M's slip back to old days with 9-6 loss to Indians

The uniforms came straight from 1989, the blue-and-yellow logo borrowed from a time when Seattle still played its baseball indoors and stayed south of .500.

The Mariners' performance Saturday was historically accurate right down to the outcome, a 9-6 loss to Cleveland in Saturday's turn-back-the-clock game at Safeco Field.

The Mariners (38-59) were not good early on. Not in terms of their history, going 14 seasons before finishing with a winning record. Not in Saturday's loss when Seattle allowed nine runs in the first three innings. That deficit turned out to be the difference as Seattle didn't allow a run in the final six innings and still never got the tying run to the plate despite scoring four runs in the final four innings.

"It was almost like two different games," Mariners manager Jim Riggleman said.

The Mariners didn't do very much to help either themselves or Miguel Batista (4-11) early on. Batista started in place of the ill Jarrod Washburn, and Batista allowed the most runs of any of his 16 starts this season. That's no small feat since his earned-run average has been above 5 since the first week of May. He allowed eight runs, gave up seven hits and retired six batters before he was replaced five batters into the third inning.

"Certainly he didn't have his best stuff out there," Riggleman said of Batista. "We made it tough on him. We didn't play real good behind him."

Ichiro made a leaping stab to get his glove on Ben Francisco's first-inning drive to deep right field, but the ball came out of his glove as he landed awkwardly on the grass. One run scored on Francisco's hit, but two pitches later, Cleveland's Shin-soo Choo hit a two-run homer and Cleveland (42-54) led 3-0.

Batista didn't allow a hit in the second, but gave up five consecutive base hits to begin the third inning. Three of those hits were doubles, and in a game played under the sun, it was a ball Willie Bloomquist lost in the sun that pretty much spelled the end for Batista.

With a runner on second and two runs already in, Bloomquist saw the ball come off Choo's bat on a drive to deep center. Bloomquist kept his eyes trained on the ball as he chased it toward the center-field wall. He lost sight of it just about the time he hit the warning track.

"It went through the sun," Bloomquist said. "I don't see it again until it's bouncing over the fence."

Choo scored when the next batter, Casey Blake, singled to left field. Raul Ibanez's throw home would have been in time for the out, but catcher Jeff Clement couldn't quite field it on the hop. Batista was replaced by Ryan Rowland-Smith at that point, his ERA bloated to 6.98.

Cleveland sent 11 batters to the plate in the third inning and six of them scored. Seattle trailed 9-1 by the time it came to the plate for the bottom of the third.

Cleveland didn't score again. Then again, it didn't have to. All that remained was six innings of sunshine in front of 37,869 as the Mariners tried to make a comeback. Raul Ibanez hit a solo homer in the third. Seattle added two more runs in the sixth on a ground-out and a wild pitch, and Ichiro hit a two-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

Bloomquist followed Ichiro's home run with a single, but the final out of the game came on Ibanez's sharp grounder down the first-base line. Blake dove to stop the ball and threw to the pitcher covering first, just beating Ibanez to the bag.

That was the final out in a game that wound up looking like so many of Seattle's games in the 1980s both because of the uniforms and the outcome.

Danny O'Neil: 206-464-2364 or doneil@seattletimes.com