Raul hits home run, M’s complete 2-5 home stand

Yesterday, Raul Ibanez hit a 443-foot home two-run home run in the third inning to punctuate the M’s 6-3 win to bookend the Mariners’ seven-game home stand with victories in the first and last games, sandwiching a five-game losing streak.  Ibanez’s blast was the longest homer hit at Safeco this year, a day after Chicago’s Brain Anderson hit a 438-foot bomb in the White Sox’ 8-4 win on Saturday night, and the longest hit since Mark Teixeira took J.J. Putz 456-feet deep last summer.

Ibanez’s bomb keyed a 13-hit attack, which also included four walks and- perhaps most surprisingly- just two strikeouts.  Both Jose Lopez and Ichiro collected three hits in four at-bats, with Kenji Johjima and Yuniesky Betancourt also dialing in multi-hit efforts.  Encouragingly, the team was able to muster all this offense against White Sox starter Gavin Floyd, who had been pitching lights out so far in his 2008 season.  In his last start against the Twins,  Floyd carried a no-hitter into the ninth,  finishing for his second one-hit start in a month.  Yet, somehow, the M’s were able to knock Floyd out in the fourth inning, forcing Floyd to toss 75 pitches as the Mariners collected five runs on nine hits.

The offensive explosion made Miguel Batista winner for the first time in four tries.  Despite being touched for ten hits, Batista gave up just thee runs.  After 2.2 scoreless innings tossed by the bullpen in relief, the ball was handed over to Putz for his first first save opportunity in ten days, and J.J. made the most of it, ringing up Nick Swisher on a swinging strikeout for his third save of the year, as opposed to walking in the tying run.

Still, going 2-5 at Safeco after a 1-5 road trip means, obviously, that the Mariners have won just three of their last thirteen games as they’ve free-fallen into the depths of their division.  What started out as a 3.5 game deficit a couple weeks ago- still within striking distance- has now opened up into an eight-game chasm.  The Mariners take a brief detour to Arlington for three games against the Rangers, looking to return the favor of slapping Texas around in their home ballpark, as the Rangers did by taking three of four last week.  Still, considering the M’s have an atrocious .333 road winning percentage, chances are they’ll only win one, at best, of the three games at Rangers Ballpark.

Tonight might be the best chance of the three, with a reprise between the Erik Bedard- Vincente Padilla match up from last Friday.  Bedard, of course, was excellent in allowing two runs in seven innings, only to be out pitched by Padilla who kept the M’s scoreless through seven on his way to a 2-0 victory for the Rangers.  Bedard has split two decisions at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, allowing a 3.72 ERA, 16 hits, and a 21:6 strikeouts-to-walks ratio in 19 innings.  Tonight will be Erik’s first start at Rangers Ballpark in nearly three years, since allowing three runs in five innings of a 7-6 extra-inning victory for Texas over the Orioles.  Padilla, meanwhile, held the Mariners in check for one run over six innings the last time he faced Seattle in Arlington last August, picking up the win in a 5-3 Rangers victory.

Any optimism from yesterday’s hot bats will be short lived, as Padilla will once again have little trouble silencing the Mariners’ line-up.  Expect them to fall in another pitcher’s duel as once again Bedard will pitch good enough to win for any team, but falls to a 2-3 record as the M’s drop to the Rangers by a score of 4-2.

And I do want to point out that right now, the Mariners have the same amount of wins as the Washington Nationals.  Oh when do the San Diego Padres come to town for the much ballyhooed natural “rivalry” with Seattle?