Orioles Fly Past Mariners Bonilla’s Sacrifice Fly Produces 2-1 Victory

Two runs seem like a lot to Mike Mussina these days.

On Tuesday night, his Baltimore teammates scored that many runs, as much as they had provided him all month, and Mussina rewarded the Orioles with a 2-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners.

Bobby Bonilla’s sacrifice fly in the sixth inning broke the final tie and Mussina moved into a tie for the major-league lead with his 14th win.

Mussina (14-7), tied with Boston’s Tim Wakefield for the most wins, allowed eight hits over 7-2/3 innings. Doug Jones pitched the ninth for his 20th save.

In his last five starts, Mussina has received five runs. He’s 2-2 with a 1.42 ERA over that stretch.

“It’s made me a better pitcher,” Mussina said. “I’ve had to go out and pitch.”

“He pitched outstanding tonight, but he’s done that a lot recently,” Baltimore manager Phil Regan said.

Manny Alexander walked with one out and the score tied 1-1 in the sixth. He moved to third on a broken-bat blooper by Rafael Palmeiro and scored on Bonilla’s fly ball to deep center.

“Manny read the ball right off the bat on Palmeiro’s hit,” Regan said. “It was an excellent, aggressive piece of baserunning.”

Palmeiro hit a solo homer, his 27th, off Tim Belcher (8-8) to put Baltimore up 1-0 in the first.

“I thought it had a chance, but I wan’t sure,” Palmeiro said.

Seattle tied the game when Luis Sojo doubled to open the fifth and scored on Joey Cora’s infield hit.

Mussina faced more than four Seattle batters in an inning only in the fifth and Belcher faced more than four Orioles only in the sixth.

The Mariners passed the 1 million mark in attend ance in the team’s 53rd home game. In both 1993 and 1994, Seattle topped 1 million in 41 home dates.