Mariners Tighten Up In Stretch Boston’s 9-5 Win Gives Seattle 14-12 Record During August
Not one of the Seattle Mariners doubts the talent they put on the field day in and night out and not one of them - including their manager - can quite determine why they’ve had only one great month this season.
And that month isn’t August.
“Except for June, we haven’t put together one stretch where our hitters and our pitchers were going good at the same time,” Jeff Fassero said. “It’d be nice to do that. It’d be real nice to do it about Sept. 15 and just let it carry on through October.”
A team with October dreams, the Mariners were brought back to the realities of August on Wednesday, when the Boston Red Sox banged out 14 more hits to take a 9-5 victory - and two of three games from Seattle. This time, four of the five Seattle pitchers who worked stumbled.
The loss left Seattle one game ahead of the Anaheim Angels in the American League West, but perhaps more perplexing it dropped their record this month to 14-12.
“That’s not bad,” Lou Piniella said. “But it’s not good, either. We’ve had one streak this year - in June - and we need another one.”
On a day when the Mariners hit three more home runs, setting a pace that will challenge the major league single-season record set by Baltimore a year ago, they again couldn’t put pitching and hitting together.
“A couple of weeks ago, everybody was pitching well and we weren’t scoring,” Fassero said. “Then the bats get going and we can’t stop the other team. We get pitching and no hitting, we get hitting and no pitching.”
Seattle got through May with a .500 record, then put together a 20-7 run in June that put them 13 games above .500 on July 1.
Since that day, the Mariners are 27-25 - about as mediocre a record as one can imagine.
In front of a Kingdome crowd of 34,633, the Mariners got home runs from Edgar Martinez (No. 23), Alex Rodriguez (No. 22) and Paul Sorrento (No. 25) and lost, going away, despite that Boston’s starting pitcher was gone after four innings.
Bret Saberhagen, making a comeback attempt after nearly two years out of the game, threw 82 pitches and left the game trailing Fassero, 3-2.
Then came Boston’s fifth inning.
“A joke of an inning,” Fassero said, shaking his head. “Hardly anything hit hard, but I made some bad choices with my pitches…”
And got no help from his defense.
In that Boston rally, Rodriguez booted a ball at shortstop, second baseman Joey Cora flat missed a grounder up the middle - it was charitably ruled a hit after kicking off his glove - and rookie sensation Nomar Garciaparra launched his 25th home run of the year.
When the rally ended, Boston led 5-3, and the Mariners played catchup the rest of the day.
But each time Seattle inched closer, the Red Sox added to their lead.
Rodriguez homered in the fifth to make it 5-4, but Bob Wells gave up a run in relief of Fassero.
Sorrento homered in the sixth inning, but Paul Spoljaric gave up a run in relief of Wells.
And then the Sox went to knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.
“It was like seeing the devil,” Rodriguez said of the right-hander who shut Seattle out a few weeks ago.
Into the ninth, it was 7-5. Then Heathcliff Slocumb gave up a two-run homer to Troy O’Leary - on the 66th ball ever hit into the upper deck in right field - and the game was gone.
So was Slocumb’s job as closer.
“I’m going to use Mike Timlin to close,” Piniella said. “He’s pitching the best right now, he and Bobby Ayala.”
And there it is. After 133 games, the Mariners are still trying to get their bullpen roles locked in, still scrambling to find an answer.
Tonight, they’ll try to find it in Coors Field, a ballpark pitchers loathe.
Against Colorado, without the DH, Piniella will play Martinez one day at first base, play Sorrento there the next. And he’ll do the same in Los Angeles of Saturday and Sunday.
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