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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

M’S Don’t Blow It This Time Seattle Recovers To Defeat A’S After Squandering Another Lead

Larry Larue Tacoma News Tribune

The question of how many runs the Seattle Mariners need to put away the Oakland Athletics was answered Saturday - 15 worked fine.

But not by as much as you might think. Along the way to their 45th victory of the season, the Mariners were reminded yet again that few leads are safe here and none are enough until somebody gets the final out.

Jeff Nelson did that Saturday - after yielding a two-out home run that made the final score 15-9.

And when the final out was recorded, on a line drive to left field, Seattle had one win and one loss for the day.

Randy Johnson won’t make his 21st start of the season today and will have an ailing left shoulder examined by team physicians on Monday in Seattle. All in all, that news seemed a lot more daunting than Salomon Torres coughing up another early lead.

A day after the Mariners had blown 5-1 and 7-5 leads against the A’s to lose, 9-8, Seattle jumped Ron Darling early and handed Torres a 4-0 lead - three of those runs coming on Tino Martinez’s 25th home run of the year.

A man with the habit of producing one bad inning each start, Torres got into the fifth inning with a two-hit, no-walk shutout. He didn’t get out of the fifth at all.

What the right-hander did was walk four bats and hit a fifth, give up four runs on just two hits and depart with the game tied a 4.

“That’s why half the guys on this team have ulcers, it’s why I shave my head, so my hair won’t fall out,” Jay Buhner said. “In this park, against that team, we know you have to keep scoring. We were kidding in the dugout today, saying, ‘Another couple of grand slams ought to do it.”’

Instead, Seattle threw a seven-run sixth inning at the Oakland bullpen, scoring two runs on bases-loaded walks and three on Mike Blowers’ bases-loaded double.

“We’ve stuck around .500 for a couple of months without (Ken Griffey) Junior because we’re a scrappy team,” said Blowers, who ran his career-best RBI total to 62. “Our bullpen has been tough all year and right now it’s going through a tough stretch. Oakland has always played us tough, but this is a fun club to be part of. It never gives up.”

Neither do the A’s.

On top, 11-4, the Mariners handed the game to reliever Bob Wells - who began handing runs back to Oakland. After a solid 1 scoreless innings of relief, Wells gave a walk and three consecutive hits in the seventh inning. Before Norm Charlton could get out of the jam, Oakland was back in the game, 11-8.

“They don’t go away and we didn’t put them away,” said a croaking Lou Piniella, fighting a case of laryngitis.

Oakland then self-destructed in an eighth inning in which the A’s bullpen and defense collapsed at once - and the Mariners rallied on one hit, two errors, a walk and hit batter to score four times.

Wells, whose earned run average climbed by half a run, from 5.49 to 5.97, was credited with the win.

Notes

Oakland’s Mark McGwire will have a battery of tests Monday to determine the cause of back spasms that forced him out of the game Friday. McGwire won’t play before then and could return to the disabled list.

Oakland is pitching around Edgar Martinez, who has walked three times in each of the first two games of this series. In 92 games, Martinez has walked 77 times and is on a pace to break the single-season franchise record of Alvin Davis (101).

The 25 home runs by Tino Martinez would have led the Mariners in eight different seasons and are four short of Davis’ team record for a first baseman.

In his 69th game, catcher Dan Wilson drove in his 25th and 26th RBI, one short of the career high he had last year in 91 games.