Mariners hold off Blue Jays
SEATTLE – They dropped Carl Everett, added Chris Snelling, traded for Ben Broussard, started Greg Dobbs and then sent Snelling back to the minors in a series of moves that left the roster shaking from morning until night.
In between, a Seattle Mariners team that was hard to tell even with a scorecard won a game when a few of their remaining staples helped them beat the Toronto Blue Jays.
Jamie Moyer rebounded from his worst start of the season and kept the heavy-hitting Blue Jays in the ballpark, Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson hit home runs and the Mariners beat Toronto 7-4 Wednesday night at Safeco Field.
Team Transition finished its six-game homestand with four victories and a sense of momentum going into a six-game road trip. When they gather again Friday in Cleveland, Broussard will join the Mariners and begin a new regime at the DH spot, where he will platoon with Eduardo Perez.
And the Mariners, despite remaining last in the American League West Division and three games below .500, are three games out of first place.
“We won two of three from Boston and two of three from Toronto. This part of our schedule has been tough,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “So far, so good.”
He could have said the same about the series finale against the Blue Jays. The Mariners overcame a 1-0 deficit in the first inning with three runs in the first, one in the third, two in the fourth and one in the fifth to take a 7-1 lead.
Game over? Hardly, against a Blue Jays team that leads the American League in hitting.
“The way they swing the bats, it’s always scary,” Hargrove said.
Moyer gave up eight hits and four runs in five-plus innings. While nothing spectacular, it was an improvement over his previous start when the Boston Red Sox tattooed him with a career-high five home runs on Friday.
Moyer kept the Blue Jays in the ballpark and he limited their damage to a run on three hits in the first inning, then two singles and a walk in the sixth before Hargrove lifted him for reliever Julio Mateo. The Jays scored three times in the sixth, all of the runs credited to Moyer.
They scored three in the first inning off Jays starter A.J. Burnett, the high-dollar right-hander whose elbow problems have limited him to nine starts this season. Raul Ibanez hit an RBI double, followed by RBI singles from Sexson and Dobbs as the Mariners took a 3-1 lead.
Beltre clubbed his ninth homer leading off the bottom of the third, and the Mariners scored twice in the fourth on RBI doubles by Rene Rivera and Adam Jones, then another in the fifth when Sexson drove a 1-0 pitch from Burnett 430 feet to center field for his 21st home run.
Sexson’s blast was an omen for the M’s. They are now 5-0 this season when Sexson and Beltre homer in the same game.
Seattle reliever Mark Lowe got a pair of outs in the eighth inning to extend his streak of scoreless innings to 8 1/3 since he was called up July 7.
That left it up to J.J. Putz to finish the Blue Jays in the ninth. He did, working around back-to-back singles by Aaron Hill and Vernon Wells to start the inning, then striking out Glaus and Overbay before Greg Zaun lifted a fly to left that ended the game. It was Putz’s 20th save.