SAN DIEGO — The end of interleague portion of the baseball couldn’t come soon enough for the Seattle Mariners. After years of getting healthy against National League opponents, particularly their natural rivals the San Diego Padres, the Mariners did what most American League teams do not during this period of the season — struggled.
With Sunday’s unremarkable 2-0 loss to the San Diego Padres, the 2012 Mariners finished with an 8-10 record against National League opponents. It’s a dubious mark considering that the franchise had posted .500 records or better during interleague play for the last 12 seasons. Only the New York Yankees, who currently are at 15 straight seasons, had a longer streak.
Even worse, Sunday’s loss meant the Mariners (31-43) went 1-5 against the Padres, who even with the win have the second worst record in all of baseball at 25-47.
As bad as the Mariners have been at Safeco Field — which is somewhere between anemic and awful — they are ready to come home and back to games with a designated hitter.
“I’m looking forward to getting back home and getting another bat in the lineup,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. “I’m just looking forward to getting home and playing some good baseball.”
It wasn’t as if the Mariners played completely awful while going 2-4 on the six-game road trip, featuring stops in Arizona and San Diego.
With the exception of what Padres starter Edinson Volquez and the San Diego bullpen did to them on Sunday, the Mariners hit the ball plenty on the trip. They batted .276, scoring 33 runs with 18 extra base hits.
However, starting pitching failed them for much of the trip.
It was the reverse on Sunday.
Hector Noesi, who’s been the definition of inconsistent this season, gave the Mariners a solid effort. The young right-hander pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on seven hits, while striking out six and walking three. Beyond the numbers, Noesi showed better focus on the mound, not giving up hits in 0-2 and 1-2 counts.
“I thought Hector threw the ball better today,” Wedge said. “He was much more consistent with everything. He repeated his delivery, he was down, did a better job with two strikes, mixed all his pitches. They made him work a little bit, too. I was really pleased with the way he pitched today.”
Noesi’s only runs allowed came in the fourth inning when he loaded the bases with no outs. After working himself in serious trouble, Noesi escaped serious injury by gloving Cameron Maybin’s laser of line drive back at the mound just inches from his face.
“It was quick, man,” Noesi said. “When you are out there pitching you don’t know what’s going to happen. It can be scary.”
But on his next pitch — the first to diminutive second baseman Alexi Amarista — it got ugly.
Listed at 5 foot 7 inches, but closer to 5-4, the left-handed hitting Amarista swung at a fastball and drove it deep to left.
Mariners’ left fielder Casper Wells, who was playing Amarista shallow, simply couldn’t get back in time. The ball bounced off the warning track over the wall for a ground-rule double to score two runs.
“He doesn’t do that, but he got a good piece of it,” Wells said. “So I just had to turn and run. I was playing pretty shallow on him. I played it like it was going to slice, but it stayed pretty true and I wasn’t able to catch up to it.”
It’s the idea of positioning. The odds of Amarista replicating the same result were slim.
“Bases loaded with a guy like that, you’ve got to take your chance,” Wells said. “If he gets a good piece like that, that’s what you’re forced to deal with. You can’t have one fall in and have two runs score there. Unfortunately, that’s the way it fell.”
Noesi did manage to keep the damage at two runs, striking out Volquez and getting Will Venable to ground out to end the inning.
Unfortunately, his teammates weren’t providing much offense behind him. They managed just five hits total and Noesi — of all people — had two of them.
“To get shutout — I don’t know how many hard-hit balls we had, but it was quite a few,” Wedge said. “Especially early on, really, up and down the lineup. I felt like we had some real good ABs, and we made Volquez work.
Four Padres pitchers combined on the shutout, but Volquez’s work was the best. He threw 62⁄3 innings, allowing just four hits, striking out four, walking three, and never allowing Mariners’ hitters to get comfortable.
“That’s what he does,” said Justin Smoak. “Guy throws 95 miles per hour and he doesn’t really throw it. He throws change-up and curveball, in and out and keeps you off balance.”
The Mariners will now open a 10-game homestand today, starting with the Oakland A’s. Despite having just a 12-19 record at Safeco Field and the worst homefield hitting numbers in baseball — a .202 batting average, .283 on-base percentage and a .304 slugging percentage — the players are ready to be back in Seattle, and hopefully turn things around.
“Just to get back home will be good,” Smoak said. “We’ll be at home for a while. Hopefully we can turn it around at home.”
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