Patience its own reward for M’s
SEATTLE – Those free-swinging, hit-any-pitch-anywhere-it’s-thrown Seattle Mariners finally have run into something that leaves the bats on their shoulders: extreme bouts of wildness.
The Mariners, last in the American League in walks, have shown a patient side in recent games and, on Friday, it helped them beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-3 at Safeco Field.
Amid their eight hits, the Mariners drew four walks, including three in the second inning when they scored twice off Blue Jays starting pitcher Dustin McGowan. It continued a pattern that was prevalent in the three-game sweep of the Red Sox, when the Mariners drew 15 walks in those games.
The Mariners have won a season-best six straight and, for the first time this season, are 10 games better than .500 at 43-33. They also remained five games behind the first-place Angels in the American League West Division.
They had to survive their own flurry of walks late, when rookie Brandon Morrow walked two and George Sherrill another to load the bases with one out in the eighth. That forced manager Mike Hargrove into something he didn’t want to do, use closer J.J. Putz for more than an inning.
Putz gave up an infield single that scored a run, but he got out of the eighth and, despite a walk in the ninth, got Frank Thomas to hit into a game-ending double play.
Of Putz’s 23 saves, seven have come in multi-inning outings, including his last three saves.
“We can’t do that very often,” Hargrove said. “We need to keep J.J. effective and rested, and we can’t keep using him for an inning and two-thirds.”
McGowan, who took a no-hitter into the ninth inning against Colorado in his last start, hardly had that kind of stuff. The Mariners dinged him for three hits and two runs in the first inning, both scoring on Ben Broussard’s two-out single, and two more hits and two runs in the second.
The difference was the three walks McGowan issued, including one to Richie Sexson with the bases loaded to force in a run. Sexson’s 30 walks lead the M’s.
The M’s did their share of hitting, too.
Broussard, starting in left field as Raul Ibanez continues to recover from a strained hamstring, bounced a single up the middle to score the first-inning runs and give the Mariners a 2-1 lead. Jose Guillen returned to the No. 3 spot in the lineup and went 3 for 4, including RBI singles in the second and fourth innings.
Mariners starter Jarrod Washburn, whose eight-inning victory last Saturday over Cincinnati was his most impressive outing since April, overcame a stiff back before the game, plus a rough first inning when the Blue Jays scored a run on three hits. Then Washburn held them to a walk and a hit the next three innings and made it through six before Hargrove pulled him.