CLEVELAND -- Inning after inning, Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez put himself into situations stickier than the thick late-August air that hung over Progressive Field on Friday night.
"Not even one inning was easy for me," Hernandez said.
As far as the final box score was concerned, it was a case of easier done than said for the Seattle ace.
Hernandez's gutsy outing, combined with a strong effort from the bullpen and yet another big day from Raul Ibanez, powered the Mariners past the Indians, 3-2, before 26,047 fans.
The win snapped the Indians' 10-game winning streak and gave the Mariners their fifth win in their last seven games.
"You can see why [the Indians] have won 10 in a row," manager Jim Riggleman said. "They made a guy who threw great stuff up there work like crazy to get outs."
Hernandez hasn't had to work like crazy most of the season because his stuff has been so great. Coming into Friday, the 22-year-old right-hander hadn't made it past the fifth inning just once this season and carried one of the lowest ERAs in the American League.
But to maintain both those statistics, Hernandez had to work extra hard in his six innings of work Friday, allowing at least two runners to reach base in his first five innings and ultimately tossing 114 pitches -- three shy of his season high.
"Like a lot of teams in the American League, they made him throw a lot of pitches on a hot, muggy night and wore him down," Riggleman said. "He really battled and made the pitches when he had to."
Staked to an early 1-0 lead, Hernandez had to go to work right away when he allowed back-to-back leadoff singles to Grady Sizemore and Jamey Carroll. But he quickly stifled the rally, striking out David Dellucci and forcing Jhonny Peralta to ground into a double play.
He encountered similar trouble in the next inning, as he put two runners on with a walk and a single. But another ground-ball double play -- this one against Kelly Shoppach -- ended the threat with another zero on the board.
"I made the pitches I had to make to get out of jams," Hernandez said.
Now with the comfort of a 3-0 lead, Hernandez didn't make every pitch he needed to in the third and fourth inning. He allowed the Indians to manufacture a run in the third and another on a Shin-Soo Choo RBI double in the fourth. Still, with the Tribe putting its first two runners on base in those particular innings, Hernandez showed enough poise to minimize the damage and keep the Mariners on top throughout his outing.
After a 55-minute rain delay put off the game's first pitch, the Mariners cracked Indians starter Jeremy Sowers early to take a one-run edge in the first inning. Ichiro led off the game with a single then came to around to score -- after picking up his 40th stolen base of the season -- on an Ibanez single.
Ibanez gave Hernandez a little breathing room in the fourth inning with a two-run homer -- his team-best 22nd of the season -- to left-center field, which scored Yuniesky Betancourt and tacked on another home run to his impressive August numbers.
"Raul has been outstanding for us," Riggleman said. "He's making a case to be player of the month in August."
With his 2-for-4 night Friday, Ibanez is batting .388 with seven homers and 29 RBIs this month.
Could have fooled him.
"You play so many games, they kind of run together, so I really don't think about that stuff," Ibanez said. "I just go out there and prepare."
Roy Corcoron made his first inning look easier than he could have prepared for, retiring the side in order on 10 pitches. As for the eighth inning, Corcoron had to battle, but like Hernandez, he went back to the dugout unscathed.
After allowing Dellucci to get on with a leadoff single, Corcoron forced Jhonny Peralta to ground into a double play. Corcoron then put runners on the corners after back-to-back singles before Franklin Gutierrez flied out to end the Tribe's final threat.
J.J. Putz had no such dilemma, retiring the Tribe in order in the ninth to pick up his 10th save of the season.
"I really think the ballclub is making a lot of progress in a lot of areas," Riggleman said. "It's not showing up in the standings right now, of course, but we feel really good about a lot of things that are happening right now."
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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.
Five-run inning, Beltre boost Mariners 08/31/2008 6:45 PM ET By Andrew Gribble / MLB.com
CLEVELAND -- After watching his eighth consecutive ball sail wide of the plate, Roy Corcoran collected the ball from catcher Kenji Johjima, tossed it aside and waited for pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre to come talk to him. Corcoran knew what Stottlemyre was going to tell him because he had already been saying it in his head over and over again.
"Throw it down the middle," Corcoran recalled telling himself after the Mariners' 6-4 victory over the Indians on Sunday at Progressive Field.
The Louisiana-bred reliever, as he was watching his second career save opportunity dissolve, just needed to hear it again.
"After that, I felt a little better," Corcoran said. "I needed that. I needed him to tell me to get my mind right."
With his mind right, Corcoran settled down to strike out Victor Martinez before inducing a bases-loaded, self-ricocheted double-play ball from Ryan Garko to preserve the Mariners' unnecessarily dramatic win over the Indians before 35,376 fans.
