Orioles Get Big Hit That M’S Can’t Find Incaviglia’s Slam Ends Four-Game Winning Streak

The most unglamorous statistic in baseball - men left on base - is often the most telling, and on Friday it told the Seattle Mariners their winning streak was over.

“We had chances all night and the right men up to do something about it,” manager Lou Piniella said. “We couldn’t get the big hit.”

Without it, the Mariners stranded 13 baserunners and lost to Baltimore, 5-2, in large part because the Orioles got the big hit Seattle couldn’t.

Pete Incaviglia’s sixth-inning grand slam against Sterling Hitchcock snapped a 1-1 tie and kept the Orioles in a first-place tie in the race for a wild-card berth - pushing the Mariners a full game back in that derby.

The loss snapped a four-game winning streak, sent a Kingdome crowd of 44,532 into the night disappointed and continued a stretch of games in which Hitchcock has been alternately brilliant or decidedly unimpressive.

If there has been a vulnerability to Hitchcock’s games, it’s been his tendency to flame out after five innings, no matter how good those innings were or how few pitches he needed to get through them.

“If we get him through those middle innings, he’s fine,” Piniella said. “I’m not sure what happens with him.”

The pattern since July has been for Hitchcock to pitch superbly, but only every other game.

He went three innings in an Aug. 10 loss to the Twins, then 7-1/3 innings in a victory over New York on Aug. 16. Hitchcock lasted four innings in a loss against the Orioles on Aug. 21, then went seven strong innings five days later in a no-decision against the Yankees.

So Hitchcock was trying to put together back-to-back solid starts for the first time in more than a month. For five innings, he accomplished that - holding the Orioles to one run - Eddie Murray’s 499th home run.

“He’s had a great career and it’s still going strong,” Piniella said of Murray. “I hope he gets his 500th. I just hope it’s not hit here.”

Into the sixth, Hitchcock and Rocky Coppinger were locked in a 1-1 tie, with Jay Buhner’s 38th home run offsetting Murray’s.

It was the 122nd RBI for Buhner as he broke his own single-season team RBI record. He had 121 last season.

The Hitchcock who started the sixth inning, however, wasn’t the same pitcher who’d held Baltimore in check the first five.

In quick order, he gave up singles to Rafael Palmeiro, Todd Zeile and Murray to load the bases. Incaviglia, a Phillie on Thursday morning, used his third at-bat as an Oriole to produce the sixth grand slam - and 200th home run - of his career for a 5-1 Baltimore lead and Hitchcock was done for the night.

“He’d pitched well and Incaviglia is a good double play possibility if you get him to hit it on the ground,” Piniella said. “Sterling hung a breaking pitch up in the strike zone, and Incaviglia hit it in the air.”

Seattle’s bullpen once again did its job, shutting out Baltimore the final 3-2/3 innings behind Rafael Carmona, rookie lefty Greg McCarthy, Mike Jackson and Tim Davis.

What that did was give the Mariners the chance to come back, and after Edgar Martinez hit his 23rd home run in the sixth, Seattle loaded the bases with two outs.

Right-hander Terry Matthews struck out pinch-hitter Doug Strange and the Mariners had wasted another scoring opportunity.

Even with all that, the Mariners had one last chance in the bottom of the ninth inning, when Rodriguez - who extended his hitting streak to 15 games - and Martinez singled with one out to chase Baltimore closer Randy Myers. Alan Mills struck out Buhner then got a ground ball from Brian Hunter and that four-game winning streak was dead.

Notes

Dave Niehaus, Seattle’s veteran play-by-play announcer, who was hospitalized this week with chest pains, was back in the broadcasting booth Friday night. Niehaus, 61, missed Wednesday and Thursday night games… . When Hollins pinch-hit in the sixth inning of Thursday night’s game with Baltimore, he became the record 49th player to play for the Mariners in 1996.