M's wake up, win
By Bob Finnigan
Seattle Times staff reporter
So, when the Mariners spent five innings Monday imitating dead
mackerel against
But before it was over, the math that matched most was that
The win was the Mariners' seventh in nine games, and bumped them
past
"Lucky charm? I didn't know that
before," Sexson said of the homer/win statistic.
"So I guess I am now."
On a steamy, sweaty night, 94 degrees at game time with humidity
to match, it looked for a long time like the Mariners would need some kind of
charm with Loewen, the British Columbian who faced
the minimum 15 through five frames. They apparently got it, sending 16 batters
to the plate the next two innings.
Gil Meche started as rough as Loewen started right.
Mariners update
Winning pitcher: Julio Mateo (6-4)
Losing pitcher: Adam Loewen (1-3)
Tonight:
Starting pitchers: M's Jamie Moyer (6-9) vs. Rodrigo Lopez
(7-11)
"I don't know when the first time was I threw a pitch below
the waist," said the pitcher, who was up with everything except the three
to four curveballs he bounced short of the plate. "I wore sleeves to keep
the sweat off my hands. It worked great except I wound up boiling. I was so hot
I even changed two game jerseys; they were soaked."
In his personal sauna, Meche left
first-inning fastballs up to Brian Roberts — who turned it into the 39th ball,
first this year, hit onto Eutaw Street beyond the right-field stands — and to
Melvin Mora, whose homer was less notable but counted the same, for a 2-0 lead.
Meche escaped a jam in the second on three
strikeouts, but
"Yeah, it was like pitching back home," Meche, a Louisianan, said of the weather. "But that
was 10-11 years ago for me. I'm not used to it now. At one point in the third I
had trouble catching my breath, and my legs started to feel wobbly. I paced
around the mound as much as I could to give myself a break."
Finding his fastball, then his curve, Meche
got through the fourth and faced another two-on jam in the fifth, fanning Jay
Gibbons on a super curve to end it.
"The mood around here is really good. It's not a giddy
thing, it's like, 'Let's go after it,' " Mariners
manager Mike Hargrove said. "When we went behind and didn't go well for a
time, there was no panic, either."
As if
With one out in the sixth, Yuniesky
Betancourt blooped a single to center, the first of
his three hits in three straight innings, then Adam
Jones singled.
After Ichiro flied out harmlessly, Jose Lopez lined an RBI
single to left. Two batters later, Ibanez lined a two-run single to
right-center to tie the score 3-3.
Loewen got out of that inning, but the tide
had turned. In fact, they played "Anchors Aweigh" for the Navy
midshipmen packing one upper-deck section. As soon as that was done, Meche was also away, although he went to the mound for the
sixth.
"We had Emiliano Fruto up and ready, then when we tied it we got [Julio]
Mateo up quick," Hargrove said. "Meche
wasn't going to pitch. He gave us a great game, 96 tough pitches, on a night
when he didn't have his best stuff by far. But he was done; he just went to the
mound for more time for Mateo to get ready."
Nick Markakis homered
in the bottom of the inning to make it 5-4, but lefty George Sherrill and Fruto eased through the rest of the seventh. In the eighth,
Sexson led with the lucky long ball, Johjima hit a two-run homer and the Mariners eventually
went up 9-4.
"The kids are enjoying themselves," Sexson noted of Betancourt, Jones and Lopez. "They've
never been through a grind like this, so they'll need a day off now and then
and go get 'em.
"In fact, no one on our club has a ton of experience about
playing a stretch run in a pennant race. So all we're doing is going out and
playing. We are literally taking them one day at a time."