Chisox kick sand on M’s

SEATTLE – With a scrawny offense playing for the first time without its most productive hitter – Raul Ibanez began his stay on the disabled list – the Seattle Mariners’ task was tough enough Friday night against the Chicago White Sox.

Freddy Garcia had little room for mistakes and the Mariners’ defense couldn’t wobble. Garcia did his part, holding the league’s second-best slugging team to seven hits in 7 2/3 innings. But, while the boxscore shows another errorless game by the Mariners, two critical plays in center field helped the White Sox beat the M’s 4-2 at Safeco Field.

Two doubles that center fielder Randy Winn didn’t catch led to White Sox runs. There were other hits that beat the Mariners – Frank Thomas’ two-run homer in the fourth inning to wipe out a 1-0 Mariners lead, Timo Perez’s RBI single in the seventh to make it 3-1 and Carlos Lee’s RBI single in the eighth for a 4-1 lead.

Two balls to deep center made a difference, especially with the Mariners’ offense having sputtered to a near-standstill.

Before Thomas’ homer, Juan Uribe hit a fly to straight-away center that eluded Winn’s glove and bounced off the warning track for a ground-rule double. In the seventh, Jose Valentin hit a high fly to left-center that hit the wall just a few feet above the track before Winn got to it.

Catchable balls?

“On the first ball, maybe,” manager Bob Melvin said. “The second ball was pretty well hit.”

The Mariners knew they weren’t getting a Mike Cameron clone when they moved Winn to center after they let Cameron become a free agent in the off-season. In his period of adjustment early in the season, Winn often broke late on fly balls and took circuitous routes to reach them.

Friday, he did it again.

“He has played better in center field and we knew he would,” Melvin said.

Those two flyballs were two of the seven hits allowed by Garcia, who pitched well again but fell to 3-4.

“He did everything we asked to win,” Melvin said. “He gave up a few runs but we didn’t help him out offensively.”

Already hampered by the loss of Ibanez, who began his time on the disabled list Friday because of a hamstring injury, the Mariners managed just five hits and had only two through six innings.

“At times we haven’t pitched very well and at times we haven’t looked the greatest defensively,” Melvin said. “But offense has been the problem. You come up against a team like (the White Sox) that’s scoring a bunch of runs, and hold them to a manageable number, we’ve got to find a way to score more runs.”