Tigers get to Putz

SEATTLE – The Seattle Mariners see it as their dream tandem in relief – Brandon Morrow and his 99 mph fastball in the eighth inning, followed by closer J.J. Putz with his 97 mph heat and deep-diving splitter in the ninth.

Last week, when those two helped the Mariners ease out of their season of struggle and win three of four games, all seemed right with the back end of the bullpen.

Still, an underlying issue has been Putz’s velocity – more like 93 mph instead of the high 90s he threw last year – and Sunday it became part of a disheartening loss.

The Tigers popped Putz for four hits in a four-run ninth inning as they broke open a tie game to win 7-5 at Safeco Field.

Putz spent much of April on the disabled list because of a rib problem, then he dealt with a sore middle finger. He says he’s fine now, although his location isn’t consistently crisp and the radar gun shows he’s not back to what he was last year.

Putz said his control Sunday was fine, that the Tigers hit good pitches.

With a fastball that’s 3-5 mph slower – especially when following Morrow, whose fastball was recorded by one radar gun at 100 in the eighth inning – hitters can get wood on pitches they normally wouldn’t catch up with.

That’s what happened in the ninth Sunday, when McLaren brought Putz into the game to protect a 3-3 tie after Morrow had blown away the Tigers in the eighth.

Putz walked Brandon Inge with one out before Curtis Granderson singled through the hole between first and second base. Putz jammed Placido Polanco, but he fisted a bloop single into right field to score Inge.

Carlos Guillen hit a grounder up the middle that shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt snagged to get a forceout at second base. Magglio Ordonez followed with a hard one-hopper that third baseman Adrian Beltre couldn’t snag cleanly, an infield hit that scored Granderson. Miguel Cabrera followed with a double into the left-field corner to score two runs.

Putz, 2-3 with a 5.60 earned run average, blamed himself for walking Inge, then praised the Tigers for good hitting.

“With a guy on first who can run a little bit, you can’t go to your full leg kick,” Putz said. “Granderson snuck one past Cairo and Polanco blooped one into right. They weren’t bad pitches. You can’t do anything when a guy hits one in a hole and bloops one down the line. It’s just good hitting.

“The pitch to Polanco was in on his hands. I made a good pitch to Guillen and he just didn’t hit it hard enough to get a double play. Then Magglio’s took a bad hop on Adrian.”

Putz struck out pinch hitter Marcus Thames for the third out, and the Mariners did their best to come back against Tigers closer Todd Jones.

Jose Vidro hit a leadoff single and Raul Ibanez followed with a two-run homer, pulling the Mariners within two runs.

Then things got as questionable for the Mariners as they were interesting. Beltre lunged at a high fastball and popped it up for the first out and Jones struck out Jeremy Reed.

That brought up Cairo, who started his fifth straight game at first base in place of struggling Richie Sexson. McLaren decided to let Cairo hit, even though he hasn’t homered since July 28, 2005.

“Cairo’s swinging the bat pretty good,” McLaren said.

It didn’t happen for him this time. Cairo, who’d gone 1 for 2 and dropped a sacrifice bunt, flied out to center to end the game.

Notes

McLaren said Felix Hernandez should be OK to make his next start, even though he left Saturday’s game after seven innings because his right calf fatigued. Hernandez had injured the calf early last month. … McLaren wasn’t upset that Yuniesky Betancourt was thrown out at third base for the second out in the sixth inning, even though he was trying to advance an extra base on Ichiro Suzuki’s single to left field. “It wasn’t the first out of the inning, so I didn’t have a problem with it,” McLaren said. “We want to be aggressive and they made the play on us.” … A video review of Carlos Silva’s last start, when the Tigers scored seven runs in the first inning Friday, showed he might be tipping his pitches, but “it’s nothing concrete,” McLaren said. … Mariners scouting supervisors held their first day of meetings Sunday at Safeco Field as they finalize their strategy for the annual amateur draft, which begins Thursday. The scouting and player development departments will meet every day until the draft.