M’s drop fourth straight
HOUSTON – A frustrated Richie Sexson flung his bat a good 30 feet after striking out to end the fourth inning.
His helmet soon followed, logging an even greater distance. The gestures spoke volumes as to what’s going on inside the heads of a Mariners team plummeting to earth almost as quickly as it had risen to prominence.
The Mariners are frustrated. They are dog-tired. And they are losing, this time 9-4 on Saturday night to the Houston Astros.
“We’ve had two tough road trips this (past) month,” Sexson said after his team’s fourth consecutive defeat. “It’s been a long time that we’ve been on the road. Maybe some guys may be feeling it at this point.
“But we’ve all dealt with it before when we’ve had long stints,” he quickly added. “There have been times where we’ve had to play seven or eight in a row. So, you’ve just got to deal with it.”
The Mariners had dealt with it wonderfully in jumping out to a 5-0 start on this trip. Now, that record is down to 5-4 and only Astros ace Roy Oswalt, who they face this afternoon, stands between them not finishing above .500 on a trip that seemed season-defining a few days ago.
Sexson and company never had much of a chance in this one. Mariners starter Cha Seung Baek had another miserable first inning, then yielded a three-run homer to Craig Biggio on a hanging curveball in the second to fall behind 5-0.
Baek trailed 7-1 when pulled from the game after four innings and 86 pitches. Yuniesky Betancourt narrowed the gap with a two-run single in the fourth and Jose Guillen launched a solo homer to left off starter Woody Williams in the sixth to make it 7-4.
But with the bases loaded and two out in the seventh, Guillen lofted a full-count pitch by Astros reliever Joe Borkowski to center field, where it was caught for the final out. The Astros erased any doubts about the final outcome in the eighth when pinch-hitter Morgan Ensberg drilled a two-run homer to left off Jason Davis, the third Seattle reliever to come on after Baek.
Williams went 6 2/3 innings for the win as Houston captured only its fifth home series in a dozen tries in front of 41,974 fans at Minute Maid Park.
The Mariners, who fell six games behind the division leading Los Angeles Angels, have scored seven runs in their last four games. They’d averaged nearly that on a per-game basis for a month in building to a season-high nine games over .500.
But that 13-inning victory over the Cubs in Chicago last Tuesday might have sapped this team of more than just a few relief pitchers. The Mariners seemed to leave everything they had on the field that night and haven’t been the same since.
Sexson said it’s not difficult to tell when a team is tired. Especially one that’s had just a single off-day the past month.
“You can see it in the swings,” said Sexson, hitting just .194 but insisting he’s not tired. “Some of the pitchers in our bullpen have worked through a couple of rough spells. We used them quite a bit in that extra-inning game in Chicago. You see it throughout the team, I think, a little bit.”