It took them 84 games to earn a loss quite like this, and the Seattle Mariners wouldn’t mind waiting another three months or so before it happens again.
On a drippy, close-the-roof July afternoon Wednesday, Jason Vargas threw five shaky but shutout innings, Miguel Batista loaded the bases with no one out in the seventh – and still Seattle had Baltimore shut out into the ninth inning.
There, with a 3-0 lead, it was David Aardsma Time at Safeco Field.
Five hits, a walk and two errors later, the Orioles had come back with a five-spot, beating Aardsma and the Mariners, 5-3.
“You could feel the game turning,” Baltimore manager Dave Trembley said. “The game was turning in a hurry.”
Did it ever.
“I came out and tried to over-pitch,” Aardsma said. “Then when I did throw strikes, they were right down the middle. I got in trouble today, and I felt like by the time I did make a few good pitches, it didn’t work out.”
What had been one of the shakier shutouts in memory through eight innings imploded when Aardsma gave up a double, a walk and a single to load the bases with Orioles with no one out.
The Mariners had gotten out of that situation in the seventh inning without allowing a run when Garrett Olson did some marvelous relief work. Aardsma nearly pulled it off, too – and wound up allowing five runs.
“I threw a pretty good split-finger (fastball) to Adam Jones, and he barely hit it,” Aardsma said, shaking his head. “He rolled it up the third base line and Chris (Woodward) had no play ...”
That scored Baltimore’s first run, and kept the bases loaded.
With a Safeco Field crowd of 27,040 shifting around nervously, Aardsma made another good pitch and got a double play ground ball from Nick Markakis to second base – where Jose Lopez dropped it.
“All my life I’ve known you need to make the play first, make sure you get at least one out on a ball like that,” Lopez said. “It was a double play, I just missed the ball. It went in and out of my glove.”
Another run scored and the bases remained loaded.
“If I make that play, we win the game,” Lopez said.
Ty Wiggington singled for two runs and, with two outs, pinch-hitter Brian Roberts grounded to Lopez, whose throw to first was low for an error – allowing a fifth Orioles run to score.
Some managers might have exploded after the inning. Think Lou Piniella. Some might have closed their doors and not spoken. Think Bob Melvin.
Don Wakamatsu steadfastly stood behind his players and his team.
“All season we’ve put ourselves in position to win games and we’ve won a lot of those. Today, we put ourselves in position to win and it got away,” Wakamatsu said. “This bullpen has done an awful lot for us this season. David Aardsma has almost carried us at times.
“Lopez tried to make a quick turn to get two, and sometimes you forget you’ve got to catch the ball first.
“We lost, it’s over, we’ll regroup for Texas and get back on the horse (tonight).”
In the last week before baseball’s All-Star break, the Mariners stumbled against Baltimore, losing two of three games and falling 41/2 games off the pace in the American League West.
Particularly galling was this one came on a day when the Mariners had survived eight tough innings and were up three runs before it all went south. Of the 17 runs Baltimore scored in this series, only two came against a starting pitcher.
Lopez homered in the first inning, a two-run shot that gave him 50 RBI and put Vargas ahead, 2-0. The left-hander didn’t have his best stuff and wobbled through each inning, but somehow got through five without allowing a run.
He allowed three hits and five walks, but struck out six. All those pitches piled up, however, and after five he’d thrown 97 and was done – the last three outs coming on hard hit balls.
The Mariners held the Orioles at bay and added a run in the eighth inning when shortstop Oscar Salazar threw a ball away with two outs and Lopez on second.
“When we got that third run, it looked like enough,” Wakamatsu said.
Asked if he had a short memory for such innings, Aardsma nodded.
“Once I walked off the mound in the ninth, it was over,” he said. “It’s one game, and unfortunately, it will probably happen again sometime. I’ll do everything I can and work to make sure it doesn’t, but it probably will.”
“We’re human, and Aardsma got a couple of bad breaks and we lost,” Garrett Olson said. “But that’s baseball.”
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/mariners
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