How about some old M’s magic?
SEATTLE – Free-swinging Jolbert Cabrera was determined not to swing at anything.
Billy Koch walked Cabrera with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth inning to give the Seattle Mariners a 5-4 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Sunday night.
“I was going to strike out looking,” said Cabrera, who received only one intentional walk in his previous 105 plate appearances with the Mariners this season. “I wasn’t going to swing either at 3-1 or 3-2.”
Mariners manager Bob Melvin brought Cabrera into the game as a pinch-hitter for Scott Spiezio in the eighth and then he went to third base.
“He doesn’t walk much, but, boy, I’ll tell you, he was patient there,” Melvin said. “He understands too that this is a guy who has trouble throwing strikes at times.”
Cabrera has 52 career walks in 1,119 plate appearances in seven seasons in the majors.
The Mariners rallied for three runs in the ninth off Koch (1-1), who blew his second save in three games.
“There is no reason I should ever blow a save to this team,” said Koch, referring to the Mariners’ last-place status in the A.L. West. “I’ve never been this mad about blowing a save. Ever.”
Seattle, which had four steals in the inning, tied it when Bret Boone singled to score Randy Winn after he took third.
Winn doubled home Ichiro Suzuki, who stole second after singling, for the first run off Koch.
Winn hit a towering 431-foot homer off a window of a second-deck restaurant in right field in the seventh inning to cut the White Sox lead to 3-2.
“That’s probably as far as I’ve hit a ball,” Winn said.
But Winn said his stolen base in the ninth was bigger for the Mariners.
“Because that gives Boonie an easier chance to drive me in,” he said.
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was asked if he intended to replace Koch with Shingo Takatsu as the team’s closer.
“Right now, it’s too early for me, but I might change my mind tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow or the next day.”
Willie Bloomquist ran for John Olerud after he was intentionally walked when Winn stole third. Bloomquist stole third and Boone went to second behind him before Koch walked Cabrera on a 3-1 pitch to end it.
“I was pretty sure one of the two pitches he was going to throw a ball,” Cabrera said.
Cabrera said he was going to crowd the plate if the count got to 3-2 and hope to get hit by a pitch by Koch.
Asked if he’d ever been hit by a 100 mph fastball, Cabrera said, “I got hit by the bullet. That’s pretty close.”
Cabrera was shot in the right buttocks in an attempted car jacking in his hometown of Cartagena, Colombia, on Dec. 21, 2001.
Shigetoshi Hasegawa (2-3) pitched the final 1 1/3 innings for Seattle. He didn’t allow a run, giving up a single and striking out two.
The Mariners won only for the second time in 32 games when trailing after eight innings.
Carlos Lee extended his career-high hitting streak to 22 games with an RBI single in the third to give Chicago a 1-0 lead. His streak is longest in the majors this season.
Chicago starter Esteban Loaiza was lifted with one out in the seventh after Winn’s first homer of the season cut Chicago’s lead to 3-2. He gave up two runs on eight hits and two walks, striking out three.
Pinch-hitter Ross Gload added an RBI single off Hasegawa in the eighth.
The White Sox, who have led the A.L.Central for 17 straight days, built up a 3-1 lead after five innings against 41-year-old left-hander Jamie Moyer. Both Loaiza and Moyer won 21 games last season.
Moyer came out after five innings after allowing three runs on seven hits and three walks. He struck out three.
Takatsu pitched a scoreless eighth for Chicago, giving him 18 1/3 scoreless innings in his last 17 appearances.
In the fourth, Joe Crede doubled in a run and Miguel Olivo had an RBI single for the White Sox to make the score 3-0.
The Mariners scored in the fifth on Olerud’s RBI groundout.
Mariners to pick 93rd
Baseball’s first-year player draft begins at 10 a.m. today, although the Seattle Mariners won’t need to roll up their sleeves until a couple of hours later.
The Mariners must wait until the third round to make their first pick, with the draft’s 93rd overall selection. They lost their first and second-round picks to Kansas City and Minnesota because of the offseason signings of free agents Raul Ibanez and Eddie Guardado.
Who can they get with such a late selection? Plenty, says Mariners scouting director Bob Fontaine.
“I have always been a firm believer that the majority of (major league quality) players come after the third round,” Fontaine said.
The current Mariners roster is proof of that.
Ibanez was a 36th round pick in 1992, Rich Aurilia a 24th-rounder in ‘92, Ryan Franklin a 23rd-rounder in ‘92 and Eddie Guardado a 21st-rounder in 1990.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re picked,” Franklin said. “With the draft, they’re evaluating where you could be four, five and six years from now. So much can happen.”
The draft will cover 50 rounds today and Tuesday, and the Mariners will pick 22nd in rounds 3-50.
Fontaine said it was important for the scouting staff to be just as thorough this year as they would if the M’s had early picks.
_ Kirby Arnold, Everett Herald