AP photo

Boxscore

Obviously, the clubhouse was quite happy with the win. And expect a few columns on the Mariners winning games like this that they had no prayer of winning last year.

As much as I get on Miguel Batista, he wasn't too bad on Sunday. He still takes an average of 30 seconds in between each pitch and closer to 45 with a runner on. No one got a chance to talk to him as he left the clubhouse relatively quickly, while we were talking to Jakubauskas, who was a bit of a talker. I'm not certain how much Batista wanted to talk anyway. Even with a strong performance, he seems to be relatively unhappy with his role in the bullpen.

Still, manager Don Wakamatsu gave him plenty of praise.

"He put us in the position, your back is to the wall and you need to get as much as you can from him and he ended up throwing 65 pitches,” Wakamatsu said.

I asked Wak after the game about the bullpen and really only Vargas and Batista won't be available tomorrow against the Rangers. He also mentioned the Felix is a little under the weather right now. So something to keep an eye on for tomorrow. But part of the reason why he didn't use Aardsma another inning is to have him available again.

He said his focus was still on winning today's game, but you can't forget about the next day either.

* Yuni's bunt while successful was about the worst possible thing that could have happened. They got lucky there. But hey, at least he got it on the ground. Baby steps.

I'm not sure what Rajai Davis was doing on that pop-up from Jose Lopez, he was awfully confused and I think had he played it properly, the Mariners probably wouldn't have sent Gutierrez because it was so shallow.

Mike Sweeney was pretty happy and realistic about his 200th homer saying he was glad it meant something in the game.

“By no means is it a milestone like (Ken Griffey Jr.) with 600,” he said.

Of course, Sweeney wasn’t guaranteed to hit two homers in the big leagues let alone 200 when he was drafted by Kansas City in the 10th round of the 1991 draft.

“It’s a small milestone for a big league player,” he said. “But for a guy like me that was a late-round draft pick and a guy that takes pride in my work ethic, it’s quite an honor.”

And an honor he almost didn’t get to reach, after getting released by the A’s last September, Sweeney admittedly thought his baseball career might be done.

“Being stuck on 199 for rest of my life wouldn’t have been that much fun,” he said.

From my notes and my game story ...
At the end of the day, this much happened.
• The game went 15 innings and lasted 5 hours and two minutes.
• The teams hitters combined for 131 plate appearances
• The teams used a combined 13 pitchers, with Oakland reliever Gio Gonzalez throwing 108 pitches, while Oakland starter Josh Outman threw only 87 and Mariners’ starter Chris Jakubauskas only 78.
• Speaking of pitches, the Mariners eight pitchers combined for 266 pitches thrown and 162 were strikes. While the A’s used only five pitchers – thanks to Gonzalez – and they combined for 260 pitches and 164 strikes.
• Jose Lopez and Ichiro Suzuki came to bat eight times, while Ryan Sweeney and Orlando Cabrera of the A’s also had eight plate appearances.
• The teams combined to strand 29 base runners and go a collective 7-for-30 with runners in scoring position and still have a total of 30 hits.
• The game was so long there were two seventh inning stretches and two singings of “Take me out to the ball game.”
• I also changed the lead of my story probably eight times.

From the M's ...

ATHLETICS NOTES:
* Josh Outman tied career-high's in both innings pitched, 6.0 (last: 9/28/08 at SEA), and strikeouts with 5 (last: 4/17/09 at TOR). It was his first quality start of the season and the third of his career.
* Ryan Sweeney extended his hitting streak to 12 games, going 3x7 with 1 RBI and a run. During the streak he is hitting .304 (17x56) with 9 runs scored, 5 doubles, 1 home run and 3 RBI. It is the longest hitting streak by an Oakland A’s player this season and coming into Sunday’s game, was tied for the second longest active hitting streak in the American League.
* Kurt Suzuki went 2x6 with a double after having an 8-game hitting streak snapped yesterday… has hit safely in 9 of the last 10 games and is batting .432 (16x37) with 4 runs, 6 doubles, a home run and 10 RBI during those games.
* The A’s have now hit 8 home runs in their last 8 games, after hitting just 3 homers in their first 13 games… have 11 home runs on the season which entering Sunday was the fewest in Majors (SF, 13) and with the major league individual leader (Pena, TB 11).

