New Arms Carry Mariners Starter Olivares Gets Victory, Holzemer First Save In ‘Kinda Weird’ 6-3 Victory

One hundred games into a season, the Seattle Mariners have never had a better record than they do today - 56-44 after beating the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday.

And yet manager Lou Piniella is beginning to wonder, just where are the easy victories?

“God Almighty, I can’t even remember how we scored tonight, and we scored six runs,” Piniella said, still tense after a 6-3 victory that was anything but one-sided.

In trouble in the seventh inning, in trouble in the eighth inning, the win that put Seattle 1-1/2 games ahead of the Anaheim Angels in the American League West wasn’t secured until Mark Holzemer threw one pitch in the ninth inning.

Dave Justice lined it at second baseman Joey Cora for the third out with two Indians on base, and this game was over.

“My first major league win last year, I threw two pitches,” Holzemer said. “Tonight I get my first big-league save with one pitch. Kinda weird.”

Which is how the Mariners and their faithful might describe the 1997 season - kinda weird.

What began with a new Mariners pitcher, Omar Olivares, on the mound, ended with a new Mariners pitcher, ex-Rainier Holzemer, on the mound. In between, the Mariners got two nervous innings from Norm Charlton and Bobby Ayala.

And you wonder why Piniella couldn’t remember how his team scored?

Olivares was marvelous in his first Seattle start, getting two outs into the seventh inning and allowing only one earned run, two altogether. By the time he departed, his team was ahead 5-2 on a variety of scoring methods.

Behind 2-0 after three innings, Seattle got one run back when Edgar Martinez grounded out but pushed home Cora. Ken Griffey Jr. tied the game with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. And the Mariners went ahead for good on the kind of pitching that makes managers forget their names.

Rookie Bartolo Colon threw a pitch in the dirt that skittered away from catcher Pat Borders, moving Alex Rodriguez from second to third base with two outs in the sixth inning. Colon then threw a pitch to the backstop - Rodriguez scored and the Mariners were ahead for good.

Paul Sorrento added his 20th home run of the year, Cora singled home another run and The Edgar pushed home a sixth run.

Coasting? Not Seattle.

Olivares wore down in the seventh inning, giving up two singles to put runners at first and third with two outs and bring up Jim Thome.

Piniella went to Charlton. Charlton got a routine ground ball.

“That was a big out,” Piniella said.

Eighth inning, Ayala relieved and promptly gave up a single and a walk, then pitched out of it. Ninth inning, Ayala gave up three singles and a run with two outs, and Piniella waved in Holzemer.

“I left home this morning at 4:30 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight and landed in Cleveland at 3:55 p.m.,” said Holzemer, just up from Tacoma. “Then I warmed up twice in the bullpen tonight.”

After throwing about 50 pitches in the pen, Holzemer walked in to face Dave Justice with two men on base and a three-run lead.

On his first pitch, Justice hit a ball at Cora.

“That’s why he’s here, just for situations like that,” Piniella said of Holzemer. “Now I’ve got Bob Wells fresh (today) and we got a win. If we can just get a couple of guys pitching well out there.”

Olivares, the 30-year-old right-hander obtained from Detroit last week, pitched like the veteran Piniella asked for before the deal was made.

Just what does that mean? In a scoreless game with a man on first base, the Indians bunted in the third inning and Olivares threw the ball away for a two-base error - putting runners at second and third base.

“When I was a rookie, I’d have tried to strike out the side,” Olivares said, “and you worry about that man on third base so much you don’t get anybody out. Now, I know that my job is to get the hitter. If those two runners score, but that’s all they get, you can win that game. This team can win if you hold the other guys to two runs. If I give up three, four, five runs there, we might lose.”

Cleveland scored twice that inning, then didn’t get another run until the ninth.