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The Mariners' game was twice delayed by rain last night, for 30 minutes in the fourth and 62 minutes in the eighth.
For Seattle, those were the good times.
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But the mood in the clubhouse after a 10-8 loss to the Texas Rangers definitely was not one of resignation. Rather, the focus was on coming back from being down 7-2 and 10-5, and on the ninth-inning at-bats of Dave Hansen and Scott Spiezio.
The atmosphere was not even dinged by the expected loss of outfielder Raul Ibanez
for a game or two with a bruised tailbone after fifth-inning contact with third
baseman Spiezio in short left field.
Hansen and Spiezio injected a bushel of hope for games ahead at the end of a
long night that started with Joel Pineiro having a poor outing for the third
time in four games. Loss or not, there can be no debate on the quality of the
late at-bats, even though neither succeeded.
After John Olerud led off the ninth inning with a walk, Hansen ripped a fastball
from Texas closer Francisco Cordero on a line to right — right at Kevin
Mench.
"They say baseball is a game of inches, but ... geez," Hansen said.
"I saw he (Mench) never moved, and I thought I had hit it over him, or
maybe I was hoping I thought I hit it over him."
Mench eventually moved back, stuck his glove up, and the ball stuck in it.
With two outs and two on, Spiezio, who homered and tripled in previous at-bats,
battled Cordero, who was throwing nasty sliders and fastballs at 98-99 mph.
Spiezio worked the count full, fouled off two fastballs and two sliders, then
fanned at a 99 mph heater on the black away.
"I just missed two of those pitches, one a slider, one a fastball,"
Spiezio said. "It was a battle, and I enjoyed it. He got me, but he got
me with his best. It was fun."
Yet, while the Mariners hit into some hard outs and the Rangers blooped in some
significant hits, most of Seattle's night was neither best nor fun.
Possibly the worst part was that the margin of loss was two runs that scored
on wild pitches, with Pineiro bouncing a 58-foot curveball past catcher Ben
Davis in the fourth and reliever Ron Villone airmailing a wild one over the
6-foot-4 Davis in the seventh.
"One of them bounced through Ben's legs," Mariners manager Bob Melvin
said. "In a game like this, you have to keep the scoring to a minimum.
We definitely had our opportunities later."
The Mariners started out with two runs in the first three innings, breaking
a nine-game span in which they could not score in that time. Yet for a third
straight game, and 11th time in 17 games, the Seattle starter was not what he
should have been.
Following bad games by Gil Meche and Jamie Moyer to end the homestand, Pineiro's
Moyer-like third struggle in four starts had a familiar feel — two outs,
look out.
Pineiro gave back leads of 1-0 in the second and 2-1 in the third. After the
first rain delay ended, he was tagged for four runs in the fourth, leaving him
with 20 two-out runs of 21 this year and a putrid 8.46 earned-run average.
"The weird part is that I felt great," Pineiro said. "I felt
much better than I did when I pitched against these guys in Seattle and allowed
only two runs. I'm starting to wonder what's going on."
Melvin left Pineiro in a bit longer than he might have, "because our bullpen
was pretty beat up. I thought Joel did leave some pitches up, but was throwing
the ball good, with a good curveball and good change.
"We don't seem to be having the right things happen for us at the right
times."
One of the things that did not happen right was Laynce Nix's broken-bat bloop
for two runs with two outs in the seventh off Villone, who came in when Kevin
Jarvis gave up two hits to start the inning.
"Villone is facing a lefty hitter and made the pitch he wanted and breaks
his bat, and it ends up two runs," Melvin said. "It seems like we
try to make our own breaks, and I know we've been saying that a bit, but it
is a little bit uphill right now."
Consistency from the offense would help. Over the first five innings, Rangers
starter Ryan Drese, who will not be mistaken for Tim Hudson or Bartolo Colon,
got outs in key situations.
Seattle got its first hit with a man in scoring position on Edgar Martinez's
RBI double in the eighth. By that time the Mariners were 0 for 9 with men in
scoring position, and by night's end they were a horrendous 3 for 36 over the
past five games.
Martinez drove in Seattle's final run, but that wasn't its last gasp. Down by
two, the Mariners put the tying runs on, on both sides of the second rain storm.
Cordero worked both sides of the deluge, too. He came on to chill the eighth
by fanning Rich Aurilia at 97 mph. In the ninth, having gotten lucky on Hansen's
wicked liner, Cordero ended the game by striking out Spiezio.