Puckett Blasts Past M’S Seattle Blows Four-Run Lead To Spoil Griffey’s Return

Jay Buhner launched a pair of home runs Tuesday night, and after the Seattle Mariners blew a four-run lead in the ninth inning to let a victory slip away, he launched again.

It was a brutal inning for a team playing for a wild-card berth - an error at first base, a misplayed pop fly that fell for a single, a game-winning home run by Kirby Puckett.

In the end, Puckett’s blast off Bobby Ayala with two outs in the ninth inning gave Minnesota a 7-6 win and spoiled the return of Ken Griffey Jr.

“A terrible display of baseball,” manager Lou Piniella said. “That was a disheartening loss.”

“You can’t give a major league team five outs in the ninth inning and win,” Chris Bosio said.

And then there was Buhner, the veteran right fielder whose two home runs and four RBIs helped stake his team to a 6-2 lead going into the ninth inning. He watched Mike Blowers and Ayala foul up a simple play at first base - Blowers getting charged with an error.

One out later, he watched as shortstop Luis Sojo called for a pop fly in shallow left field, then scrambled out from under the ball when he heard oncoming Alex Diaz.

“I should have caught that bleeping ball,” Sojo said.

It dropped for a single.

Ayala struck out pinch-hitter Matt Merullo, gave up an RBI single to Chuck Knoblauch, then another RBI single to Rich Becker - bringing up Puckett.

On a 2-2 pitch, Puckett went deep, hitting a three-run home run that sent the Mariners off the field losers for just the third time this season in a game they’d led after eight innings.

Buhner couldn’t stand it.

“Even after all the screwups, we still had a two-run lead with two outs,” Buhner said. “You can’t let Kirby beat you there. He’s an aggressive hitter at the plate - look at the way Bosio pitched him all night. Don’t throw him a strike there.

“If you walk him, so what? But throw him a slider in the dirt, something just out of the zone with two strikes. Maybe that’s what Bobby was trying to do, I’m not pointing the finger at him.

“But if we want to get to the next level as a team, we can’t lose this game. You can say ‘what if, what if, what if’ all night, but the bottom line is you can’t let Puckett beat you because they don’t have anybody else who can.”

Griffey wasn’t talking afterward, but in his first game since May 26, he showed flashes of the Junior the Mariners remember.

In the second inning, he flagged down a two-out, two-on fly ball up the alley in left-center field, leaving his feet at the last moment to backhand the ball. In the fourth, he threw out Pat Meares at second base on a Griffey-to-Sojo-to-Joey Cora relay.

At the plate, he walked on four pitches in his first at-bat, singled and scored, flied out once with the bases loaded and finished the night 1 for 4 with two strikeouts.

“Junior was fine,” Piniella said. “He played well, he took some good cuts. Buhner had a big night, Bosio did his job - seven innings, two runs - and Bill Risley worked a 1-2-3 eighth inning.

“Ayala hadn’t worked in a couple of days, he needed an inning and he’s our closer,” Piniella said. “With a four-run lead, you figure that’s all he’s going to do, get an inning of work.

Notes

Alex Rodriguez was optioned to Tacoma to make room on the 25-man roster for Griffey. It was the third time this season Rodriguez had been sent back to the Rainiers.

“I’m not mad, I’m not frustrated. I’m just worried that if I have three or four bad games in a row next year I’ll be gone again,” Rodriquez said.