Mariners Let Angels Off Hook Seattle’s Sloppy Bullpen Overshadows Griffey’s 20th Hr

In what amounted to an ugly pageant, the Seattle Mariners and Anaheim Angels fought for the title of homeliest bullpen Tuesday.

The Mariners won that contest, which led directly to their losing another come-from-ahead game, this time 11-9.

No lead was safe until the last one, which held up because the Angels finally got to their closer, Troy Percival, and he did what closers are paid to do - he slammed the ninth-inning door in Seattle’s face.

But until his final pitch was good for the 27th Mariners out of the game, two very good offensive teams spent the night pounding on most every pitcher who took the mound.

Starters Jeff Fassero and Jason Dickson gave up 13 runs between them. Rich DeLucia gave up a three-run home run to Jay Buhner in the seventh inning that put Seattle in front, 9-7. Needing only nine outs to preserve what would have been their 25th victory, the Mariners tried to get the game to their closer, Norm Charlton.

Didn’t happen.

Bobby Ayala gave up a run for the third consecutive game. Greg McCarthy bailed him out of one jam, then got himself in another to open the eighth inning. Manager Lou Piniella went to reliever Josias Manzanillo with one out in the eighth.

Manzanillo walked one man, watched another reach base safely on a fielder’s choice and then delivered a pitch that Tim Salmon hit for a three-run double.

Trying to make the American League West a three-team race, the Angels then found a reliever capable of holding a lead - Percival.

Buhner’s home run was dramatic, but it was a first-inning bolt by Ken Griffey that stunned an Anaheim Stadium crowd - a 470-foot blast that disappeared from view down a tunnel far up the bleachers beyond right center field.

Griffey’s major-league leading 20th home run, and a bases-loaded walk later in the game, left him with 55 RBI in his first 43 games. And this isn’t the fastest power surge in his career.

Back in 1994, when a strike wiped out the last six weeks of the season and the World Series, Griffey hit his 20th home run in his 42nd game.

While Seattle’s horses stayed hot - Griffey, Buhner and Martinez shared nine RBIs - so did their pony, Joey Cora. Cora pushed his hitting streak to 16 consecutive games with a pair of hits.

For Fassero, the night continued a frustrating stretch of baseball in which he has pitched well and pitched badly - and not won a game since April 22. Twice in that span he has left the game late with a lead and seen the bullpen give the game away. Four times in his last five starts, he’s had no decision.

Against the Angels, Fassero had a 2-0 lead before he took the mound. Though he struggled mightily, Fassero still had that 2-0 lead when he entered the fourth inning.

It was long gone before that inning ended, however - and so was Fassero.

The Angels batted around against the veteran left-hander, using six hits to score seven runs, with Tim Salmon and Dave Hollins hitting home runs. By the time reliever Bobby Ayala got the third out, Anaheim was ahead 7-2. And the Angels had their winningest pitcher on the mound, Dickson.

Whatever comfort that provided the Angels was short-lived. A four-run fifth-inning rally, capped by a three-run double by Edgar Martinez, cut that big lead to 7-6.

Dickson turned that one-run lead over to former Mariners reliever Rich DeLucia - and DeLucia turned it over to Seattle.

Buhner, emerging from a six-week slump, had hit his sixth home run of the year batting seventh in the Mariners lineup Monday.

“I’ll move him up one spot in the lineup for every homer he hits,” Piniella joked before Tuesday’s game.

Figure Buhner to bat in his customary fifth spot Wednesday, then. With two men on base he hit a DeLucia fastball 419 feet over the center-field wall.

It was a lead that held all of one inning.