ARLINGTON, Tex. – It no longer matters whether the Seattle Mariners pitch to Rafael Palmeiro or not – he beats them either way.
A two-out intentional walk to Palmeiro, who’d homered earlier Monday, set up the game-winning rally as the Texas Rangers came from behind to beat Seattle, 6-4.
The walk was hard to second-guess – Palmeiro has eight home runs against Seattle pitching this season, and a career-best 48 against the Mariners lifetime.
“We’d seen enough of him,” manager Bob Melvin said. “It backfired.”
Not as strategy, perhaps, but certainly in the practical sense.
Joel Pineiro began the inning with a 4-2 lead. He gave up a leadoff single to Michael Young and then got the next two batters out to bring up Palmeiro. Two innings earlier, Palmeiro had hit his 35th home run of the season.
“I’d just as soon pitch to Rafael, I’d love to make him beat me,” Pineiro said. “But the skip said walk him and get the next guy.”
The problem was the next guy. And the guy after that.
After Palmeiro walked, Pineiro faced rookie outfielder Laynce Nix, batting .242 at the time. Nix singled into right field to score a run.
That brought up Mark Teixeira – a .252 hitter at the time.
“I know he’s an aggressive hitter, so I wanted something off-speed, I wanted something he’d roll over and ground out with,” Pineiro said. “I threw him a first pitch slider, down and away. Maybe he was looking for it.”
Whatever, Teixeira got it – hitting a 411-foot home run to straightaway center field, turning the Mariners 4-3 lead into a 6-4 deficit.
Center fielder Mike Cameron shook his head.
“Things just ain’t working,” he said quietly.
That about sums it up.
Texas came in with a five-game losing streak, having lost nine of its previous 10 games. In it’s last 11 games, the Rangers now own two wins – both against Seattle.
The Rangers have nothing to play for, having been assured another fourth-place finish in the four-team American League West. The Mariners remain in a race for the postseason …
At least technically.
Now 4 1/2 games behind Oakland in the AL West and 1 1/2 back of Boston in the wild-card race, the Mariners have lost five of their past six games and are just 6-6 in September.
“It’s not over,” Melvin said. “We’ve got 12 games left.”
Six of those with Oakland – if it matters. With three games left with the Rangers before a weekend series with the Athletics, Seattle can no longer afford to lose games.
To anyone.
“Yeah, we know Seattle is trying to make the playoffs,” Teixeira said. “We’re trying to win games just like they are.”
“Nobody is going to lay down for us,” Cameron said. “You know Texas can score runs, you have to score more. We got ahead, but we couldn’t add to that.”
Not even Seattle’s rallies went smoothly. The Mariners scored three times to take the lead in the fourth inning and had runners at first and second base with no one out.
Cameron struck out and Randy Winn grounded a ball to second baseman Young. Young tried to tag Olerud and throw to first for the double play – and did so.
Except Young tagged Olerud with his glove while the baseball was in his bare hand, and his throw to first was too late to get Winn. Everybody safe?
No.
Umpire Jerry Lane ruled Olerud out for leaving the field of play – although he first signaled to the Mariners’ dugout that Olerud had run out of the baseline.
Olerud could do nothing more than shrug.
“I knew I’d been tagged, and I couldn’t see where the ball was,” he said.
Weird, yes, but not the definitive inning of the night. That was the Texas sixth – and Pineiro knew it.
“That inning killed us. I didn’t choke, but maybe I didn’t bear down enough,” he said. “My focus was fine. I threw the pitches I wanted and they made good contact with them.”
And now the calendar is working against the Mariners.
“We lost it, we’ve got to put it away and play better (today),” Cameron said. “You can’t get ‘em back, no matter how bad you want to.”
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