It’s just the same old story

SEATTLE — Gil Meche had the high fastball working well Friday night.

So well, in fact, that when the Detroit Tigers’ hitters were able to catch up to it, they hit it a long way.

Meche, the Mariners’ starting pitcher Friday night, struck out a career-high 11 in six innings, but despite good control, the two home runs he gave up cost him and his teammates a win.

Detroit’s 5-0 victory before 39,102 at Safeco Field was the Mariners’ third loss in the past four games. It spoiled a special night for Ichiro, who collected his 2,000th career hit as a professional in both Japan and the United States with a ground-ball single up the middle in the bottom of the fifth inning.

Tigers third baseman Eric Munson, who was hitting .194 entering the game, ripped a solo home run off of Meche in the third inning, and first baseman Carlos Pena (.212) added a two-run shot in the fourth. It was more than enough for Tigers starter Nate Robertson, who shut out Seattle over seven innings, allowed just six hits and improved to 3-3 this season.

Meche, who needed a good effort last night to keep himself from a demotion to Class AAA Tacoma, absorbed the loss and fell to 1-4. It was difficult to determine if he had indeed thrown well enough to make his next start with the Mariners.

Seattle hoped for a fresh start after an 11-0 pounding of Baltimore on Thursday night. It wasn’t to be.

Meche retired the first seven batters he faced, five on strikeouts. He struck out the side in the second, setting down Rondell White, Bobby Higginson and Pena with fastballs up in the strike zone. But Meche’s luck ran out with his 2-2 pitch to Munson in the third.

Munson drove the pitch high and deep to right field, and Ichiro followed its flight until the last possible moment. The Mariners right fielder leaped for the ball, but missed it by a foot as it cleared the wall.

Omar Infante followed with a line drive into the right-center field gap that bounced into the seats for a ground-rule double. Infante would have scored had Alex Sanchez’s hot smash gotten past a diving Rich Aurilia at shortstop. But Aurilia made the play, got up and threw out the speedy Sanchez by a step for the second out of the inning.

The Mariners could have gotten out of the inning having allowed only a run, but Carlos Guillen got back at his former teammates with a base hit to right field to drive in Infante. Guillen was making his first Safeco Field appearance since the Mariners traded him to the Tigers in January.

The Mariners had Ichiro at third base with no outs in the bottom of the third after he singled and moved to third base on a wild pickoff attempt by Robertson. But Randy Winn’s fly out was too shallow for Ichiro to score, Bret Boone popped out and Edgar Martinez was called out on strikes.

The Tigers added two more runs in the fourth inning after Higginson drew a one-out walk. Pena drilled Meche’s 2-2 offering 363 feet into the right-field seats for his sixth home run of the season.

Detroit (20-21) completed the scoring in the ninth inning when Craig Monroe doubled, took third on a ground out and scored on Infante’s sacrifice fly.

The Mariners never scored. Not even the dark home jerseys helped, though the team was 3-1 in games in which they wore the dark colors this season before last night.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Mariners got runners on first and second with two outs, but Winn flied out to end the threat, drawing a smattering of boos from the crowd.

The boos were even louder for Aurilia in the eighth when he grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning after the Mariners loaded the bases with one out.