn said. “I didn’t approach it any differently than any other start.

“But I knew that if they won tonight, they’d get to celebrate — and I didn’t want that to happen. I’m going to be rooting for them and pulling for them.”

The 33-year-old Washburn spent his entire career in the Angels organization before they let him go after the 2005 season, and he signed a free agent contract with Seattle. Once a mainstay of the Angels’ rotation, he had helped them earn postseason berths in 2002, 2004 and 2005, and got a ring when they won the World Series title in 2002.

Washburn (10-15) scattered five hits, walked one and struck out four in running his record against his former teammates to 4-2.

Brandon Marrow pitched two perfect innings to complete the shutout.

Los Angeles manager Mike Scioscia said Washburn didn’t give the Angels much chance.

“We didn’t get too many good looks, not too many balls were hit hard,” Scioscia said. “He turns that fastball into two or three different looks, he elevated in the zone and got a lot of fly balls and changed speeds — and pitched a good ballgame.”

Adrian Beltre had three hits and drove in two runs, Jose Vidro had a two-run single, and Jose Guillen hit a solo homer.

The Angels, who clinched at least a tie for the division crown by winning the opener of the four-game series against the second-place Mariners, get two more chances to wrap it up against them, on Saturday and Sunday.

Guillen, another former Angel, said he didn’t particularly enjoy delaying their celebration.

“It’s going to happen sooner or later. And when it happens, you’ve got to tip your hat to them. They’re a good team, they know how to play the game and their pitching staff is pretty tough,” he said.

Guillen, whose run-in with Scioscia in 2004 led to his being suspended by the team and eventually traded to Washington, even had a kind word for his former skipper.

“I hate to say this, but they have pretty good manager, too, that knows how to win games,” he said.

Seattle bench coach Mike Goff filled in for manager John McLaren, who was serving a one-game suspension handed down by Major League Baseball earlier in the day.

Washburn became the latest left-hander to stymie the Angels, who are 18-20 this year in games started by lefties.

The win was just the second in Washburn’s last 10 decisions, and he had lost his last five starts.

“We know he’s been struggling, but he was in synch tonight,” Scioscia said.

Los Angeles’ Joe Saunders (8-4) gave up five runs and nine hits in 5 2-3 innings. He walked one and struck out three.

Injury-plagued Bartolo Colon, the Angels’ 2005 Cy Young winner, will start Saturday against Miguel Batista. Kelvim Escobar originally was scheduled to take the mound for Los Angeles, but will miss the start because of inflammation in his right shoulder.

“We didn’t get it done today,” Scioscia said. “We didn’t play well. Everybody knows what we need to do, we need to win a ball game. So that’s what we’ll do. We’ll look at tomorrow’s game, start from scratch, build some momentum.”

Seattle reliever Jorge Campillo began serving a four-game suspension for throwing at Vladimir Guerrero twice and being ejected in the Angels’ 9-5 victory over the Mariners a night earlier.

McLaren also was ejected and given the one-game suspension because both benches had been previously warned after Angels pitcher Jered Weaver plunked Kenji Johjima in the fourth inning.

Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki went 0-for-5 to end his 13-game hitting streak and fall out of a tie for the AL batting lead. Detroit’s Maglio Ordonez is hitting .354 to lead the majors and Suzuki slipped to .350.