Belcher Stalls Jays Until Blowers Blooms

Numbers can be misleading, but in a sport that considers them sacred, Tim Belcher is being hounded by vicious lying statistics.

Before his 14th start of the season, the Mariners right-hander had a 4.68 earned-run average - not the kind of personal calling card a major league pitcher wants to whip out of his wallet and pass around the clubhouse.

In six of his first 13 starts, however, Belcher had allowed two runs or less. He was 2-2 in those games.

So when he got to the fifth inning Saturday with no more than a 1-0 lead, Belcher tried to forget how hot it was. And he tried not to think about pitching on just three days rest.

What he did was hold off the Toronto Blue Jays until a big game from Mike Blowers - two doubles, a home run and five RBIs made his life simpler and propelled Seattle to a 7-2 victory.

“I threw a ton of pitches - I think I had 70 in the first three innings - and I had no illusions of pitching a complete game,” Belcher said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t pitch innings.”

In fact, when Lou Piniella went to the mound two outs into the seventh inning and the bases loaded, Belcher did what his stats have been doing for more than a month. He lied.

“He said he was fine, but I’ve been to the mound enough to know,” Piniella said, smiling. “He’d done his job. He’d done a hell of a good one on three days rest.”

So after 126 pitches, Belcher departed, ahead 7-0.

He got that lead, or most of it, courtesy of Blowers - who was still seething over grounding into a pinch-hit double-play with the tying run on third base Saturday.

“You learn when you come off the bench as much as I have in my career that you’re not always going to get the job done,” Blowers said. “The difference between last night and today? We won. And I had fun contributing to it.”

In a scoreless game, Blowers came to the plate in the fourth inning against left-hander Al Leiter with runners at second and third base and one out. Two innings earlier, Leiter had badly jammed Blowers, who’d grounded out weakly.

“I figured he would try to stay in on me, so I did what everyone has told me not to do all season - I backed away from the plate,” Blowers said. “He saw that and I think he tried to hit the outside corner with a fastball.”

Blowers crunched it, hitting off the top of the right-field wall for a double and a 1-0 lead. Edgar Martinez, the runner at second base, hesitated when the ball was hit and didn’t score.

It was still 1-0 in the sixth inning, when Blowers came up again with two outs and Martinez on second base. This time, Blowers hit a home run to center field, his seventh of the year, and Belcher was on top 3-0.

“Big runs,” Belcher said. “Toronto may be struggling this year, but that lineup can score. Until this season, Joe Carter hit me like he knew what was coming.”

When Blowers added a two-run double in the seventh inning - and both Jay Buhner and Felix Fermin pushed home runs, as well - Seattle had a one touchdown lead.

Toronto got two runs back in the bottom of the seventh, when Devon White’s two-run single off Jeff Nelson got a pair of runs attached to Belcher’s pitching line. From there, however, Nelson was near perfect and retired seven of the last eight Blue Jays he faced.