For a night, Mariners live up to early hype

Because of a scheduling quirk, the Mariners and Twins met on Monday for the first time this season, a mere four months after opening day.

Because of a performance quirk, the belated confrontation found the teams having made dramatic departures from their preseason outlook.

Only one of them in a good way.

The Mariners, who roared back from a six-run deficit with a 10-run seventh inning to defeat the Twins, 11-6, at Safeco Field, long ago had to come to terms with the fact that this season was not to be the whirlwind of contention they had mapped out for themselves.

But for one exhilarating night, at least, they made life miserable for a Twins team that came to Safeco as the surprise leader in the American League Central.

Raul Ibanez was the instigator, driving in a team-record six runs in the seventh with a grand slam and two-run single.

"This game shows that we're capable of a lot more than we've shown this season, obviously," Ibanez said.

Watching from afar, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire admitted to being baffled by Seattle's 2008 downfall.

"It had to have been pretty frustrating, because they made an honest effort to really go out and put a team on the field that was going to be bingo bango," he said before Monday's game. "Sometimes, it just doesn't work out."

It didn't work out for the Twins on Monday, but for the Mariners, it was truly, uh, bingo bango.

Leading 6-1 entering the bottom of the seventh, the Twins self-destructed as Ibanez broke Ken Griffey Jr.'s record of five RBI in one inning (April 29, 1999, vs. Detroit).

The big blow was a grand slam by Ibanez, who came up with the bases loaded again in the inning. With visions of Fernando Tatis dancing in his head — or not — Ibanez "settled" for a two-run single.

Tatis is the only player in history with two grand slams in an inning. He did it with the Cardinals against the Dodgers on April 23, 1999.

"I was thinking smaller — stay to the big part of the field, and don't try to do too much," Ibanez said. "The likelihood of doing that [another grand slam] was not too great."

Jose Lopez singled home the tying run for the Mariners, and pinch-hitter Jeff Clement singled home the go-ahead run as Gardenhire used four pitchers, to no avail.

Minnesota had knocked out M's starter Miguel Batista in the fourth inning as the Safeco crowd of 27,758 booed the struggling pitcher.

Batista gave up seven hits and four walks and was charged with six runs. That raised his earned-run average to 6.80, and with Ryan Rowland-Smith pitching six strong innings for Tacoma on Monday, a rotation change could be in the offing.

"We have been and will continue to monitor how he [Rowland-Smith] is doing," Mariners manager Jim Riggleman said. "We want to get him up here, but we have no timetable on it."

Batista's counterpart, rookie left-hander Glen Perkins, was breezing along into the seventh, holding a 6-1 lead when Ibanez knocked him out with the grand slam to right.

Brian Bass replaced Perkins, and the Mariners kept hitting. Adrian Beltre doubled and came home with the tying run when Lopez dropped a single into right field.

Lopez reached second on a wild pitch, and scored on a two-out single by Clement. Two more scored on an infield single by Yuniesky Betancourt that elicited a throwing error by shortstop Brendan Harris.

After two walks reloaded the bases, Ibanez delivered a sharp single up the middle for two more runs.

Ibanez was the hero less than a week after the Mariners were purported to be in negotiations with the Blue Jays on a trade involving him that fell apart at the July 31 deadline.

"I really don't know how close any of that came," Riggleman said. "I know we value him so much, it was going to be a high price to lose Raul, or a lot of guys."

Ibanez said he wasn't sweating out the trade rumors — but the rest of his family was.

"My wife is seven months pregnant — she was thinking about it a lot more than me," he said. "You just change uniforms and play. She was definitely relieved."

So was Ibanez's 6-year-old son, Raul Jr.

"He called me that day and said, 'Daddy, we didn't get traded.' I said, 'What's that 'we' stuff?' "

Slowing down

Riggleman backed off slightly on plans to move Brandon Morrow into the rotation, which he had tied to J.J. Putz's readiness to resume as closer.

"I probably got ahead of myself in talking about that, because I don't know when we're going to do that," he said. "We've got to be really clear in our minds and his mind as to what's the best process."

Riggleman added, "Basically, there needs to be a plan put in place. It might be soon, but it might not be as soon as I was alluding to the other day."

Bedard feels good

The Mariners altered Erik Bedard's throwing schedule, but not because he felt discomfort in his left shoulder after 30 tosses Sunday. In fact, it was the opposite.

"He said he felt really good," trainer Rick Griffin said. "We just don't want to take any chances."

The original plan was for Bedard to throw again on Monday and take today off, but instead of going two days on and one off, they will proceed with an every-other-day throwing session this week.

After Saturday, Griffin said the team will reevaluate Bedard, who hasn't pitched since experiencing what the trainer termed "shoulder impingement" on July 4.

Note

• Griffin said he was encouraged by the progress of Mike Morse, who has been out since April 14 with a dislocated shoulder that required surgery to repair his labrum. Morse is swinging off a tee two weeks ahead of schedule and, if all goes well, will progress to hitting off a machine in the next week to 10 days.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com

For the record

Streak: W2

Home: 22-34

Road: 21-35

vs. AL West: 13-19

vs. L.A.: 3-6

vs. Oakland: 4-5

vs. Texas: 6-8

vs. AL East: 12-25

vs. AL Cent.: 9-16

vs. NL: 9-9

vs. LHP: 12-22

vs. RHP: 31-47

Day: 13-23

Night: 30-46

One-run: 11-22

Extra inn.: 2-6

Home attendance

Monday's crowd: 27,758

Season total: 1,647,176

Biggest crowd: 46,334 (March 31)

Smallest crowd: 15,818 (May 6)

Average (56 dates): 29,414

2007 average (56 dates): 31,895