Devil Rays Finally Get Last Laugh

Sooner or later, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays figured a close game had to go their way.

Ben Grieve singled through a drawn-in infield with the bases loaded in the 10th inning Saturday night, giving the team with baseball’s worst record a 4-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners. The win also ended an eight-game losing streak for Tampa Bay.

The Devil Rays lost five times during the streak in the opponent’s last at-bat and won for only the 18th time in an American League-high 47 games decided by one or two runs.

“What we accomplished is we found a way to win a game. That’s what we haven’t been doing. Hopefully this is a start,” Tampa Bay Manager Hal McRae said. “It all boils down to how many games you win and how many games you lose. We’ve put ourselves in position to win more games, but we haven’t won. And, we’ve got to win more to make a difference.”

Ichiro Suzuki homered twice in a game for the first time for Seattle, going deep on the first pitch of the game and hitting another solo shot off Tanyon Sturtze in the third inning for a 3-2 Seattle lead.

The Devil Rays loaded the bases in the 10th with none out against John Halama (4-3) on Carlos Guillen’s fielding error, Aubrey Huff’s single and an intentional walk.

Grieve, who had struck out in his previous two at-bats, lined a 2-0 pitch between first and second base and Steve Cox easily beat Suzuki’s throw from shallow right field to the plate.

“We’ve been losing a lot of games, so it was just good to win,” Grieve said. “It didn’t matter if it was a close game or not.”

Esteban Yan (5-4) pitched the 10th for the win. Tampa Bay, which hadn’t won since beating the Florida Marlins on June 30, improved to 7-6 in a major league-leading 13 extra-inning games.

Suzuki leads the majors with 41 multi-hit games, and his leadoff homer was his third this season.