Putz serves up another one

SEATTLE – While J.J. Putz began the process of pulling himself back up again, all the Seattle Mariners could wonder was “if.”

If they had found a hitting approach that worked against New York Yankees rookie Chien-Ming Wang, then Putz wouldn’t wonder how he gave up another grand slam that lost a game.

If Richie Sexson hadn’t dropped the finishing end of what seemed a certain double play, Bernie Williams wouldn’t have batted with the bases loaded in the seventh inning.

And if Jeremy Reed had gotten to Williams’ deep drive a split-second faster and finished his valiant leap against the wall with a highlight-reel catch, the Mariners might have celebrated a dramatic victory and not searched for consoling words in defeat.

Instead, both the baseball and Reed’s glove dropped over the center field fence for the second grand slam Putz has allowed in three games, this one giving the Yankees a 6-3 victory at Safeco Field.

Saturday, Putz lived a young pitcher’s nightmare by giving up a seventh-inning grand slam to Trot Nixon in the Boston Red Sox’s 6-3 victory over the Mariners.

Putz came back Sunday with a 1-2-3 inning to help the Mariners beat the Red Sox, and manager Mike Hargrove was impressed.

“If you’re going to have success in this game, you’ve got to learn to put yesterday behind you,” Hargrove said.

Now, Putz needs to do it again.

He came into the game to face the switch-hitting Williams with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh.

It shouldn’t have gotten that far.

With the Mariners leading 2-1, the Yankees loaded the bases off reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa, forcing Hargrove to grab left-hander George Sherrill from the bullpen to face left-handed-hitting Tino Martinez.

Sherrill got just what the Mariners needed from Martinez, a grand-slam threat after hitting six home runs last week.

He hit a sharp grounder to third baseman Adrian Beltre for what appeared a certain double play. Beltre threw to catcher Miguel Olivo for the forceout at the plate, and Olivo then stepped out and unleashed a strong throw just inside the bag at first.

The thigh-high throw glanced off the heel of Sexson’s glove, keeping the Yankees, and the inning, alive.

“I lost it in Tino’s left shoulder and by the time I picked it up, it was on at my left knee and it handcuffed me,” Sexson said. “My fault. I basically cost us the game.”

One pitch later, the Mariners were handcuffed with another difficult defeat.

Hargrove brought in Putz, who gave up a home run to Yankees catcher Jorge Posada last week in New York and, of course, the seventh-inning slam to Nixon on Saturday.

Putz tried to throw a first-pitch strike, but it sailed over the fat part of the plate and Williams pounded it to deep center field.

Reed made a flying leap into the wall, reaching above it to get his glove on the ball. But the collision with the wall jarred Reed’s glove and the ball loose, and they both dropped on the other side of the wall.

“I don’t even know what to say,” Putz said. “It surprised me. I knew he hit it good, but I didn’t know if it was hit good enough to go out. Jeremy made a great effort.”

The grand slam was the 11th of Williams’ career, putting him fourth on the Yankees’ all-time list.

The Mariners milked a 2-1 lead into the seventh, having scored twice in the first off Wang, and they held on through six eventful innings by their own starter, Aaron Sele.

Sele pitched around five hits and six walks, yielding only Alex Rodriguez’s RBI ground out in the third inning.

Hargrove said before the game that Sele, who’d been knocked out early in his past two starts, didn’t need a gem Monday to save his place in the starting rotation. He did, though, need to pitch deep into the game to preserve a bullpen that could get worn down before this series is over.

Middle reliever Julio Mateo will start today and the Mariners expect no more than five innings from him. Because of that, they called up right-hander Jorge Campillo from Class AAA Tacoma and optioned Sherrill back to Tacoma.

“Sherrill came in in a tough spot and did a good job,” Hargrove said. “It’s kind of rotten to say, ‘Here’s your reward, you are going back to Tacoma,’ but that’s the reality of the game.”

While Sele danced out of trouble in five of the six innings he pitched, the Mariners fell silent against Wang.

They had nicked him in the first inning with two runs on four hits, the big blow being Raul Ibanez’s two-run double over Williams’ head in center field. After Bret Boone’s two-out single in the first, Wang retired the next 17 Mariners.

Boone’s one-out double in the seventh was the Mariners’ first hit off Wang since his single in the first. Reed followed with a double to score Boone with the Mariners’ third run and chase Wang from the game.

By then, Seattle had fallen behind.