Griffey’s Homer Lifts M’S
The Seattle Mariners had a 30-minute team meeting Thursday - players only - in which they dissected their recent slump and talked about the challenge of the last 35 games of the season.
Ken Griffey Jr. got there late.
“I caught the tail end of it,” Griffey said.
Two hours and 59 minutes into a game they’d all but let slip away, Junior showed up again, in time to catch the tail end of a John Wetteland fastball and turn it into a home run and a 9-7 victory over New York that was Seattle’s most dramatic of the year.
“That,” manager Lou Piniella said, “is the way to end a game.”
Though the Mariners had pecked away at David Cone all night - starting with Jay Buhner’s first-inning grand slam home run - they entered the ninth inning trailing the Yankees, 7-6.
There they met closer Wetteland, and two outs later there was no one on base. Then Vince Coleman drew a walk, and after watching Wetteland deliver one pitch to the plate, he grinned.
“When I saw his leg kick, I said, ‘I’m stealing second and third on consecutive pitches,”’ Coleman said.
Which Coleman did, awakening a crowd of 17,592 and putting the tying run at third base with Joey Cora at the plate. Cora lined a ball toward left field that shortstop Tony Fernandez leaped for, only to have it clang off his glove.
Base hit. Tie game.
“I don’t know if Tony mis-timed it, misjudged it or misplayed it,” Coleman said. “I just know it fell into left field.”
Up came Griffey, 10 games off the disabled list and 0-for-4 to that point Thursday.
“The guys ahead of me did the work,” Griffey said. “My job there is to hit the ball in the hole, get Joey to third base, keep it going.”
Instead, Griffey ended it - slamming his 10th home run of the season, his third of the week - and the celebration began in the Seattle dugout. It was the 184th home run of Griffey’s career, and the first ever to end a game.
“It felt good, but not as good as just coming back off the disabled list,” Griffey said. “If Vince doesn’t steal two bases, if Joey doesn’t get him home, I don’t come up.”
The victory snapped a two-game losing streak, got Seattle back to .500 (55-55) and to within three games of the front-running Rangers in the wild-card derby.
Seattle went in 0 for 43 when trailing after eight innings.
Reliever Jeff Nelson (5-1) got the victory after pitching a scoreless inning, after another poor start from Andy Benes.
Notes
Buhner’s grand slam gave him 82 RBIs and means the Mariners have four players with at least 80 RBIs for the first time in franchise history. Edgar Martinez (90), Tino Martinez (88) and Mike Blowers (82) beat Buhner to that mark. … Bobby Ayala’s next save will be his 20th. Two pitchers in M’s history have saved as many as 20 games in a season. Mike Schooler and Bill Caudill did it twice, with Schooler saving a club-record 33 in 1989. … Felix Fermin came in batting .201 and was ejected in the first inning for arguing a call at first base.