MARINERS NOTES:
* Seattle recorded it's 7th come-from-behind victory of the season and 2nd this series. It was Seattle’s first win of the season when trailing after 8.0 innings…had been 0-8. This was the team's 3rd walk-off win of the year.
* Today's 5 hour, 2 minute affair was longest game of the season for Seattle both in innings and time… previous high was 10 innings (April 14 vs. LAA) and 3 hours, 20 minutes (April 22 vs. TB)…longest game since 15.0 inning loss to Detroit July 6, 2008. Was 28th game in franchise history of at least 14.0 innings. Seattle is 18-10 in games of at least 14.0 innings.
* Reliever Jason Vargas made his first relief appearance in the Majors since July 3, 2007 at Colorado and tossed 2.1 shutout innings for the win. This was his first major league win since April 13, 2006.
* The Mariners continued their success against left-handed pitching in ’09 and are now 7-1 vs. LH starters.
* Kenji Johjima’s game-tying solo home run in the 9th inning was his first of the season, and the first by a Seattle catcher this year.
* Mike Sweeney hit a 2-run home run in the 4th inning… his first of the season and 200th of his career… he has now recorded a hit in 4 consecutive starts, batting .389 (7x18)... hitting .289 in games started this season (13X45).
* Ichiro Suzuki went 2x7 today, extending his hitting streak against Oakland to 10 games. During the streak he is batting .304 (14x46) with 5 runs, 2 doubles and 5 RBI.
* Wladimir Balentien went 3x5 with a double and has now recorded a multi-hit game in 5 of 9 starts…batting .353 (12x34) overall.
* Jose Lopez recorded his 6th multi-hit game of ‘09 with a trio of singles including the game-winner in the 15th inning… currently has a 5 game hitting streak, including 4 multi-hit games during the streak.
* Denny Stark made his first Major League appearance since July 19th, 2004…1,747 days in between appearances… his last regular season outing as a Mariner came on October 6th, 2001 vs. Texas…was selected from Tacoma May 2nd (Morrow DL).
* Franklin Gutierrez extended his hitting streak to 7 games… is the longest of his career. During the streak, Gutierrez is batting .440 (11x25) with 2 runs scored, 1 home run and 3 RBI.
* Adrian Beltre has a 5-game hitting streak after going 2x6 in the game and is batting .391 (9x23) during the streak, raising his average from .167 to .216.
* Umpire Derryl Cousins worked his 4,000th career MLB game… Cousins, who began his umpiring career in 1979 is one of just 18 Major League umpires ever to reach that milestone.

Outfielder Jerry Owens, who was designated for assignment by the Chicago White Sox, on May 1st has signed a minor league deal with the Mariners. The move was announced a few minutes ago.

The White Sox decided to DFA Owens to make room for another light hitting outfielder - Scott Podsednik, who was called up from Triple A.

After being DFA'd Owens chose to become a free agent rather than accept an outright assignment to the minors.

Owens, 28, appeared in 12 games for the Sox this season and had just 12 at-bats.

He's got some speed. He had 32 steals in 2007, but he hasn't proven to be much of a hitter.

Owens will head to Triple A Tacoma on Monday.

I have a feeling we could be seeing some runs scored today. It's a warmer day and hitters won't be afraid to swing. Also Outman - thought it's a small sample size - hasn't been great against right-handed hitters this season (.303 batting average) and the Mariners are rolling out a few of them.

Top of 1st
Well, as I said some runs were going to be scored, the A's manufactured one and Jack Cust drove a hanging breaking ball to the opposite field for a two-run homer. Not many swings and misses in that inning, and a lot of pretty solid contact. Could be a long day.

Bottom of 1st
Well, the Mariners get jobbed on a call to start the inning as Ichiro was clearly safe on an bobbled grounder at short. I didn't need replay to see that, though apparently first base ump Brian Runge did. Wak went out to argue, but he's pretty cool and calm. I wonder what it would take to set him off like this ...

Apparently pop-ups to third could also be an issue today after watching Bobby Crosby lose on a foul ball.

Top of 2nd
Jakubauskas looked a little better that inning, even a swing and a miss on a pitch.

Bottom of 2nd
A nice hustling double from Balentien, but not much else going on there.

Top of 3rd
Jakubauskas looking a little more settled. He got Giambi to chase on a good pitch.

Bottom of 3rd
Somebody might have to remind Yuni that Wak wants him to bunt for a hit every once in a while, not every time.

Top of 4th
Well, Jak gets out of it with the good old third and first move that I haven't seen since work since I was coaching legion baseball back in Montana. If the "31" was called from the dugout (which it often is) score one for the M's. Branyan also made a good play delivering a solid fake to second to get Suzuki cheating.

Bottom of 4th
Lopez with a lead-off single and Mike Sweeney with his first home run of the season. Outman just gutted a fastball down the middle - and though Sweeney may be old - he'll still crush that pitch. A's 3, Mariners 2

Top of 5th
Well the one-run lead went to two as Jakubauskas gave up a lead-off double to Gregorio Petit, who later scored on Ryan Sweeney's sac fly to center. Jakubauskas was lifted after the play, he threw 78 pitches, 52 for strikes. sean White comes in and gets a pair of pop outs from Giambi and Holliday to end the inning.

Bottom of 5th
Not much going on other than Yuni swinging at a pitch over his head.

Top of 6th
Sean White gives up a lead-off single but gets out of it.

Bottom of 6th
Jose Lopez leads off with a single, but is stranded. Adrian Beltre could really use a hit right now.

Top of 7th
Denny Stark is in for the Mariners. Nice guy, nice story. The guy has been through two Tommy John surgeries. He was also part of the trade that sent him, Jose Paniagua and Brian Fuentes to the Rockies for Jeff Cirillo. And speaking of Cirillo, he was here as a scout the other day.

Fast forward to the bottom of the ninth -- I'm skipping a rant about Yuni and his inability to hit the ball to the right side of the field which would have scored another run Ichiro's RBI single in the seventh.

Anyway, Kenji Johjima just hammered a solo homer to left off of Russ Springer to tie the game at 4-4 and then Gutierrez followed with a near perfect bunt for a hit. Bringing up, well, Yuni. And he gets a hit. Well, of course he does. But then Ichiro strikes out. Wait that can't be right, Ichiro strikes out and Yuni gets a hit? Lopez grounds out and we go to bonus panels. Why? Because I'm covering the game.

Top of 10th
nice inning for Aardsma.

Bottom of 10th
Beltre goes up 3-0, then swings and misses at the next two pitches, fouls off four and singles up the middle off off Gio Gonzalez. But he's stranded there.

Top of 11th
Miguel Batista is in, so this game will be decided quickly. You know how players have entrance music, Batista's should be the jeopardy theme song because the takes about that long in between every pitch. John McGrath and Kirby Arnold are timing him up here and its more than 30 seconds between pitches. Somewhere Steve Trachsel grins.

Bottom of 11th
I will not bring up the M's shortstop name in vain any longer, even though I want to rip my eyes out and jump up and down on them.

Top of 12th
Batista doesn't look too bad out there.

Bottom of 12th
Orlando Cabrera is pretty darn good at short. Of course, Sweeney isn't exactly Usain Bolt.

Top of 13th
Well it looked like Batista was going to get out of the inning - and survive a throwing error from Kenji Johjima, but his 2-2 pitch to Landon Powell was called a ball by Derryl Cousins. It was borderline. On the next pitch, Powell doubled to right to score two runs. Batista gave up another run on a RBI single from Orlando Cabrera. A's 7, Mariners 4

Bottom of 13th
Apparently Gio Gonzalez is feeling generous cause he gifted the Mariners a run, after forgetting how to throw a strike and walking in a run. I have no words for what happened. This game will not end, it will not end. Gio Gonzalez is a like birthday present that keeps on giving.

Bottom of the 15th
Gutierrez leads off with a single, Yuni tries to offer up sac bunt, but bunts it back to Dana Eveland, who promptly throws it away trying to get the lead runner. An absolute gift. I admire the fans who stayed, but booing because Ichiro is being intentionally walked is just dumb.

The War of attrition is over. Jose Lopez with a gork

A's
Ryan Sweeney CF
Orlando Cabrera SS
Jason Giambi 1B
Matt Holliday LF
Jack Cust RF
Kurt Suzuki DH
Bobby Crosby 3B
Gregorio Petit 2B
Landon Powell C
----------
Josh Outman (0-0, 5.23 ERA)

Mariners
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Jose Lopez 2B
Mike Sweeney DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Russell Branyan 1B
Wladimir Balentien LF
Kenji Johjima C
Franklin Gutierrez CF
Yuniesky Betancourt SS
------------
Chris Jakubauskas P

First a few housekeeping things ...
* Brandon Morrow felt good after throwing a bullpen on Saturday and Wakamatsu will have him throw probably two more bullpens and be ready to pitch immediately when he comes off the DL on May 9th.

* Ryan Rowland-Smith will throw a bullpen session on Monday and then possibly a simulated game when the team is in Texas and then sent out on a rehab assignment.

* Ronny Cedeno is now 100 percent and cleared for all activity. He'll probably get a start in the next day or two.

* Ok, let's get to Carlos Silva.

Honestly, I thought with the call-up of Jason Vargas - a starter in Tacoma - along with Denny Stark and Brandon Morrow really only spending 7 days on the disabled list that Wakamatsu was setting himself up to be able to skip one of Silva's starts and have Vargas fill in, giving Silva some sort of mental break.

Yesterday, he and Wakamatsu were talking quite extensively during yesterday's batting practice out in center field.

"Everybody is talking about what do we do with Carlos Silva?" Wakamatsu said. "The best thing for this organization and team is for him to pitch well. The second thing is, what are our options? And those are the things I talked to him about."

Wakamatsu is trying to salvage Silva as a starter, but even he admits that if Silva's struggles continue, something will have to change.

"At some point he’s going to have to make some adjustments and be that guy, if not we have to make adjustments," Wakamatsu said. "But at this point going forward, is that rope shorter? Yeah. At some point, he’s going to have to come out and give us a good outing."

And the conversation?

"His stuff is there and that’s what we talked about with the understanding that the same thing, that 'hey we're giving you opportunities and we trust in your stuff or we wouldn’t be giving you the opportunity to be out here."

Wakamatus believes its so mostly mental with Silva.

"He has some skeletons in the closet obviously with the failures he had here with the performance he had last year," Wakamatsu said. "You just keep hammering away trying to build his confidence and say, 'It's up to you, at what point is your confidence level going to match your stuff?' Because the stuff is there, the other night he threw 95 miles per hour."

Wakamatsu was asked if a normal pitcher has 10 feet of rope, how much is Silva at now?

"It’s easier in the sense that we’re 3-2 when he starts, if we were 0-5 when he starts then that rope – we have to make adjustments," he said. "Those are the things we look at every day."

Wakamatsu also seemed uneasy in shaking up the bullpen with a major move like that.

"When everybody is healthy in our bullpen, I like our bullpen," he said. "So if it gets to that point where we have to shuffle that, it takes away from other avenues."

As far as I can tell, Silva will make his next scheduled start, which Wakamatsu hinted toward.

"He’s willing to do just about anything he can because he’s not happy with his performance," Wakamatsu said. "He cares a lot about helping this club. We’ll go out and see in his next outing and make the adjustment from there."

* As for pinch hitting, which is something we didn't ask directly (sorry Dave and DMZ, but I was going to ask) but ended up getting there when discussing players' confidence. And then we followed up upon.

"I’ve seen certain managers where – and that’s what we talked about the first month of the season – where you make or break guys pinch hitting that early," he said. "The same thing with the minor leagues. Some organizations frown on the fact that you ever pinch hit in A ball at least. When I was running the system in Anaheim, we had a philosophy where we wouldn’t do that with guys for that same reason, you can see it magnified it in the big leagues."

So far the Mariners have pinch hit just four times this season. But expect that number to grow as the season goes on.

"And a lot of that has to do with personnel and how you feel about the match-ups," he said. "I’m not sitting saying that’s all I care about is people’s feelings. What I’m saying if the options are there as we go forward and get later in the seasons, at least we have established why we would do that in that situation and guys would understand it a little bit more. But it really depends on what tools you have available at the time and how they are swinging."

