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For those who bothered to come out for the ballgame last night, and there seemed to be fewer bodies than the 32,727 announced as official attendance, the Mariners and Twins put on two games.
The first was a Jamie Moyer classic, holding the American League's top offense
(a .311 batting average coming into the game) to three hits over eight innings
and handing a 3-2 lead over to Eddie Guardado in the ninth.
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The second game, which ended in a 4-3 win for Seattle in 16 innings, was ... well, it was different.
While it took just more than two hours to get to a 3-3 tie in the ninth, it
took almost three more hours until Scott Spiezio won it with a fielder's choice
to end what tied the sixth-longest game in Mariners history, seventh-longest
ever for the Twins.
"Don't ask me about the first eight innings," Mariners manager Bob
Melvin said, "I don't remember.
"We just keep battling. We're one pitch away from a win in just over two
hours and three games later, or five hours, or whatever, we get a big win."
Seth Greisinger, the eighth Twins pitcher — who had been supposed to start
a game later this week — hit Randy Winn with a pitch to open the final
frame. Ichiro moved Winn to third with his third single of the game and after
fouling off four pitches, Spiezio got the run home — just barely —
with a grounder to first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz.
Mientkiewicz's throw was off line, but Twins catcher Henry Blanco still appeared
to tag Winn before he got to the plate.
"I think that call could have gone either way," Winn said. "I
just snuck in there."
Melvin said, "It looked like he was safe to me."
It wasn't the first controversial call at the plate. In the ninth inning, the
Twins appeared to score the go-ahead run, but Corey Koskie was thrown out by
Ichiro. Replays showed that Koskie was safe.
By the end of the game, Moyer's effort, an encouraging second straight strong
start for the staff leader, was forgotten. And the surprise pregame announcement
that Melvin's 2005 option had been picked up was old enough to be cobwebbed.
Starting with Guardado coming one strike from a save against his old club, Part
2 of the night was one of those affairs you had to see to believe.
"Bizarre," Melvin said of the game. "Nothing went right for either
team. We had chances and non-chances and everything else, but a win's a win,
and we'll take it."
By the time it ended about five minutes to midnight, there were maybe 2,000
fans rattling around the Safeco stands, the Twins were down to two on the bench
and none in the bullpen, the Mariners left with Jolbert Cabrera on the bench
and J.J. Putz in the bullpen.
"I couldn't care less," Spiezio said of the odd nature of the game,
"as long as we're winning. At this point, we'll take any kind of win that
we can get."
The ninth and 10th innings ended with a Twins runner out at home, as debatable
as the first call by plate umpire Marty Foster might have been.
After the tying run scored on Torii Hunter's double to right, Ichiro's throw
was off target to the right and it appeared Koskie, who tried a hand tag of
home, beat Dan Wilson's diving tag. But Foster ruled he had missed and Wilson
had not, which caused an argument that got Koskie tossed.
In the 10th, reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa seemed to have blown another game
when he gave up a double to Lew Ford and single to left by Michael Cuddyer,
but Raul Ibanez saved the game with a fab throw that had Ford out.
And that was nothing compared to the 11th for Minnesota on the basepaths, with
runners thrown out at second from three different directions.
Rafael Soriano, just off the disabled list after nearly three weeks, walked
Shannon Stewart to open the inning and Cristian Guzman, whose fourth-inning
homer opened the scoring, bunted hard to first baseman John Olerud, who forced
the runner at second with a throw from near the mound.
With left-hander Mike Myers pitching, Mientkiewicz lined a perfect hit-and-run
ball into right field and wound up with a fielder's choice when Guzman reached
second and suddenly turned back toward first, in a bizarre display of odd baserunning,
apparently confused, although there did not appear to be any Mariners fakes
to fool him.
Anyway, Guzman was back at first wondering why Mientkiewicz was frantically
waving him off the bag when he was thrown out at second, from right field.
Then Myers picked off Mientkiewicz, who was thrown out by Olerud, from first
base.
With the Twins mown down on the bases, they had chance after chance to re-take
the game that had been almost theirs.
But nope, beyond Ibanez's two-run homer for a 2-1 lead in the fourth and, after
Hunter's solo homer tied it in the fifth, Winn's tie-breaking single for a two-out
run in the sixth, Seattle's offense was again manned by church mice.
After getting 10 hits in the first nine innings, the Mariners got three in the
last seven. But after Guardado and Hasegawa failed, Seattle relievers held the
Twins to one hit over the last six innings.
The Mariners had a shot in the ninth against Terry Mulholland when Ichiro led
off with a single and Spiezio bunted him into scoring position, then Bret Boone
was walked intentionally.
But Mulholland fanned Ibanez and Joe Roa came in to walk Edgar Martinez on 3-2
to load the bases. Olerud got ahead of lefty J.C. Romero 3-1, but took a fastball
to go 3-2 and bounced out to second to end the inning.
In the 13th, Dave Hansen hit for Wilson and led with a high chop single off
the plate. But Winn popped out on a botched bunt and with Ichiro up, pinch-runner
Quinton McCracken was out at second on what seemed a botched hit-and-run.
In the 14th, Guzman reached on a Boone error leading off and was again out at
second on a whacky play. Mientkiewicz bunted in the air and Spiezio charged
and dove and had the ball bounce out of his glove.
But Guzman was trapped close to first, not wanting to be doubled off and instead
was out at second when catcher Ben Davis picked up the ball and bounced a throw
to second.
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