Griffey’s Long-Ball Display Helps Mariners Slug Twins

Ken Cloude knows his numbers. So does Ken Griffey Jr.

In the forest of statistics that can be major league baseball, the Seattle Mariners staggered from one set of figures to another Thursday, turning a long day - and a long night - into a 9-6 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

Want a day by the numbers?

The Mariners got to their downtown hotel a little before 6 a.m. Thursday.

Thirteen hours later, they used four home runs - two by Griffey - and five pitchers to subdue a Twins team that didn’t give up until the final out was recorded with the potential tying run at home plate.

By winning, Seattle eased out to a three-game lead in the American League West with 22 games left on its schedule.

More numbers? The victory was rookie Cloude’s second in the major leagues. The home runs by Griffey were No. 47 and No. 48. and pushed his season RBI total to 130.

“We see him every day and those numbers keep piling up and you kind of have to step back once in awhile to put it in perspective,” Mike Blowers said of Griffey. “I mean, 48 home runs and 130 RBIs - that would be a great season by any player in any era in baseball history. It’s awesome.”

And then there is Cloude, who can come across as the proverbial happy-to-be-here rookie but runs much deeper than that.

Given a 6-1 lead, Cloude breezed into the fifth inning, walked two men, gave up a double and then threw Paul Molitor a first-pitch fastball that Molitor hit for his 10th home run - and the 3,155th hit of his big-league career.

Manager Lou Piniella left the kid in for one more out, though the score was then 6-5, because he wanted Cloude to finish the fifth inning and thus qualify for the victory.

“If I was managing me tonight, I might have yanked me after those two walks,” Cloude said. “There’s no excuse for that. And then there was Molitor - the scouting report said he was a good fastball hitter, especially if he got a first-pitch fastball.”

Which Cloude threw.

“Right down the middle,” he said. “I proved that scouting report was right …”

And that left the Mariners facing a frightening set of numbers - four innings left in a game, with a one-run lead and their bullpen trying to hold it.

Bobby Ayala worked two innings, striking out five and giving up one unearned run. By that time, the lead built by two-run homers from Paul Sorrento, Brent Gates and Junior had grown because Joey Cora pushed home one run, Griffey hit another long home run and Roberto Kelly had an RBI single.

Over the last two innings, Mike Timlin got two outs, Norm Charlton got one - a three-pitch strikeout - and Heathcliff Slocumb put two men on base before picking up his 22nd save of the year and his fifth as a Mariner.

“If there were wins you could give hitters instead of pitchers, our hitters would have won this game,” Cloude said. “I didn’t do a damn thing right.”

As for Griffey, the two-homer game was his sixth multiple-homer game of the season and the 27th of his career. They gave him four homers in three games this month, or one more than he hit the entire month of June.

“Junior hit a little lull for a while, and then out of nowhere, he picked it up again,” Piniella said. “And he did it when we need it most. I don’t know if fans realize what a remarkable two seasons he’s had for us. He’s hit 97 home runs in the last two years, and we’ve got 20-something games left to play.”

After the game, a writer pointed out to Griffey that if he hit 13 more home runs in the next 22 games he’d be baseball’s all-time single-season home run hitter. Could he endure the media pressure, he was asked.

Griffey snorted out a laugh.

“What pressure? In 5 minutes I’m going back to the hotel and fall asleep and y’all won’t ask me another question until 5 p.m. tomorrow. That’s no pressure,” he said.

A-Rod to miss weekend games

An injury to shortstop Alex Rodriguez was judged serious enough Thursday that the M’s sent for help - reaching to Venezuela for infielder Giomar Guevera.

“Alex is going to miss the weekend, at least,” manager Lou Piniella said, “and we don’t have a backup shortstop here. Giomar was sent home after the minor-league season, but we’ve found him and he’s coming.”