The victory wrapped up the Mariners' second sweep of the season and seventh win in their last nine games. Seattle never trailed throughout the entire series, though there were few moments where it had complete control of the once-surging, now slumping Indians.
Sunday's ninth inning, to the delight of a relieved Corcoran, just served as a feel-good finale of sorts to a tightly played series between two clubs long out of playoff contention.
"Thank God," Corcoran said.
That may have been the same reaction the Mariners had when they finally cracked the Indians for a big inning Sunday.
After Adrian Beltre and the Indians' Shin-Soo Choo traded solo homers in the second inning, the Mariners appeared to take complete command with a five-run fifth inning thanks to two Tribe defensive miscues, but also some timely hitting of their own.
With runners on second and third, courtesy of Indians starter Zach Jackson's throwing error on Miguel Cairo's sacrifice bunt attempt, Ichiro Suzuki brought Jeff Clement home with a soft single to right. Cairo came around to score when Martinez muffed a pickoff attempt at first base to make the score 3-1. After Raul Ibanez's RBI single, Beltre capped the inning with a two-run homer -- his second of the game -- to give the Mariners a five-run advantage.
"Belly had a big day," manager Jim Riggleman said of the third baseman, who notched his third multihomer game of the season and the 19th of his career. "He's a great player, a tough guy, and he's a leader."
The 6-1 lead looked especially safe on this day, especially with the way Ryan Rowland-Smith was dealing.
Primarily forcing the Tribe to pound the ball into the ground in just his seventh start of the season, the Australian left-hander dodged trouble throughout, going 6 1/3 innings and scattering seven hits. He struck out two and walked just one before he was chased in the seventh inning after Andy Marte's RBI single made it 6-2.
"He's done a great job," Riggleman said of Rowland-Smith, who has been bounced between the bullpen and starting rotation since July. "If he goes out and has a bad outing or two, we're not going to lose faith in him."
With Rowland-Smith out, the Mariners' bullpen seemed like it was trying its best to lose the big lead.
After escaping a bases-loaded jam in the seventh inning, Randy Messenger loaded the bases with no one out in the eighth inning before he was replaced by Miguel Batista, who induced what appeared to be a double-play grounder by Franklin Gutierrez. But after catching the ball for the force at second, Jose Lopez launched the ball into the Mariners' dugout, allowing the Indians to tack on two runs and draw within striking distance at 6-4.
That's the lead Corcoran, working in place of unavailable everyday closer J.J. Putz, was left to protect.
"It's definitely a different feeling," Riggleman said. "That's why closers are special people. It takes a special person to get that third out in the ninth. The expectations are high and the pressure is high."
The pressure got even higher when Corcoran missed with four straight fastballs to Grady Sizemore and four more to Jamey Carroll, bringing the winning run to the plate.
"I got into the situation because of me," Corcoran said. "It wasn't because of anybody else. It wasn't because of the umpire. I was just missing my spots."
But Corcoran knew he couldn't miss to the free-swinging Martinez. Corcoran painted the outside corner to induce two strikes before dropping his first curveball of the inning past a swinging Martinez for the first out.
With the bases loaded after a walk to Jhonny Peralta, Corcoran made what he called his best pitch of the inning to Garko. The Indians designated hitter slapped it right back at Corcoran, who blindly deflected it over his head toward second base with his glove.
"It's kind of hard to tip the ball and have to turn around and see what happens," Corcoran said.
But Corcoran immediately liked what he saw, as Yuniesky Betancourt gloved the deflection and tossed it to Lopez for the force at second. Lopez's throw beat the slow-footed Garko in plenty of time to put the wraps on Corcoran's tenuous save with your standard 1-6-4-3 double play.
"The Mariners," Riggleman said, "finally got a break."
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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.
The Mariners and the Tribe have played many an interesting ballgame over the years. It seems that damn near anything can happen when the two get together. Never would have predicted a sweep on this visit. Must say though that the Mariner's have had that potential all year long to win when the cylinders were all firing. Tonights win in Texas was a good example as they cranked out 20 hits, Adrian Beltre hit for the cycle, and they came back from a 6-4 deficit to win 12-6. The baseball season is long. There are many ups and downs. You can be 30 games behind first place and still win games. Like some of the other divisions in MLB, we just happen to have a mega city with bookoo bucks to spend on their baseball team like the L.A. Angels of Anaheim. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try to outspend them. Only hope is to have that special year where ballplayers that you least expect have the season of their dreams, which is also an aspect of baseball that seems to pop up fairly regularly. The Mariners will try again next year.
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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.
I'm just going to have to let the A.L. Central sort itself out. I tend to lean toward the Twins because they seem to do so much with so little and I admire their wherewithall, on the other hand the White Sox now have Griffey Jr. and I think Jr. should have a shot at a the ring he lacks in his HOF career. Ain't baseball interesting.
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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.
