Mariners beat Royals to 61 wins

It may not rank up there with fighting for a pennant, but in baseball there is something to be won or lost each day the game is played.

So it was that the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mainers faced off to see which team would be the first to win its 61st game of the season – and the Mariners overcame a rocky start to capture that particular honor with a 7-3 victory.

Matched against another under-achieving team laden with young talent hesitantly making good, the Mariners fell behind in the first inning, 2-0, then looked like a much better team – for the night, anyway.

“They’re an aggressive team, a good hitting team and they came out swinging,” manager Eric Wedge said. “I was proud of our guys for coming right back in the first inning to tie the game.”

And then? Well, Ichiro Suzuki had a big night – four hits, a home run and two stolen bases – Italian rookie Alex Liddi collected his first hit and catcher Miguel Olivo was three-fourths of the way to hitting for the cycle by the fifth inning.

It was another big night for Ichiro, who homered, singled three times and stole his 38th and 39th bases of the season, a night after hitting his fourth home run and stealing two bases. With 18 games left, Ichiro now has 167 hits – 33 shy of his 11th consecutive 200-hit season.

“We’re a better team when Ichiro contributes,” Wedge said.

Ichiro’s offense took a back seat for the night to veteran Olivo, who was pushed into the cleanup spot while Mike Carp got a night off.

Olivo, batting fourth? The man took the job seriously. He doubled home Brendan Ryan to tie the game in the first inning.

In the third inning, Olivo hit a solo home run – his 17th of the season. And, leading off the fifth inning, he tripled, shooting a ball up the gap in right-center field.

Double, triple, home run. See a pattern? Olivo needed only a single for the cycle, but flied out in the sixth inning and then had to wait and see if he’d come up again. Olivo did – in the bottom of the eighth inning.

With one out and two men on, Olivo grounded into a double play, shortstop-to-second-to-first. It was the only time in memory a Safeco Field crowd gave an ovation to a Mariner after he’d grounded into a double play.

“Everyone rooting for ‘Miggy,’” Wedge said. “He had a great game.”

Then, surprisingly, Wedge talked about Dustin Ackley – who didn’t get a hit all night but should have.

“Ackley hit the ball square three times in a row and had nothing to show for it,” Wedge said.

True enough. Ackley lined to center in the first inning and, in the third inning, hammered a ball over the fence in right field. Royals right fielder Jeff Francoeur tracked it, leaped and – with the upper half of his body hanging over the fence – made a remarkable over-the-shoulder catch.

Ackley tested Francoeur again in the fourth inning with a shot headed toward the wall – an apparent double – only to have Francoeur make another leaping catch as the ball went over his head.

Winning pitcher Blake Beavan looked like he was in for a short night when he gave up two first-inning runs on four hits – all of them hit hard. A quick conference on the mound with pitching Carl Willis helped him get out of that inning, but what followed was inexplicable.

Beavan simply shut the Royals down inning after inning while the Mariners kept scoring.

It was 2-2 after the first inning, 4-2 after the third, 5-2 after the fourth and 7-2 after the fifth inning. Beavan didn’t overpower anyone, finishing with three strike outs, but over the last 5 innings, Kansas City managed one run against him.

The result? The Mariners offense came alive, and Beavan was credited with his fourth big-league victory.

“Blake was a little erratic in the first inning, but he really settled in and took us deep,” Wedge said.

So the Mariners beat the Royals to 61 wins, which was about all they could achieve Friday night. It gave them two wins in a row, with two games left against Kansas City before the going gets tougher.

Just ahead? Three games with the New York Yankees, three more with the Texas Rangers.

For now, the strategy is simple. Beat the Royals, see what happens next week.

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