Piniella’s Guy Has New Life Ayala Shuts Down Rally In Eighth, Helping Mariners Beat Athletics

When the rest of Seattle had seemingly given up on Bobby Ayala, ready to send him to the furthest minor league outpost available, Lou Piniella stood firm.

“He’s done the job for me in the past,” Piniella said. “And when a guy has produced for me in the past, I’m willing to go a lot further with him.”

Piniella’s faith, which has at times alternately confounded and angered Mariners faithful, is apparently being paid off.

Ayala - in the latest in a string of good performances - pitched 1-1/3 innings of hitless relief Wednesday, getting the Mariners out of jam in the eighth inning, and ended up getting the win when Seattle scored in the ninth to beat Oakland, 4-3, in front of 36,619 fans in a matinee game at the Kingdome.

Ayala came on with two on and two out in the eighth inning after Oakland had tied the game off starter Bob Wolcott, who had pitched as well as he has all year.

But Ayala got Jason Giambi, who had six hits in his previous eight at-bats, to hit a harmless roller in front of the plate for the third out.

Ayala then marched through Oakland’s power structure - Mark McGwire, Geronimo Berroa, Scott Brosius and Terry Steinbach - without damage in the ninth, and ended up with his first victory of the season when Edgar Martinez doubled in Alex Rodriguez with the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the inning.

The win stopped a two-game losing streak and prevented an A’s sweep of the Mariners. That could have proved disheartening for Seattle as it heads into a crucial four-game series at Texas, the division leader, to close out the first half of the season.

“It is an important series (with Texas),” Piniella said. “But let’s just wait and see what we do.”

Piniella feels better about things now that Ayala seems to have returned to his 1994 form, when he saved 18 games and had a 2.86 earned-run average.

Since then, it’s been a struggle for Ayala. He lost his closer’s job midway through last season when the team acquired Norm Charlton, and pitched horribly the first three weeks of this season. He went on the disabled list April 24 after suffering hand lacerations when he reportedly punched out a window in a Chicago hotel.

It then came out that Ayala had been involved in an alcohol-related auto accident during spring training.

Piniella said he had “many” talks with Ayala during the pitcher’s stay on the disabled list.

“We talked about that he had to get the off-field problems taken care of so he could perform on the field,” Piniella said. “They went hand-in-hand.”

Without going into specifics, Piniella implied that Ayala has righted himself off the field, allowing for his pitching talent to come through.

Ayala has not talked to the media since the Chicago hotel incident and declined requests to do so Wednesday.

Piniella said Ayala has worked on perfecting a slider to use against right-handed hitters, and it was a slider that struck out Berroa in the ninth inning.

“His split-finger is working now and he’s mixed in the slider to throw to right-handers and he’s getting good velocity on his fastball,” Piniella said, adding that Ayala’s fastball is consistently in the 93-94 mph range.

“Two years ago, when he came here, he had no closer experience and we asked him to be our closer and he did the job,” Piniella said. “Yeah, I’ve got confidence in him. I really do.”

Ayala had a 13.06 ERA when he went on the DL, but since coming back on June 21, he has allowed only two earned runs in 10-1/3 innings to lower his ERA to 7.40.

In his last four outings, Ayala has given up only one hit and no runs in five innings, with five strikeouts.

For much of the afternoon, however, it looked like Wolcott might pitch the team’s first complete game this season.

Seattle scored three runs in the first inning off Oakland starter Bobby Chouinard on a two-run home run by Rodriguez followed by a solo shot by Martinez.

Wolcott made the lead stand up until the eighth, allowing only six hits and three runs - one of which was unearned - in 7-2/3 innings, tying the longest outing of his short career.

Wolcott allowed only one hit through the first five innings before Oakland broke through in the sixth. Damon Mashore reached on an error by Rodriguez and Jose Herrera followed with a home run to right-center to make it 3-2.

Oakland then tied the game in the eighth inning.

Mashore singled with one out and moved to third on Herrera’s hit-and-run single that went exactly where Rodriguez would have been had he not been covering second base. Mashore then scored on a double by Rafael Bournigal.

But Herrera was thrown out trying to score by Luis Sojo’s relay to catcher John Marzano.

Ayala then came on to shut down the A’s, setting up the Mariners’ ninth-inning heroics.

Rodriguez legged out an infield hit to second base with two outs, and Martinez then worked the count to 3-2 off Oakland reliever Carlos Reyes (4-10).

With Rodriguez running, Martinez lined a drive down the right-field line for his 41st double of the season, and Rodriguez beat the relay home for the winning run.

“I was looking for a pitch outside because that’s how they had been pitching me, and that’s what I got,” Martinez said.