Another loss to Rangers stings M’s

ARLINGTON, Texas – The high point of the Seattle Mariners’ 2004 pennant race may have come in the sixth inning Wednesday – it lasted half an inning, and the Texas Rangers didn’t notice.

In position to make up ground in the American League West, Seattle rode a Rich Aurilia home run to a 2-1 lead in a strongly pitched game.

A win and the Mariners would have been 8 1/2 games back in the standings. A win and they’d have been in position to take the series today.

And then Texas came to bat.

Using a walk, a hit batter and five singles, the Rangers rolled out a five-run rally that held up for a 6-3 victory over the Mariners.

“We were so confident coming in here, we’d played well for a couple of weeks,” Aurilia said, sipping a beer. “Last night, they blow us out.

Tonight, we take a 2-1 lead and before we’re back in the dugout we’re behind again – not by one or two but four runs.

“How many times have we had that kind of emotional swing this season? More times than I can count on my hands and feet, and it’s getting old.”

Technically, Seattle hasn’t been eliminated from contention.

Realistically, they’re now 11 games under .500, 10 1/2 games behind Texas in the West and 0-2 since acknowledging this series began a stretch of their most important games of the year.

“We’ve got to find a way to win one game here (today),” manager Bob Melvin said.

As with so many of Seattle’s 40 losses this season, this one was a culmination of the bad, the worse and the ugly.

“ With runners at first and third base and one out in the first inning, Seattle’s bid for an early lead ended when Edgar Martinez grounded into a double play – the beginning of an 0 for 4 night that dropped Martinez’s average to .241.

“ Moments after the Mariners had given him a 2-1 lead in the top of the sixth inning, Ryan Franklin walked the first man he faced in the bottom of the inning, allowed a single, hit a batter and let the fourth batter he faced tie the game with a fly ball.

“Not even bounces are kind to Seattle. Randy Winn hit a bullet up the middle with two men on in the fifth inning and it caromed off pitcher Nick Bierbrodt’s shin – directly to first baseman Mark Teixeira. Instead of an RBI single, it was an out, and another Mariners rally fizzled.

What had been a five-inning pitching duel became a tie game in the fifth inning when the Mariners – trailing since the first inning – pushed home a run on Jolbert Cabrera’s ground ball.

Melvin could have kissed Cabrera.

“We had a guy on third base and Jolbert gave himself up, hit a ground ball the other way, got that run home,” Melvin said. “I’d like to see more at-bats like that one.”

In the top of the sixth, Aurilia hit a two-out solo home run when Melvin gave him the green light to swing on a 3-0 pitch.

Seattle 2, Texas 1 – for a few minutes, anyway.

“I walked the first guy in the sixth and that was the one mistake I made,”

Franklin said. “After that, I was just unlucky. A bloop hit here, a grounder that squirts through, a squeeze bunt.

“I was putting my pitches where I wanted to, I was pitching inside and jamming guys.”

Even Melvin forgave Franklin the hit batter that inning.

“They tend to hang over the plate, and if you don’t pitch them inside they’re not going to change,” Melvin said. “We pitched (David) Delucci inside and he made no effort to get out of the way.

“They don’t make that call, anymore.”

Franklin insisted he wasn’t making excuses.

“I’ve pitched bad and talked about it,” he said. “I pitched better than that inning came out. How many bloops have dropped in for them the last two nights?

“Sometimes teams get on a roll and they get something going for them. They have something going for them right now.”

And the Mariners, clearly, do not.

“It’s no one guy, it’s no one part of the team,” Aurilia said. “Everyone in here is frustrated. These kind of games kill you, and we’ve played way too many of them.”