Twins double up M’s

MINNEAPOLIS – It was a tale of two pitchers for the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, one a veteran, the other a rookie.

Miguel Batista was the philosophical starter – and he needed all the philosophy he could muster after an 8-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins – and Ryan Rowland-Smith the kid with the Aussie accent who usually sits and waits.

Like reserves Ben Broussard and Willie Bloomquist, who had solid days in a one-sided loss, Rowland-Smith is an afterthought most times the Mariners play. He’s a long reliever, brought in when someone gets chased early.

The Twins chased Batista early – making his two-inning start against them the shortest of his season.

“I threw some good pitches, I threw some great pitches, and they hit them, anyway,” Batista said. “Out of the nine hits I allowed, probably two or three came on pitches I’d change.

“Part of being a good pitcher is recognizing good hitting. They just beat me today. Sometimes you beat yourself, but I didn’t today. They put together great at-bats and got me.”

The Twins led 7-0 after the first inning, 8-0 after two.

Adios five-game winning streak and start packing for Texas? Not so fast.

“I’m proud of these guys, because they kept pushing, they kept trying to fight back into the game,” manager John McLaren said.

“Ryan Rowland-Smith did just a terrific job, gave us four shutout innings when we might have had to use a lot of guys out of the bullpen.”

Bloomquist hadn’t appeared in a game in five days, and then only as a pinch runner. He had two hits, scored a run.

Broussard had one at-bat in the last two weeks, but hit his seventh home run of the season in the seventh inning to ruin Carlos Silva’s bid for a shutout.

Out of the bullpen, there was Rowland-Smith.

“If he can’t get outs there, we’re taking innings out of the next series from guys we don’t want to use but have to,” McLaren said.

Rowland-Smith came in smiling and left four innings later with his smile intact and his earned run average sliced from 4.19 to 3.47. The 24-year-old left-hander not only didn’t allow a run, he didn’t allow a hit and struck out six Twins.

The last time he’d pitched? Eight days earlier.

“You want to enjoy every chance you get because you never know when the next one’s coming,” Rowland-Smith said. “For me, it’s always like, ‘Here we go!’ when I’m called in.

“Rafael Chaves and Jim Slaton (the Mariners’ pitching and bullpen coaches) have been working a lot with me on mechanics and it’s done wonders. I’ve closed my front foot off a little, kept my weight back, stopped opening up my front shoulder too soon …”

He laughed.

“I saw video of myself last week and I said, ‘That’s what I look like?’ It was pretty bad.”

Not this time. Rowland-Smith got the Mariners through the sixth inning, then let fellow lefty John Parrish pitch the last two innings.

Given all those shutout innings after Batista’s departure, the Mariners’ offense tried to get back into the game, and got exactly halfway to the Twins’ total. By the seventh inning, McLaren pulled Ichiro Suzuki and inserted Adam Jones.

Why?

“Maybe that’s Ichiro’s day off this week,” McLaren said. “We got him a few innings off.”

Innings off isn’t an issue for Broussard or Bloomquist. For them, a pennant race has meant fewer at-bats, not more of them.

“I had one at-bat over the last two weeks, and it was against Joe Nathan – a closer,” Broussard said. “You can’t stay locked in. You don’t even know how locked-in feels.”

Twins 8, Mariners 4

LOB—Seattle 5, Minnesota 7. 2B—Beltre (33), THunter (35), Tyner (11). 3B—JGuillen (2), YBetancourt (2), Casilla (1). HR—Broussard (7), off CSilva; Cuddyer (13), off MBatista. RBIs—JGuillen (78), Ibanez (83), Broussard (25), YBetancourt (51), Casilla (8), Cuddyer 4 (71), Kubel (45), GJones (1), Punto (21). SB—ISuzuki (36). SF—Ibanez, Punto. GIDP—Beltre, Bloomquist, Casilla. RLSP—Seattle 4 (AJones, Ibanez, Sexson 2); Minnesota 3 (Watkins, GJones 2). RMU—Ibanez, Cuddyer. DP—Seattle 1 (Bloomquist, YBetancourt and Sexson); Minnesota 2 (Punto, Casilla and Morneau), (Punto and Morneau).

HBP—by CSilva (Johjima). T—2:16. A—29,881 (46,632).