SEATTLE – Imaginations ran wild at Safeco Field over the weekend and, yes, Ken Griffey Jr. kept feeding them Sunday.
Another full house got a dose of what they had before Griffey was traded in 2000, but also what they’ve got with this 2007 team.
Pitching, defense and a run manufactured with a suicide squeeze bunt led the Mariners to a 3-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds, clinching another series victory for an M’s team that has won five of its past seven series.
For those fantasizing about what Griffey can do in this ballpark, he treated them with two home runs, a sliding catch in right field and then the possibility that there could be more days like that for him here.
Griffey said he’d like to be a Mariner again.
“This is the place I grew up, and I think I owe it to myself and the people of Seattle to retire as a Mariner,” he said in a TV interview recorded before the game.
After the game, he elaborated.
“As an athlete, you always want to retire with the team you started with,” Griffey said. “You look at Emmitt Smith everybody else who moves on. They want to come back and retire with the same organization. I’m no different than anybody else, but I’ve got a few more years left. It won’t be anytime soon.”
Or could it be?
While there’s no indication the Mariners are working on a trade for Griffey, he will be a free agent after this season and his name already is prominent in pre-trade deadline talk.
There are rumors he’d enjoy being reunited with former M’s manager Lou Piniella with the Cubs, although the Mariners fans’ reaction the past three days gave Griffey a new feel for how he’s appreciated here.
“I always thought I’d be back, I just didn’t know when,” said Griffey, who will make $12.5 million this year and next. “I’m just glad the people of Seattle welcomed me like this. It was everything I thought it would be, and even more.”
As appropriate as Griffey’s two home runs seemed, so was the final out of the eighth inning – a fly that he caught in right field – before he left the field for the last time.
After he caught the ball, he turned and waved to the fans in the outfield seats who’d cheered him every time he ran to his position in the three games. As Griffey trotted toward the dugout, he acknowledged the crowd of 46,064 with a wave of his left hand before he removed his cap and held it aloft.
“It was my way of saying thank you for coming out and supporting me,” Griffey said. “I wish it could be like that all the time.”
Griffey was responsible – both offensively and defensively – for a 2-0 Reds lead through five innings. He hit an opposite-field home run in the first inning that grazed both left fielder Willie Bloomquist’s glove and the top of the outfield wall, then pounded a 428-foot homer to right field in the fifth.
Those home runs were the 583rd and 584th of Griffey’s career and moved him past Mark McGwire into seventh place on baseball’s all-time homer list.
In the second inning, Adrian Beltre hit a flare to right field that Griffey got with a sliding, tumbling catch before he got up and easily doubled Ben Broussard off first base.
Broussard led the Mariners’ comeback.
His two-run double in the sixth tied the score 2-2, and he followed it with a diving catch of Brandon Phillips’ drive to the right-center field gap in the top of the seventh.
The Mariners pushed ahead in the bottom of the seventh.
Yuniesky Betancourt led off with a double to left and beat pitcher Bronson Arroyo’s throw to third after Jamie Burke dropped a sacrifice bunt.
With runners on first and third with nobody out and Bloomquist batting, the Mariners had plenty of options with how to get the go-ahead run home. This time, he got the sign to lay down a squeeze bunt and executed it perfectly.
Betancourt broke from third, Bloomquist squared and Arroyo gave him a pitch he could get down, not only getting the run home for a 3-2 lead, but also beating Arroyo’s throw to first.
Reliever George Sherrill got the first two outs in the eight before manager Mike Hargrove turned to well-rested closer J.J. Putz. He overpowered the Reds to get the final four outs and record his 21st save in 21 opportunities this season.
It ended a surreal weekend for everyone involved in the Griffey homecoming series.
“This whole weekend was a circus,” Putz said. “I wasn’t around when Junior was and I never realized how much he meant to the team and the fans until this weekend.”
In the other clubhouse, Griffey was feeling much the same way.
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