Boone’s mistake big one
SEATTLE — Bret Boone tried to stay even-headed. He wanted to dissect the Mariners’ 7-6 collapse to the Texas Rangers on Saturday at Safeco Field with a dispassionate demeanor.
It wasn’t happening.
The Mariners’ second baseman is a stand-up guy who took a fall. He booted an easy ground ball in the ninth inning on Saturday that would have put the Mariners — leading by three at the time — one out from victory with no one on base. Instead, closer Eddie Guardado gave up a pair of two-run home runs.
“That’s probably happened to me twice in the last 10 years,” Boone said of the 15-hopper by Alfonso Soriano that split his legs, scooting under his glove. “It was a grounder right at me. I was thinking, ‘This is routine.’ It stayed down on me but that’s still no excuse to let it go through my legs. I don’t care if it took a funny hop.
“You’ll probably not see that happen again all year.”
Then, Boone would break from his composed manner to yell “that’s ridiculous” or perhaps a bad word. It was a snapshot into Boone’s stream of consciousness, a proud player who couldn’t believe how he let his team down when he couldn’t get low enough on a grounder. The four-time Gold Glove winner has had virtual seamless coverage on the right side of the infield since he arrived in 2001.
“I was thinking, ‘Come on Eddie, pick (me) up,’ ” Boone said. “Now I didn’t expect home run, base hit, home run, but I feel responsible. The way we battled back, then I make a stupid error like that.”
Guardado followed the error by giving up a home run to Hank Blalock, a single to Michael Young then, with two outs, a two-run, game-winning home run by Richard Hildalgo over the left-center-field wall.
“Nine times out of 10, he’s going to bail me out of that,” Boone said of Guardado. “I’m not blaming him. He didn’t have a great inning but I was a big part of that. It’s a different feeling for a pitcher when he goes out-out to start an inning.”
Guardado wasn’t accepting any of Boone’s culpability. No. Pin this one on him, he said.
“I hung a split-fingered fastball to Hildalgo. That was the game,” Guardado said. “There’s no excuses – it was just a bad day for me. The team battled all day and I let them down.”
The Mariners, just as they did in Friday’s 9-6 victory over the Rangers, put together a four-run eighth inning to take a 6-3 lead. Boone had a key two-run single in the rally.
Starter Jamie Moyer had kept the Mariners in the game against a powerful Rangers lineup. He managed to escape a first-inning threat after the first two batters reached. Young fouled out, then Moyer struck out Mark Teixeira and Hildalgo on tantalizing changeups.
“Unfortunately, I threw a lot of pitches in the first inning,” said Moyer, who threw 110 in 5 1/3 innings. “I worked out of it, but it was a battle.”
Rangers starter Pedro Astacio, activated before the game after dealing with a groin injury, was sharp through the first three innings. He yielded nothing until Ichiro’s leadoff double in the fourth.