Mariners Stumble Out of the Gate

The Seattle Mariners will not go wire-to-wire in the American League West this season.

The Mariners, who led the entire way en route to a major league record-tying 116 victories last season, fell short in their opener Monday at Seattle when Mike Cameron flied out with the bases loaded to end a 6-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

“It’s a long season and we still have to find out some things about our team,” Seattle Manager Lou Piniella said. “But we battled back, which is good to see.”

Seattle rallied for four runs in the eighth to make it 6-5, then threatened in the ninth against Keith Foulke.

Mark McLemore and Ichiro Suzuki led off with singles and moved up on Jeff Cirillo’s sacrifice. But Bret Boone grounded back to Foulke and, after Edgar Martinez was intentionally walked, Cameron hit a routine fly ball.

Foulke, third in the American League with 42 saves last season, never felt like the game was slipping away.

“I really never think like that,” he said. “The end result was there. We got the victory. But how we got there is definitely something we have to work on. It made for an exciting opening day.”

Cameron was frustrated by the ending.

“We let it slip away,” Cameron said. “I let it slip away. I got a fastball. I just missed the pitch.”

Piniella was encouraged by the way his team came back.

“We had opportunities to win the game late, but they just wiggled out of it,” he said. “Give them credit.”

Mark Buehrle, who pitched six innings for the victory, gave up two hits, including a home run by Cameron.

Buehrle, a 16-game winner in his first full season in the majors in 2001, struck out five and walked two. He retired 13 in a row before he walked Cirillo with one out in the sixth.

“I pretty much had everything working for me,” Buehrle said. “The only thing that wasn’t working for me was my fastball. There for a couple of innings, I had problems locating my fastball.”

Freddy Garcia, who won 18 games last season and led the league with a 3.05 earned-run average, was touched for three runs on eight hits and two walks in 61/3 innings. He didn’t have a strikeout.

Garcia was lifted after throwing 115 pitches, 11 more than Buehrle.

“He threw a lot of pitches and we didn’t want any of our starters going over 115 pitches,” Piniella said. “So we got him out of there. [Ryan] Franklin came in and they hit him pretty good.”

Oakland 8, Texas 3--Mark Mulder worked into the ninth inning and struck out eight and the Athletics defeated former Dodger Chan Ho Park and the Rangers at Oakland.

Mulder, who won 21 games last year with a 3.45 ERA, did not walk a batter in his first opening-day start--facing a lineup that included Alex Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro and Ivan Rodriguez.

Mulder entered the ninth with a four-hitter, but gave up a leadoff double to Frank Catalanotto and a home run to Carl Everett before being replaced by Chad Bradford.

Park gave up six runs and nine hits over five innings in his first outing with the Rangers after signing as a free agent. He struck out five.

Minnesota 8, Kansas City 6--Jacque Jones homered on the second pitch of the game, then hit a go-ahead three-run shot in the seventh inning and the Twins hit five home runs in a victory at Kansas City, Mo.

David Ortiz, Brian Buchanan and Torii Hunter also homered for the Twins, who survived Major League Baseball’s attempt to eliminate them when a Minnesota judge issued an injunction that forced the team to honor its lease at the Metrodome.