Mariners break out brooms
SEATTLE – Fans who bristled over Major League Baseball’s scheduling switch can take solace in something much more valuable than a reunion with Ken Griffey Jr.
The Seattle Mariners got to play a team they could actually sweep.
The lowly Montreal Expos left town Sunday evening having been the perfect mess for any broom, becoming the first team the Mariners have swept this season. Seattle’s 8-1 victory over the Expos gave the Mariners a three-game sweep and left them one win away from their longest streak of the season.
“It’s nice, after the two months we’ve gone through, to finally win a series,” said second baseman Bret Boone, who had his first three-hit game since April 25 and added an RBI. “We know Montreal came in here scuffling – it was two teams that were scuffling – but you can’t take these series for granted. I don’t care who it is right now; a sweep’s a sweep.”
After a week in which they found it difficult to score, the Mariners scored almost a week’s worth of runs Sunday. Seattle’s eight runs marked the most they have put on the scoreboard since an 11-0 win over Baltimore on May 20, while the Mariners’ 14 hits were the most in almost a month (15 against the New York Yankees on May 15).
The Mariners did most of their damage in the third inning, when four hits and three walks led to four runs and a 5-0 lead. Boone and Edgar Martinez had back-to-back hits to drive in runs, then Hiram Bocachica made the Expos pay for intentionally walking John Olerud with an RBI single. Willie Bloomquist’s bases-loaded walk drove in the final run and chased Montreal starter Tony Armas Jr. from the game.
All of that damage was done with two outs.
“That was the inning that we kind of broke it open,” Boone said. “You need innings like that. It relaxes everybody.”
The 5-0 lead particularly seemed to relax starter Joel Pineiro, who had another fine outing to earn his first win since April 18. Pineiro is now 2-8 on the season, although he has allowed two runs or less in five of his last seven starts.
Pineiro allowed six hits over eight innings of work, adding another impressive pitching performance on a staff that has found its groove lately. The Expos had one run and 19 hits over the three-game series.
“It’s really been, for the last couple weeks, a strength,” manager Bob Melvin said of the Mariners’ pitching. “And the team was built that way.”
Unlike recent games, when some solid pitching performances have been wasted, Seattle’s offense did its part Sunday. After the 5-0 lead through three innings, Seattle added a run on Randy Winn’s RBI single in the sixth, and two more on an Olerud home run in the seventh. Montreal got its only run when Terrmel Sledge hit a solo homer to lead off the top of the fifth.
The M’s have 28 hits in the past two games, showing signs that they could be on the verge of an offensive explosion.
“You never know what’s going to turn the tide,” Olerud said. “You keep going out, you keep playing hard, and hopefully you can get on a good roll.”
Sometimes good rolls are a product of momentum or multiple batters getting hot. Other times, they can be attributed to the team that suits up in the opposite clubhouse.
The Mariners will find out in the next week whether they have turned it around, or if the Expos were simply there to provide a three-day reprieve to a migraine season.
“They’re a club similar to us in that they’re struggling to swing the bats this year,” Melvin said of the Expos (20-41). “You can get some confidence going against a club like that. I know what they’re going through, believe me.”