Seattle outlasts Boston

SEATTLE – Go ahead and rip on Richie Sexson for his strikeouts, his .200-something batting average and his place on a Seattle Mariners team that needs hitters to extend rallies and not kill them.

Sexson is what he is, and that’s a power hitter who occasionally will plant baseballs into the seats and, the Mariners hope, have some of them win games.

He did it Tuesday night, hitting a two-run homer in the sixth inning to break a tie and give the Mariners an 8-7 victory over the Boston Red Sox at Safeco Field.

Sexson, while hitting .213 with 56 strikeouts, has 15 home runs and 46 runs batted in.

“I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face and tired of saying it, but with big power hitters, especially streak hitters, you have to wade through the bad to get to the good,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “And with Richie, when it’s good, it’s awfully good.”

The victory, while not particularly stylish from a pitching and defense standpoint, was the Mariners’ fourth straight and helped them gain a game in the American League West standings for the second straight night.

Thanks to old friend Gil Meche, who pitched the Royals to victory over the first-place Angels, the Mariners are six games out of first place. And, in beating the Red Sox in the first two games of the series, the M’s have won six of their past eight series.

It took a big bop from Sexson to do that, and then some spectacular relief pitching.

Batting in the sixth inning with a runner on base after the Red Sox had tied the score 6-6, Sexson drove a pitch from Red Sox reliever Javier Lopez the opposite way, barely clearing the right-field wall.

Then the game came down to the strength of the Mariners’ bullpen – left-handed setup specialist George Sherrill and closer J.J. Putz in another extended save situation – in the eighth and ninth innings.

Brandon Morrow put two runners on in the eighth, Coco Crisp with a walk and Dustin Pedroia on a bloop single to right, with nobody out before Hargrove brought in Sherrill. His task: Get David Ortiz out.

Sherrill did it with a flourish, striking out Ortiz to leave the runners at first and third.

Hargrove then turned to Putz, needing him to get the next five outs.

Putz got Kevin Youkilis on a sacrifice fly to center field that scored Crisp to make the score 8-7, then J.D. Drew on a bouncer to first to finish the Red Sox in the eighth.

Putz blew away the Sox in the ninth. He struck out Mike Lowell, Jason Varitek and pinch-hitter Manny Ramirez and remained perfect in 22 save opportunities.

M’s starter Felix Hernandez wasn’t sharp. The first four hitters reached base, including Kevin Youkilis on an RBI single, before Hernandez fanned out J.D. Drew and got Mike Lowell to ground into a double play.

Red Sox starter Kason Gabbard was wild early, when he walked five and hit a batter during Seattle’s three-run first inning. Willie Bloomquist led off the second inning with a home run to put the M’s up 4-1.

Hernandez didn’t escape the fifth when he gave up three hits, including Lowell’s two-run triple to left-center field to tie the score 4-4.

The M’s got both of those runs back with Bloomquist’s RBI single and Ichiro Suzuki’s sacrifice fly to take a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the fifth.

The Red Sox tied it again in the sixth when Eric Hinske led off with a homer and Ortiz added an RBI single.