Over the course of their first 126 games, of which they lost 78, the Kansas City Royals hit 107 home runs – tied for last in the American League.
So they were due.
The surprise was that they broke loose against the team with the league’s lowest earned run average, the Seattle Mariners, who could not keep the Royals from leaving Safeco Field early and often Thursday en route to their 8-4 victory.
Rookie Doug Fister gave up three of Kansas City’s four home runs as the Royals pushed across most of their runs with the long ball.
It was a season-high for the Royals, and not at all in the game plan for Seattle.
“You replay that game in your head, you think of two walks that preceded home runs, a wild pitch that set up a run on an infield single,” manager Don Wakamatsu said. “That’s five runs right there, and it beat us.”
A team that wins by limiting the opposition scoring and finding ways to eke out a few runs of its own, the Mariners on this night fell behind in the second inning on catcher Brayan Peña’s fifth home run of the year – a two-run shot – and never caught up.
Fister would look sharp for a spell, retiring eight in a row at one point, and then leave a pitch over the plate and centered.
Even a 25-year-old making his fifth start knows what happens to those kind of pitches.
“What Fister has on his side are command and the angle on his pitches, and tonight he had trouble at times with both,” Wakamatsu said. “He was hurt with all three of his pitches – fastball, curve and change-up.
“When you don’t have an above-average fastball, you’ve got to be pretty good out there. You leave pitches up,”
Along with Peña, Yuniesky Betancourt – yes, that Yuniesky Betancourt – and Alberto Callaspo hit home runs against Fister. And in the seventh inning, Shawn Kelley was touched for a two-run home run by David DeJesus.
“You’ve got to play the game well to beat anybody in this league, and we didn’t,” Wakamatsu said.
The Mariners rallied for two runs in the fifth inning on RBI singles by Kenji Johjima and Franklin Gutierrez, which got them to within a run at 3-2.
Before they came up again, Callaspo’s home run made it 5-2. An inning later, DeJesus went deep and it was 7-2.
The chances Seattle did have to climb back in the game, it either squandered or got too little from.
Down by three runs in the sixth inning, for instance, the Mariners got a walk and Bill Hall’s one-out double to put runners on second and third base for Russell Branyan. Given that point-blank RBI opportunity, Branyan popped out and Johjima struck out.
It was that kind of night for the Seattle offense, as it often is. If two runs doesn’t keep the Mariners in a game, they’re likely to be in trouble. By the ninth inning, when Jack Wilson followed a Johjima single with his first AL home run, they were in too much trouble to have it matter.
“I wish the first home run over here had mattered,” Wilson said. “I’ve really been struggling, and it’s all about comfort. I’m facing guys and I don’t know what’s going to come out of their hands.
“I spent all those years with one team, in one league, and I got comfortable at the plate knowing how guys had pitched me before. It’s like I knew everything about everyone. Here, I have no idea.”
Wilson isn’t alone in the transition. Hall is new to the AL, and rookie Michael Saunders is new to any place above Triple-A.
On a night when all three Mariners pitchers who worked allowed runs – a rarity this season – the Seattle offense wasn’t up to rolling an eight.
As a result, Seattle lost the chance to gain a game in the wild card standings, a precious opportunity lost to get to within 61/2 games of Boston. Kansas City snapped Seattle’s three-game winning streak and brought the Mariners to earth.
Whatever lies ahead in the final weeks of the ’09 season, the Mariners cannot play less than their best and beat anyone – not even the team with the league’s worst record. In fact, the Royals have proved that all season, going 4-2 against the Mariners.
Kansas City hadn’t hit four home runs in a game since May 23, 2007.
Yes, they were due. As was Wilson.
His home run was his first since July 7, and the two-hit game raised his average as a Mariner from .193 to .213.
“I want to help this team down the stretch, and I think I can,” Wilson said. “We’ve got a lot of guys in here capable of making a difference, and I’d like to be one of them.”
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/mariners
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