M's win 8-7 over Twins in stirring fashion

It didn't take long for the Mariners to feel the consequences from a day of moves that altered the look of the team.

Only hours after closer Brandon Morrow was optioned to Class AAA Tacoma to be groomed as a starter, his team blew a three-run lead to the Minnesota Twins in the eighth inning of Tuesday night's game. The final two of four runs put up by the Twins that frame came on a Mike Lamb double off J.J. Putz, who had looked shaky holding several recent leads of late.

That the Mariners managed to come back and win 8-7, on a two-run double by Jose Lopez off closer Joe Nathan in the bottom of the eighth, will do little to ease the jitters over what a bullpen without Morrow will look like going forward.

But in the end, hard as single game results could be for the Mariners to swallow, they say moving Morrow down now was their best decision for the long term. Same in the case of the slowly improving Jose Vidro, who was designated for assignment earlier in the day so that outfielder Wladimir Balentien could be recalled from AAA.

"We're in a mode here of trying to win ballgames, but also of trying to find out some things about what guys can do and what roles they can be successful in," Mariners manager Jim Riggleman said.

A crowd of 26,083 at Safeco Field watched Putz just barely hold on in the ninth. After striking out the first two hitters, Putz allowed a walk to Justin Morneau, a double by Jason Kubel and an intentional walk to load the bases before retiring pinch-hitter Mike Redmond on a fly out.

Mariners starter R.A. Dickey lost his chance at the win when Cesar Jimenez yielded the second homer of the game to Kubel in the eighth, followed by the Lamb double on a flat-looking Putz fastball. But Dickey solidified his shot at remaining in the rotation, with a possible call-up of newly transformed starter Ryan Rowland-Smith looming later in the week.

"I'd like to be part of the solution," Dickey said after tossing seven innings of three-run ball. "And I feel that I could be."

Raul Ibanez drove in five more runs, trying the team record of 11 in a two-game span set by Ken Griffey Jr. in 1999. Ibanez also tied the three-game mark of 14 RBI set by Griffey that year, his three-run homer in the fourth off Twins starter Scott Baker and two-run single off reliever Craig Breslow in the sixth doing the trick.

A byproduct of all the day's activity, with reliever Jared Wells also added from AAA to fill Morrow's roster spot for now, was a younger Mariners lineup than fans have been used to. Four of the starting nine hitters were with AAA Tacoma to start the season.

Balentien was the designated hitter on Tuesday night and hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth.

There had been speculation that Ibanez would become the full-time DH. But Riggleman plans to rotate his outfielders into that spot and says that Ibanez will remain the regular left fielder and have only infrequent DH stints as a "rest" period.

Balentien can play all three outfield spots, but was a right fielder during a 32-game stint with the Mariners in May and June in which he hit just .196.

"It's hard when you aren't playing every day," Balentien said of that first go-round, in which he was benched in the latter stages. "It's hard to find your swing. But once I went down, after a few days, I had my swing back."

Balentien was riding an eight-game hitting streak when called back up. But he was already hitting for power, notching nine home runs in his first 36 games for Tacoma after the June demotion and before the streak.

Vidro had also been hitting better, batting .340 with two homers and seven RBI since the All-Star break. But it couldn't erase that his .612 on-base-plus slugging percentage overall made him the worst DH in the game.

Riggleman expressed disbelief that no team wanted to pick up Vidro via trade. And Mariners infielder Miguel Cairo, who was close to Vidro, said he was surprised at the team's move.

"I was kind of surprised because he'd started swinging the bat well," Cairo said. "All of his career, he was a .300 hitter. You knew he was going to get back to that at some point. So, I was surprised that it happened. But that's baseball."

Vidro hit a combined .285 during his two seasons with the Mariners after coming from Washington for outfielder Chris Snelling and minor league pitcher Emiliano Fruto. But he proved disastrous from a power standpoint, with just a .394 slugging percentage in 2007 and .338 this season.

Dickey's status becomes interesting now that Morrow has gone to AAA. Morrow will start for Tacoma today, with a pitch-count limit of 35, then take a turn every five days in the rotation with an aim toward rejoining the Mariners by September.

But the Mariners will likely call up Rowland-Smith long before then. Dickey's latest seven-inning outing could make it tough for the team to remove him from the rotation to free up room and may instead force the struggling Miguel Batista -- who has closer experience -- to the bullpen.

"I'd like to think I've done a pretty good job making a case to stick in there," Dickey said. "I don't know how many starts I've had, but I've had five or six quality starts and given us a chance to win."

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com.

For the record

Streak: W3

Home: 23-34

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.: 10-16

vs. NL: 9-9

vs. LHP: 12-22

vs. RHP: 32-47

Day: 13-23

Night: 31-46

One-run: 12-22

Extra inn.: 2-6

Home attendance

Tuesday's crowd: 26,083

Season total: 1,673,259

Biggest crowd: 46,334 (March 31)

Smallest crowd: 15,818 (May 6)

Average (57 dates): 29,355

2007 average (57 dates): 32,959