Rookies go down swinging in clutch

Hours before the game, manager Eric Wedge talked about the process of making young players tough.

“A mistake can shorten the learning curve,” Wedge said of the Seattle Mariners crop of rookies. “You can’t really tell if it’s for real until after the league adjusts to you.”

The Chicago White Sox made a few key adjustments in make-or-break moments Friday, and the results produced Seattle’s 4-2 loss in front of a Safeco Field crowd of 28,621.

With video of the Mariners young hitters to study, the White Sox hung on for their 64th win by striking out two hitters – Kyle Seager in the seventh inning, Mike Carp in the ninth – with the game in the balance.

“These kids are in playing in situations they haven’t faced at this level, and they’re not always successful,” Wedge said. “But they’ll learn. And we’ll learn all about them.”

Seager came in as the hottest hitter Seattle had, a kid with nine hits in his last three games, and then he doubled in the fourth inning.

After hits by Franklin Gutierrez and Carp and a walk to Miguel Olivo, Seager came to the plate in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and two outs – and the Mariners couldn’t have asked for a better point-blank opportunity.

Veteran Jesse Crain got ahead, then struck Seager out with an off-speed pitch that had the third baseman lunging.

And in the ninth, with a runner on board and two outs, Carp came up as the Mariners’ last hope, a cleanup hitter who’d singled and walked earlier in the game.

Left-hander Chris Sale threw him three nasty breaking pitches and ended it.

No, it wasn’t just Seager and Carp who had chances and didn’t convert. The Mariners went 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base against Chicago.

Part of that was six innings by veteran righty Jake Peavy, who knows quite a bit about pitching and flashed it.

On the flipside, Mariners starter Charlie Furbush, one of the 12 rookies on the 25-man roster, wobbled early and gave up two Chicago runs in the first inning – both on balls so softly hit they looked like slow-pitch softball popouts.

Seattle came back with a run in the second inning, on Miguel Olivo’s 16th home run, then tied it in the fourth when Seager doubled and scored on a single Trayvon Robinson parachuted into center field.

Furbush couldn’t hold the tie.

White Sox leadoff hitter Juan Pierre bunted safely to lead off the fifth inning and the No. 2 hitter in the Chicago lineup – Northwest product Brent Lillibridge – absolutely clubbed one over the fence in left-center field.

The Mariners have come back from deficits larger than two runs, but not on this night. Not with manager Ozzie Guillen mixing and matching bullpen pieces against the Mariners the final three innings.

After Peavy gave them six innings, the White Sox went with left-hander Matt Thornton, the ex-Mariner, right-hander Crain and then lefty Chris Sale.

The matchups worked and the lead held, though the Mariners out-hit the Sox, 10-8.

Seattle kept Chicago close the final four innings with two shutout innings apiece from rookie Tom Wilhelmsen, who topped out at 98 mph, and veteran Jeff Gray. Rock-solid relief, but in the end, the offense couldn’t make it pay out.

After winning three of four against Cleveland on the road, the Mariners had hoped to carry that momentum into a seven-game homestand. And it wasn’t as if they were overwhelmed by the White Sox.

Ichiro and Franklin Gutierrez each had a pair of hits, and the only Mariner held hitless was Wily Mo Peña, who went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. If Justin Smoak were healthy, Peña might be with the Tacoma Rainiers today.

As for Ichiro, his late-season surge has gotten his hit total to 148 – 52 shy of 200 with just 32 games remaining. Ichiro has never failed to surpass that plateau in his first 10 seasons.

For Wedge and his staff, and the Mariners front office, the final 32 games of 2011 amount to auditions for all those rookies. And, as Wedge suggested, the first 50-75 at-bats aren’t always the fairest with which to make a decision.

The American League has, for instance, seen Carp’s 20-game hitting streak and will try to pitch him in a way that makes him as uncomfortable as possible. Yes, Carp will have to adjust in turn.

But how effectively?

Similarly, Wilhelmsen’s pitching was a bright spot Friday, but the issue isn’t whether he can pitch – but can he pitch like that consistently?

The Mariners would love to pile up wins in their final month, but in the long run they need answers more than victories.

larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners