Mariners’ Bullpen Earns Compliments in Victory

Alex Rodriguez led off the 10th inning with a solo home run against Rick Aguilera to give the Seattle Mariners a 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Thursday night at Minneapolis.

Mike Timlin and Bobby Ayala pitched three scoreless, but tense, innings in relief of Jamie Moyer as the Mariners won their second in a row after a seven-game losing streak pinned mostly on the bullpen’s failures.

“It’s a start, isn’t it?” Manager Lou Piniella said. “Credit our pitchers for these two games.”

That’s the kind of responsibility Seattle’s relievers haven’t been used to. They blew their first four saves before Ayala closed out Wednesday’s 5-3 win at Cleveland, a game in which the bullpen gave up only two runs in 6 2/3 innings after Randy Johnson was ejected.

Moyer left with a 2-2 tie after seven innings. The Twins got two runners on with one out off Timlin in the ninth and 10th innings, but the Mariners held.

Oakland 12, Kansas City 7--Matt Stairs hit a grand slam and Jason Giambi homered twice as the Athletics broke a six-game losing streak with a victory at Oakland before only 6,456.

Stairs had five RBIs, doubling in a run in the third and hitting his third slam in the fourth. It was his second homer of the season.

Giambi hit his third homer leading off the second and added a two-run shot in the third. Jason McDonald also homered for the A’s, leading off the first. Oakland added two runs in the seventh, including an RBI infield single by Scott Spiezio, and Mike Mcfarlane had an RBI double in the eighth.

Jeff King homered and had four RBIs for the Royals, and Dean Palmer added a homer and three RBIs. King’s three-run homer in the sixth was his third of the year. Palmer hit his fifth of the season, a two-run shot, in the eighth.

Kansas City scored two in the fourth on Palmer’s sacrifice fly and an RBI groundout by King.

Hal Morris went three for four for the Royals, his seventh consecutive multi-hit game, to raise his average 24 points to .439 and take over the AL batting lead.

Tom Candiotti (1-3) gave up five runs in seven innings for the A’s.