Olivo’s bizarre homer gives boost to Mariners
DETROIT – Miguel Olivo still hadn’t seen a replay of his first home run this season and swore up and down that he wasn’t about to.
Olivo wanted no part of tempting fate following a second-inning home run Tuesday night that he suggested both God and Lady Luck had a hand in. One could forgive Olivo some hyperbole given how his season had gone up until a fluke, deflected home run on his line drive to left set the stage for a 7-3 win by his Mariners over the Detroit Tigers.
The Mariners never trailed after Olivo’s tying shot, which struck the glove of sprinting left fielder Ryan Raburn at the lip of the warning track and deflected at least 15 feet up and over the fence. Not only that, but the spot of good fortune seemed to help some other hard-luck Mariners get their bats going.
“When the ball hit his glove, I thought he caught it,” Olivo said. “It was so obvious. All the balls I hit, everybody catches them. Then, I saw the second-base umpire doing the home-run signal and I said, ‘Thank God! My luck is coming back.’ ”
Olivo followed up the long ball with a fourth inning double ahead of a two-run homer by Justin Smoak off Tigers starter Phil Coke. Smoak was playing his first game since his father, Keith, passed away from lung cancer last week, and Olivo was among the first to greet him as he headed back to the dugout.
“I said ‘Hey, that’s for Papa,’ ” Olivo said he told Smoak. “I got chills when he hit it.”
Seattle broke things open for good in the fifth inning, scoring four times off Coke to snap a 3-3 tie and silence 18,027 fans at Comerica Park. Two of those runs came on a triple by Chone Figgins, a hitter faring just as poorly as Olivo when it comes to luck.
Olivo spoke about the need for the Mariners to support one another and indeed, they rallied together here. Besides the Figgins triple, .236-hitting Jack Wilson had a single and a key double as well, helping to pick up a laboring Felix Hernandez on a night he didn’t have his best stuff.
Hernandez survived a shaky first inning and battled through six tough frames for the victory despite being unable to locate his breaking balls for much of the night. David Pauley took over for two key shutout innings, followed by a perfect ninth from Brandon League.
And the hitters took their cues from Olivo.
Despite a 23 percent line-drive rate that’s his best in years, Olivo was hitting just .164 coming in because some of his best-hit balls keep landing in opposition gloves.
But Mariners manager Eric Wedge, knowing Olivo was hitting the ball well, inserted him in the cleanup spot and moved a struggling Jack Cust down to No. 6. Wedge insisted pregame that it was imperative for his players not to give away easy outs, fearing the hard luck was taking a mental toll on them.
“I want them to make better outs,” Wedge said. “I know some people probably roll their eyes when I say that, but I want you to get something from those outs. I want to make progress with those outs. And I think the approach and the mindset and ultimately your confidence level comes right along with that.
“What I don’t want to see is for us to keep spinning our wheels.”
Figgins was one of the first to congratulate Olivo after the home run. Much like Olivo, Figgins has a good line-drive rate, but terrible luck at getting balls to drop in.
“That’s something we’ve talked about, me and him,” Figgins said. “We’ve been going through it for a while. And after he hit it I said, ‘Man, you’re in a different category now, because your break was off his glove.’ ”
The M’s had six extra-base hits.
Complete box score on Page B3