Two hits and one mistake in the first inning cost the Seattle Mariners three runs Saturday, and as a Safeco Field crowd of 17,884 learned, that was the game – they never did catch the Kansas City Royals.
Solo home runs by Mike Carp and Justin Smoak got them close, and Michael Pineda’s first eight-inning start kept them close, but in the end the Royals won, 4-2.
“Michael did a great job tonight,” manager Eric Wedge said. “They did a good job against him that first inning. We made one mistake, it’s a mistake that we’ll learn from.”
The mistake came after Alex Gordon led off the game with a double and took third on a ground-ball out. With Billy Butler up, the Royals ran a contact play – if Butler put the ball in play, anywhere, Gordon was to run.
Butler grounded to the right of first baseman Smoak, who took a step, back-handed the ball, straightened and threw to the plate – too late to get Gordon. Worse, it allowed Butler to reach first base safely.
That cost Seattle a run, because cleanup hitter Eric Hosmer hit his 17th home run of the season for a 3-0 lead. Afterward, Smoak was irate with himself.
“It was a bonehead play on my part. If the ball’s hit right at me, that’s the only chance you’ve got,” Smoak said of the play. “He took me to my right, and I’ve just got to go touch first. It was a mistake on my part.”
It was the one run the Mariners couldn’t make up.
Smoak cut into the Royals lead with his 14th home run, against Felipe Paulino in the second inning, and Carp hit his ninth of the season in the fourth inning.
That made it 3-2, but Carp’s home run was the last hit of the night for Seattle.
Paulino and two Royals relievers not only held the Mainers to two hits, they struck out 16 – eight on called third strikes by plate umpire Brian Runge. Runge’s strike zone was as big as the great outdoors, but it was the same for both teams.
“Paulino has a great arm. He did a good job with his fastball and he was working to both sides of the plate,” Wedge said. “He had a hard slider and mixed in a few change-ups.
“Still, we’re better than the number of strikeouts we had. We put it in the umpire’s hand too much, too, with the number of called third strikes. We’ve got to do a better job protecting the plate in those situations. We’ve got to protect the plate better than we did tonight.”
With the Mariners offense stymied, all Pineda could do was keep his team within a run, and through eight innings, he did. It was the first time in his 27 starts this season he’d gone that deep into a game.
There will be only one more start for him – and it will come Sept. 26 in Minnesota.
Going into that game, the big right-hander, a midseason All-Star, will be 9-10 with a 3.72 earned run average. He has pitched 167 innings, and his 171 strikeouts pushed him past Freddy Garcia and into second place on the franchise all-time rookie list – trailing only Mark Langston, who struck out 204 in 1984.
Pineda will not catch Langston unless Runge is working behind the plate in his last start.
Every Mariners batter struck out at least once, Saturday, and Ichiro Suzuki struck out three times. That left him with 167 hits and 17 games to play.
It didn’t help Seattle that when solid contact was made, the Royals were there to make good plays. Right-fielder Jeff Francoeur, who stole a home run and double from Dustin Ackley on Friday, was at it again.
With one out in the seventh inning, Carp lined a ball into the right-field corner, headed for the painted yellow line atop the fence. As the ball got there, so did Francoeur, who made a marvelous catch.
“Ackley and I were joking – we’ve got to beat him up or something,” Carp said, shaking his head.
Even when the Mariners had a bit of luck it didn’t last long.
Miguel Olivo was safe on a one-out error in the fifth inning and Kyle Seager followed with a line drive into left-center field. Melky Cabrera not only caught it, but he also doubled Olivo off first base.
Through all of it, Pineda held his ground, and the Royals didn’t score their final run until the ninth inning against reliever Tom Wilhelmsen. What did Pineda change after the first?
“He did a better job with his fastball, better job mixing in his secondary stuff,” Wedge said. “Kansas City is a young, aggressive ballclub. They’re up there ready to hit.’
“Michael looked better tonight than I’ve seen him in a while, we just didn’t score any runs for him,” Carp said.
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
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