Figgins’ three-hit day powers M’s to sweep

DETROIT – Chone Figgins winced when asked whether he’d felt any urgency to produce the kind of afternoon that just propelled his Mariners to a rare road sweep.

Figgins had waited a long time for results like this three-hit affair Thursday, when his seventh-inning double capped a 5-4 victory over the Detroit Tigers. It didn’t hurt any that his exploits came the same day manager Eric Wedge declared that Figgins won’t have forever to make things happen if he wants to keep his leadoff job.

But Figgins calmly insisted, with a smile, that he knows the fundamentals are there and that he’s close. Just as he insisted his team had been close to getting it right before unleashing an offensive barrage on the Tigers for three straight days.

“It’s never a case of urgency,” Figgins said. “Like the first night here. I’m still getting my walks. For me, it’s either ‘Hit a ball hard’ and if you’re not swinging a bat, you still walk. I’ve always been like that. I stick with that, and things get better.

“And I’ve stuck with it and I ended up having a good game. So, keep sticking with it.”

The Mariners stuck with their newfound blitz approach to offense in the first inning, when Figgins and Dustin Ackley opened with singles followed by a three-run homer from Justin Smoak to make it 3-0 before many in the Comerica Park crowd of 31,451 had taken their seats. Miguel Olivo added a solo homer in the fourth off Tigers starter Rick Porcello, and it looked once again like the Mariners would blow the Tigers off the field.

But Detroit finally got a hit off Hector Noesi one out into the fifth inning and a run later that frame. Then, they struck for a triple, a single and a tying two-run homer by Miguel Cabrera off Noesi before he could get anyone out in the sixth.

It came down to Figgins again in the seventh, when he lined a ball to right-center that Brennan Boesch mistakenly ran in on. The ball got by him for a double that brought Brendan Ryan all the way around from first base to score.

“I think he froze,” Figgins said of Boesch. “He didn’t think I hit it that good. But I knew I hit it better than he thought I hit it.”