It Takes Time, but Mariners Win

The Seattle Mariners avoided matching the worst start in franchise history, rallying with two runs in the ninth against former teammate Arthur Rhodes. Bret Boone then hit a two-run homer in a five-run 10th inning to beat the Oakland Athletics, 9-4, on Sunday.

“We’ve rallied before but it just hasn’t been enough. Today it was,” Boone said. “That was a nice win there. If we lose that game it would be a tough way to go into the off-day ... an 0-6 start.”

Showing little spark for the first eight innings, the Mariners tied the score against Oakland’s new closer on run-scoring singles by Ichiro Suzuki and Randy Winn with one out in the ninth.

They broke open the game against Chris Hammond (1-1) in the 10th to avoid matching the six-game losing streak that started their 1991 season. The winningest team in baseball the last four seasons became the final team to get its first victory in 2004.

“I don’t think it weighed on us too much,” Winn said. “It’s a 162-game season. They’ll be stretches where we don’t play well and the losses pile up. It’s more magnified at the beginning of the season because you don’t have any wins.”

Raul Ibanez started the winning rally with an opposite-field bloop double that landed just inside the left-field line. John Olerud then laid down a sacrifice bunt that Hammond misplayed for an error, putting runners on first and third with no out.

Ben Davis followed with a fly to left, and Ibanez easily beat Bobby Kielty’s off-target throw home for the go-ahead run.

Willie Bloomquist had an RBI single, Suzuki drove in a run on a fielder’s choice and Boone capped the rally with his homer.

“Things did get unraveled there and Boone finished us off,” A’s Manager Ken Macha said. “They have a good offensive club over there and matchups are tough for me out of the bullpen.”

Rhodes, a setup man in Seattle the last four seasons, had converted his first three save chances with Oakland before failing Sunday, costing Mark Mulder his second win of the season.

“My stuff was good today ... they found the holes,” Rhodes said.

“I got almost all groundballs and there’s nothing you can do about that. I think they were sitting on my fastball. You get frustrated sometimes but you realize those guys are big league hitters.”

Mulder needed only 58 pitches to get through the first five innings before running into trouble in the sixth.

“We never gave up, even when Mulder was out there dealing the way he was,” Mariner Manager Bob Melvin said. “A 4-0 deficit felt like 10-0. But we didn’t fall into the trap of ‘Here we go again.’ ”