Ichiro ties Seattle hitting streak in win

SEATTLE – Ichiro Suzuki extended his hitting streak to a career-high 24 games and the Seattle Mariners held on to beat the Texas Rangers 9-5 on Thursday night.

Ichiro went 3 for 5 with two RBIs and Kenji Johjima, Adrian Beltre and Yuniesky Betancourt all had two hits for Seattle. The Mariners’ first 11 hits of the game were singles.

Gerald Laird hit a three-run homer and Frank Catalanotto had a two-run double for Texas, which lost for the eighth time in nine games to fall a season-low 16 games less than .500. The Rangers lost a team-record 20 games in May.

Texas slugger Sammy Sosa struck out four times and remains stuck on 598 career homers.

Ichiro led off the bottom of the first with a base hit to center field. His hitting streak is the longest in the majors this season and tied with Joey Cora (1997) for the best streak in team history.

Jose Guillen reached on a one-out single off Vicente Padilla (2-8), who then walked Raul Ibanez to load the bases. Richie Sexson followed with a two-run single and Johjima’s base hit made it 3-0.

Beltre, Betancourt and Ichiro all had run-scoring singles in the third and Jose Vidro drove in a run with a groundout to extend the lead to 7-0.

Cha Seung Baek (3-2) sailed into the fourth before Texas broke through for five runs against the Mariners starter. Catalanotto doubled in Sosa and Mark Teixeira and Laird hit his third homer of the season.

Baek gave up five hits and walked two in 6 1/3 innings. He was replaced after he walked Kenny Lofton with one out and Brandon Morrow then walked two straight to load the bases. But the standout rookie responded by striking out Sosa and getting Catalanotto to ground out to extend his scoreless streak to 16 1/3 innings.

Padilla allowed nine hits and seven runs in three innings. He has given up six or more runs in six of his 12 starts.

Rest for the weary

On their 17th straight day to play baseball in a stretch of 23 games in a row, the Mariners took an uncommon break. They called off batting practice.

Mostly because they didn’t arrive in Seattle until about 3 a.m. after Wednesday night’s game in Anaheim, but also with the day-by-day-by-day schedule in mind, manager Mike Hargrove gave his team a breather. They weren’t required to be in uniform until 4:45 p.m.

Notes

Lofton went hitless on his 40th birthday. … Teixeira played in his 500th consecutive game, the second-longest streak in the major leagues behind Miguel Tejada’s 1,134.