Mariners 12 – Yankees 7
SEATTLE – If they were laying naked in a snow drift atop Mt. Rainier last night, the Yankees couldn’t have caught a cold. Or a chill.
That’s the type of game the Yankees experienced at Safeco Field, where they were brutal in the field and only marginally better at the plate on the way to a very sloppy 12-7 loss to the Mariners in front of 44,979.
One-third of the winner’s runs were unearned thanks to a season-high three Yankee errors.
Erick Almonte’s final week as a big-league shortstop continued to be an exhibition of poor fielding as his botching of a double-play ball led to three unearned runs in the second inning.
Third baseman Todd Zeile did the same in the fourth, when the Mariners plated three runs that were earned and he failed to field a Bret Boone bases-loaded liner in the fifth.
In between Almonte’s boot and the first of Zeile’s two errors, Alfonso Soriano didn’t glove a grounder hit by Ichiro Suzuki that contributed to the three-run fourth.
The putrid performance left a rancid odor in the visitors’ dugout that was without bench coach Don Zimmer, who is home in New York relaxing after a bout with an intestinal problem that couldn’t have improved by watching last night’s debacle.
It was the 23-9 Yankees’ third straight defeat – their longest skid of the season. Too early to watch the AL East race? Not quite. That’s the plucky Red Sox 2 ½ lengths behind the Yankees.
Yankee starter Andy Pettitte got no support. Even in the fifth, when the Yankees scored two runs, they failed miserably in the clutch. After Almonte and Soriano drove in runs with singles, Seattle starter Jamie Moyer popped up Zeile and Jason Giambi, walked Bernie Williams to load the bases and induced Hideki Matsui to ground out.
By the time they produced timely hits in the eighth the Yankees only cut the deficit from 8-3 to 8-5. And that rally ended when Jeff Nelson fanned Zeile with the bases juiced.
The Mariners torched Randy Choate and Juan Acevedo in the eighth for four runs and a 12-5 bulge.
Not razor sharp, Pettitte deserved better fate in falling to 4-2. In 4 1/3 innings, Pettitte gave up eight runs (four earned) and nine hits.
Moyer, whom the Yankees beat last week at Yankee Stadium, improved to 4-2 with a Five-And-Fly effort in which he allowed three runs and six hits.
Soriano failing to grab Suzuki’s hard grounder up the middle helped the Mariners score three runs in the fourth, when they extended their lead from 3-1 to 6-1.
With one out, Pettitte walked Randy Winn, and Jeff Cirillo followed with a hit-and-run single to right that put runners at first and third. Dan Wilson scored Winn with a single to right before Suzuki hit a grounder to Soriano’s right that Soriano got a glove on but couldn’t hold.
Since the fleet Suzuki was running from home to first it wasn’t likely to be a double play ball, but it still cost Pettitte an out and a run since Cirillo scored. It should have been scored an error, but wasn’t.
However, there was no doubt Willie Bloomquist’s broken-bat grounder to third that followed Suzuki’s grounder was a double-play ball – right until it glanced off Zeile’s glove and scored Wilson.
Pettitte had Almonte’s stone hands to blame for giving up three unearned runs in the second.
A leadoff walk to John Olerud didn’t help, but Pettitte regrouped to get Mike Cameron to force Olerud at second on a weak grounder to the right side. Winn followed with a single to center before Pettitte induced Cirillo to hit what should have been an inning-ending double play ball right at Almonte.
Even though Cameron may have screened Almonte, the Yank shortstop should have fielded the routine grounder and started a double play. But the ball vanished into Almonte’s rigid glove and he never got a handle on the ball. It was Almonte’s ninth error in 26 games. So instead of being on the bench and the game scoreless, Pettitte faced a bases-loaded, one-out jam he couldn’t escape.
Pettitte traded an out for a run when Wilson’s grounder to Zeile scored Cameron. He then watched Suzuki lace a single off of Almonte’s diving glove for two more runs and a 3-0 lead.