When asked if he thought it was easier to pinch hit for an older guy who's been around, Wak just chuckled.

"Veterans have pride," he said. "I think it’s two ways. You can take the confidence away from a young player, or you can also get some pretty disgruntled guys when you do that. I think it depends on what you‘ve established to that point, on why you do those things. I think it's critical to this team that they understand why we do things. And I do say, we."

A few notes on the lineups and I'll have some pregame Wakamatsu meeting notes as well.

Suzuki gets the Ichiro "day off" by DHing allowing the A's to play talented young catcher Landon Powell. Jack Cust is in right field, and that could and should be an adventure.

A's
Ryan Sweeney CF
Orlando Cabrera SS
Jason Giambi 1B
Matt Holliday LF
Jack Cust RF
Kurt Suzuki DH
Bobby Crosby 3B
Gregorio Petit 2B
Landon Powell C
----------
Josh Outman (0-0, 5.23 ERA)

Mariners
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Jose Lopez 2B
Mike Sweeney DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Russell Branyan 1B
Wladimir Balentien LF
Kenji Johjima C
Franklin Gutierrez CF
Yuniesky Betancourt SS
------------
Chris Jakubauskas P

AAA Tacoma Rainiers (PCL)
Fresno RAINED OUT
Tacoma
Of Note: Last night’s PCL game between Tacoma and Fresno was post. The game will be made up as part of a double header in Tacoma on Sunday, August 2nd. Both games on the 2nd will be 7 inning games. Today’s game between Tacoma and Fresno will be played as scheduled. Mike Carp is hitting .448 (13x29) with 9 runs scored, 5 extra-base hits and 6 RBI during his current 7-game hit streak. Prentice Redman has hit safely 18 of 21 games this season, batting .337 (28x83) with 20 runs scored, 5 doubles, 7 home runs and 13 RBI.
Today’s probable starter:
RH Luis Munoz (1-1, 3.74 ERA w/West Tenn) vs. Fresno

AA West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx (Southern League)
West Tennessee 14 runs, 15 hits, 0 errors
Birmingham 4 runs, 7 hits, 2 errors
BOX SCORE
Pitching Lines:
RH Justin Souza (W, 1-1) 5.0,1,1,1,1,4,HR
RH Aaron Cotter 2.0,6,3,3,0,1
LH Nick Hill 2.0,0,0,0,0,3
With the Bats:
LF Greg Halman (right) 3x5, 2 R, 2B, HR, 3 RBI, BB
2B Mel Stocker 3x6, R, RBI
1B Marshall Hubbard 2x5, 2 R, 2 RBI, BB
3B Matt Mangini 2x4, R, 2 RBI, BB
CF Ezequiel Carrara 1x5, 2 R, 2B, 3 RBI, BB
DH Javier Brito 1x3, R, 2B, 3 RBI, 2 BB
Of Note: The Diamond Jaxx brought the lumber on Saturday in Birmingham. West Tenn took game 3 of the series, after dropping the first 2 to the Barons 14-4. The Jaxx sent 15 batters to the plate in the top of the 6th and scored 10 runs, their largest output of the year and leading 14-1 after 6 innings. Every Jaxx start would get a hit in the game and 4 Jaxx collected multi-hit games. Five Jaxx collected multi-RBI games. Greg Halman picked up his 9th homer of the year in the first now has a league leading 27 runs batted in. He has knocked in 21 RBI in his last 11 games. During this stretch he has hit .302 (13x43) with 10 runs scored, 2 doubles, 7 home runs and 21 RBI. Ezequiel Carrera extended his on-base streak to 21 games. He is currently batting .359 (28x78) with 23 runs scored, 3 doubles, 2 triples, 12 RBI and 5 stolen bases. Justin Souza allowed an earned run in the 2nd inning, ending his streak at 15.0 inning. After allowing 3 runs in his first appearance of the season, Souza has allowed only 1 earned run in his last 19.0 inning, lowering his ERA from 27.00 to 1.80 ERA.
Today’s probable starter:
RH Steven Hensley (4-0, 0.00 w/Clinton) at Birmingham

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