Mariners beat Rays 7-6 in 11 innings on Ryan Langerhans' two-run homer

From the beginning, Safeco Field had a festive, opening-day feel to it Friday. The near-sellout crowd of 44,378 was fueled by Ken Griffey Jr. bobbleheads, King Felix on the mound, and a rousing pregame entrance by four Navy parachutists.

But festive turned into pennant-race frenzy as Ryan Langerhans, with the Mariners down to their final strike, ripped a two-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning to lift the M's to a thrilling, improbable 7-6 victory.

How improbable? The winning rally started on a walk by Franklin Gutierrez, who had struck out in his previous four at-bats. Langerhans' homer was the first all year by a left-hander off Rays closer J.P. Howell — and the first walkoff homer of Langerhans' career.

"It was great," said Langerhans, who was pummeled by his exultant teammates as he crossed home plate behind Gutierrez. "I've gotten to be the one slapping quite a few times, but I've never been the one slapped."

Not only slapped, but hit in the face with an ice-cream pie in the clubhouse, and doused with beer in the shower.

"It's funny — I was trying to do it in the ninth, and I struck out,"said Langerhans, who had two game-ending singles as a member of the Braves in 2005. "There, I was just trying to get a hit to keep the game alive. I lucked out and hit one out."

It was that kind of game for the Mariners, whose midgame lull was ended in the seventh, quite appropriately, by the bobble man of the evening.

With the M's trailing 5-1 and stymied since the first by Rays starter Jeff Niemann, Griffey led off the inning with his 12th homer of the year, and 623rd of his career, over the right-field wall.

"It was an unbelievable turnout, and the crowd was into it all game," Langerhans said. "Griffey really got us going in the seventh with that homer."

"The fans were going nuts, we were going nuts — we wanted to keep it going," added Jack Wilson.

By the time the seventh ended, the Mariners had tied the score 5-5 on Ichiro's bases-loaded, two-run single off Brian Shouse.

However, it looked like the storybook would be slammed shut when Jason Bartlett hit a one-out homer in the 11th off Shawn Kelly, giving the Rays a 6-5 lead.

Gutierrez led off the bottom of the 11th with a walk on a 3-2 pitch, and moved to second on Wilson's sacrifice.

"Guti had a tough game, but he had the best at-bat of the night to get us going," Wilson said. "Without that, we wouldn't be having this happy interview."

Rob Johnson flied out for the second out, and Howell moved to 1-2 on Langerhans, who had entered the game in the seventh as a pinch-runner. But after taking a ball, Langerhans jumped on a hanging curve from Howell — his fifth straight curve in the at-bat, and seventh straight in the inning — and sent it on a line over the right-field wall.

"Seven curves in a row, and he got the one that hung," Howell said. "It's tough to swallow, but that's what we're good at, man. We swallow it and move on."

Both teams are chasing the wild-card-leading Red Sox, who lost in 15 innings to the Yankees. The Mariners pulled within 5 ½ games with the victory, and also gained a game on the AL West-leading Angels, whom they now trail by eight.

"That was a battle," said a drained-looking manager Don Wakamatsu. "It would have been real easy for a club, when its ace gives up some runs, to die and fold. But we battled and battled."

It was Niemann, not Seattle ace Felix Hernandez, who seized control of the game early.

Niemann gave up a homer to Russell Branyan in the first, extending his career-best total to 25. After that, Niemann didn't give up another hit until Griffey's homer in the seventh.

Seattle's 1-0 lead disintegrated in the second, one of the sloppier Mariners innings of the season. The Rays parlayed three walks by Hernandez, a single, a Mariners error, a stolen base, two passed balls by Johnson and a sacrifice fly into three runs — only one of them earned.

By the time he had exited with two on and no outs in the seventh, Hernandez had issued a season-high six walks. He also struck out seven, and two of the five runs off him were unearned. One of those came on Pat Burrell's ringing homer in the fifth off the second-deck facade.

"Felix actually had tremendous stuff," Wakamatsu said. "It was to the point it was hard for Rob to catch. I thought this was one of the few games the defense let him down a little, and made him work a little harder. If we had made some plays early, it might have been a different outcome for him."

In the end, the outcome was perfect for the Mariners.

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