Ichiro powers M's to 5-4 comeback win over Red Sox

Three innings into what looked to be another short night of work and Chris Jakubauskas was fed up.

He was tired of being nickeled and dimed for runs by the patient Boston Red Sox. His equally frustrated Mariners teammates had also seen enough bad hops, poor calls, blown saves and all-around lousy fortune the past week to have to endure another night of it.

And so, Jakubauskas and those teammates went out and did something during this 5-4 comeback victory Friday that hasn't happened often the past couple of weeks. They took charge of their destiny and then, at the very end, when they needed a ball to stay in the park, it actually did.

"Angry is a good word, there was a little bit of anger," Jakubauskas said of his mind-set after three innings, down four runs with a reliever warming up. "It was a big gut check for me. Personally, I was sick and tired of giving up runs. I've been doing it for too many starts in a row and it was going to end after the third. I don't care how, it was going to be done."

On a night when a bunch of Mariners came through in ways few expected when the season began, the six innings by Jakubauskas — who allowed only three earned runs — might have been the most important of all. Replacement fifth starter Jakubauskas is one of a trio of pitchers starting for Seattle this weekend who weren't in the rotation when the season began.

Jakubauskas kept his team in a 4-0 game long enough for Ichiro to belt home runs in the fifth and sixth innings off Red Sox starter Jon Lester to bring Seattle all the way back.

And that, in turn, enabled reliever David Aardsma to close things out in the ninth in Brandon Morrow's place. Aardsma gave up a two-out single and then a deep fly ball by Jason Bay that, for an eternal moment, seemed like it might clear the yard before being caught at the track.

"He hit it straight up and then it just kept going, kept going, kept going," Aardsma said. "That's when I got nervous."

The crowd of 34,952 at Safeco Field held its breath, then erupted in a frenzy as the Mariners won for only the second time in 11 games. Ichiro had warmed the throng up a few innings before by drilling a Lester pitch over the wall in right center to cap the fourth two-homer game of his career and first since 2005.

The surge by Ichiro was certainly welcomed by a team that's lacked longball power much of the season. But the singles-hitting leadoff man, who has often shrugged off suggestions he can hit home runs at will, once again dismissed the idea he can turn up the power when required.

"I'm not Sadaharu Oh," he said, smiling. "So, I don't have the abilities to do things like that."

Later on, he observed: "I guess it kind of proves that, in the universe, mysterious things happen."

It was one such mystery that had allowed Ichiro to bat. The Mariners might not have scored anything in their four-run sixth had Tacoma native Lester not hesitated on a potential double-play comebacker hit his way by Yuniesky Betancourt with two on and one out.

Lester looked at third, then at second — where he seemed to have the runner nabbed — but held up and instead threw to first. Franklin Gutierrez then hit a two-run single and Ichiro, for the second time in as many innings, went deep.

Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu had sensed the Mariners getting to Lester earlier and figured it was a matter of time before the team's approach paid off. But first, he needed to slow the runs against them and told Jakubauskas "No more!" when he got off the field after the third.

He might as well have been speaking on behalf of everyone in the dugout.

"All of a sudden, you saw, after the third inning, a different pitcher," Wakamatsu said. "It's the guy that I recognized in spring training, it's a guy I recognized in a couple of starts."

And the Mariners, winners again, were a team some fans may have recognized from two weeks ago.

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