A’S Kick M’S Again Oakland’S Victory Reduces Seattle’S Lead To One Game

Call this slouching to the occasion.

With the opportunity to all but nail down a third American League West championship this weekend, the Seattle Mariners are instead making like footwipes for the Oakland Athletics - who are digging their cleats in pretty good.

Now just a single game separates the M’s from the A’s in the division standings, after Seattle’s pitching, hitting and defense all went south in an 8-3 loss Friday night at Safeco Field.

This time, the fight was brief, bloody and ugly as the A’s‘ big bashers did a Peckinpahstyle, Bring-Me-the-Head-of-Freddy-Garcia number on Seattle’s nominal ace - putting the Mariners in a 5-0 hole before they’d even picked up a bat. Not that those bats have been harboring any answers.

But it is one thing to get shut down by the young stopper Tim Hudson and the heart of the A’s bullpen, as the Mariners were on Thursday night. It is quite another to get stymied by Omar Olivares, a former teammate who was heard to grumble about being misused when he was turned loose by Seattle three years ago.

This is the same Omar Olivares who entered the game with a 3-8 record and a 6.98 earned run average.

The 33-year-old right-hander allowed just one run and four hits through the first five innings, providing the A’s with a huge shot of emotional momentum by soundly outpitching Seattle’s most effective starter.

“It’s been a tough season, but getting the chance to redeem myself, and especially the importance of this game - I put everything behind me,” said Olivares, whose work consisted of just five relief appearances since coming off the disabled list in mid-August. “The whole season isn’t worth anything right now. We just have to look ahead.”

And surely A’s manager Art Howe won’t be afraid to look to Olivares in the days ahead. “You look at his ability and what he’s done for us in the past and what he’s capable of doing,” Howe said, explaining why he decided to start Olivares for the first time since June 16. “He matches up well with this club and he knew how big this game was. He just deserves a ton of credit.”

Garcia certainly knew how big the game was, too - but it seemed to overwhelm him. Notoriously shaky in the early going, this night he was downright scandalous.

Laboring through a 43-pitch first inning, Garcia walked two A’s and gave up four sharp singles - including two-run hits by Eric Chavez and Jeremy Giambi, the Nos. 7 and 8 hitters in the lineup. The other RBI belonged to Matt Stairs, the hitting hero of Thursday’s opener who - despite bringing up the rear in batting average in the American League - is 4 for 7 in this series, with two walks, three RBIs and two runs scored.

Singles by Stairs and Ben Grieve and a double by Miguel Tejada would eventually chase Garcia in a three-run fifth inning, but that was almost gratuitous piling on.

“We know he’s got a great arm,” Howe said, “but you’ve got to be ready when he makes a mistake, because he’s not going to make many.”

The M’s must do no worse than split the final two games of the series today and Sunday to hold their division lead. They have a three-game series against Texas and three at Anaheim to close the season.

A split sounds pretty good right now. To this point, Seattle trails the season series with Oakland 8-3. “I don’t know if there’s any way to explain it,” said Grieve.

“I do know that when they come up on the schedule, it seems to be at a time when we’re playing our best.”

Garcia seemed like the man to reverse that. But though he has the best ERA among M’s starters (3.62 before Friday’s game) and was 4-0 in September, Garcia’s vulnerability has been perfectly obvious. Opposing batsmen are hitting .273 against him in the first inning, .214 in innings two through six.

He fell behind six of the nine hitters he faced in the first, starting with leadoff batter Terrence Long, who walked. Randy Velarde and Stairs then sandwiched singles around a Jason Giambi strikeout to stake the A’s to a 1-0 lead. Grieve followed with a walk.

Garcia then got Tejada to fly out to left field, but even that was a struggle - it took 10 pitches to dispatch the Athletics’ underrated shortstop.

The sharp back-to-back singles by Chavez and Jeremy Giambi broke things open, aided by an errant pickoff throw by Garcia that skipped into center field.

“Chavez getting that base hit with two strikes, that was huge,” Howe said. “That broke the dike.”

Seattle got a run in the third inning off Olivares on singles by Joe Oliver and David Bell, and Mark McLemore’s infield out. Olivares left after hitting Alex Rodriguez with a pitch to open the M’s half of the sixth, giving way to reliever Scott Service.

Edgar Martinez greeted him with an RBI double, and a walk to John Olerud and a single by Jay Buhner loaded the bases with nobody out. But the M’s got only one more run home, on pinch hitter Raul Ibanez’s sacrifice fly.

“We got the split, so we’re shooting for more,” said Howe. “We’ve achieved the minimum. And we picked up a game on Cleveland (in the wild card race), so that was big. But what we’re looking for is the division - and we’re even in the loss column now.”

The M’s will try to stop the bleeding with Paul Abbott (9-6) taking the mound today at 1:05 p.m. against Oakland’s Kevin Appier (14-11).