Morrow, Mariners can’t beat West champs
K-Rod ties single-season saves record
ANAHEIM, Calif. – Last time, he electrified. This time, he labored.
Six days later, Brandon Morrow morphed from scintillating to survival mode.
He didn’t come close to matching the impossibly high standards of his first outing, a near no-no against the Yankees. The Mariners fell 7-4 to the Angels, newly crowned champions of the A.L. West, who rode the strong pitching of Jered Weaver.
Reliever Francisco Rodriguez came in during the ninth inning for the Angels to earn his 57th save, tying Bobby Thigpen’s 1990 record with the White Sox.
But Morrow still showed a few flashes of the dominating starter the Mariners hope he will become. He lasted five innings, gave up five hits, walked four (one intentional) and struck out four.
The Mariners trailed 2-0 when Morrow left, but Anaheim broke it open with five runs in the sixth off Sean Green and Justin Thomas.
Last Friday, in his superb major-league starting debut, Morrow made 106 pitches last 72/3 innings. This time, he threw 90 pitches and was done after five.
The difference was command. Against the Yankees, he threw 68 percent strikes, against the Angels only 57 percent.
This time, he lost his no-hitter with one out in the third inning instead of two outs in the eighth.
Morrow peaked at 96 mph on the speed gun at Angel Stadium, and broke off a few nice breaking pitches.
The Angels may have clinched the division a night earlier – the fetid smell of stale champagne still permeated their locker room on Thursday – but they still have something to play for.
They began the night just one-half game ahead of Tampa Bay for the best record in baseball, which brings with it home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Last season, they were edged out for the best record in the final week by Boston, which promptly swept them in the division series.
Ichiro, in pursuit of 200 hits for the eighth straight year – he began the game with 190 – lost one in the fifth when Angels center fielder Gary Matthews made a sliding catch on his soft fly to right-center. But in the eighth, Ichiro put one where no one could catch it, launching his sixth homer for hit No. 191.
Ichiro made a sliding catch of his own on Robb Quinlan in the seventh, kicking up a huge divot from the turf.
Notes
Adrian Beltre will have season-ending surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left thumb. That much has been decided. The big question is when, and that’s something that Beltre is still mulling over.