Angels Bungle Game Away

The Seattle Mariners did everything they could to hand the Angels a victory, short of providing a police escort to accompany the winning run to the plate, and the Angels fumbled it away like so many of those balls the Mariners booted in the final two innings Wednesday.

The ending was frustratingly familiar, as Yuniesky Betancourt grounded a run-scoring single to left off closer Francisco Rodriguez in the ninth inning to give the Mariners a wild 10-9 victory in Safeco Field, handing the Angels their second straight walk-off loss and eighth sudden-death defeat since the All-Star break.

That completed a three-game sweep for the last-place Mariners and sent the Angels home with a 4-5 record after a jaunt through Boston, Chicago and Seattle, a trip that took a turn for the better when the Angels swept a three-game series from the White Sox over the weekend but turned sour in Seattle.

Remarkably, the Angels remain one game ahead of Oakland in the AL West with 17 games left.

“It’s been a rough couple of games,” second baseman Adam Kennedy said after the Angels had 16 hits and overcame a six-run deficit only to lose. “We had a chance after Chicago to have a pretty good trip against some good teams, and we pretty much blew it here.”

Wednesday’s loss was even more agonizing than Tuesday’s 2-1 loss, when the Angels failed to score after loading the bases with no one out in the top of the ninth.

Mariner second baseman Jose Lopez booted Orlando Cabrera’s potential inning-ending double-play grounder in the eighth Wednesday, and after Garret Anderson’s run-scoring single pulled the Angels within 9-8, the Angels had runners on first and third with one out.

But 2004 AL most valuable player Vladimir Guerrero, needing a fly ball to the outfield to tie the score, swung at J.J. Putz’s first pitch and grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

Then came the bizarre ninth, which started with sure-handed Mariner third baseman Adrian Beltre booting Robb Quinlan’s grounder. Maicer Izturis pinch ran, and pinch-hitter Zach Sorensen dropped a sacrifice bunt.

Closer Eddie Guardado’s throw glanced off Lopez’s glove at first for an error, and the ball rolled toward the vacant second-base spot. Izturis headed for third and Sorensen for second as Lopez scurried some 30 feet to retrieve the ball.

But in a surprising move, Izturis was waved home by third base coach Ron Roenicke and thrown out at the plate by Lopez.

Had Izturis held, the Angels would have had runners on second and third and no one out. Instead, there was a runner on second with one out. Jose Molina grounded out, and Bengie Molina came through with a two-strike single to right to tie the score, 9-9. But had Izturis held, two runs might have scored on the hit.

“I just misread it,” Roenicke said. “I thought the ball was far enough away and he would have scored easily. I feel like when you do something like that, you lose the game for the team. It’s not something I feel good about. With two outs, I’d probably do the same thing, but with no outs, it has to be absolute that he can score.”

Roenicke, in his sixth year as the Angel third base coach, is considered neither too aggressive nor too conservative; most of his decisions have been beyond reproach.

“That’s one Ron would like to have back,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “He’s right 99 out of 100 times. He’s the best third base coach in the league. That one slipped away. It happens. There’s a lot of focus on that play, but this game had twists and turns at every corner, giving us opportunities, and we didn’t get it done.”

Rookie left-hander Joe Saunders, starting in place of the injured Jarrod Washburn, was rocked for six runs in two innings, giving up home runs to Raul Ibanez and Richie Sexson in the first and Ibanez’s two-run double in the second. The Angels rallied with four runs in the third, an inning sparked by Kennedy’s leadoff double, and three runs in the fifth, an inning capped by Kennedy’s two-out, two-run single, to tie the score, 7-7.

But starter-turned-reliever Kelvim Escobar, dominant in his first two relief appearances, gave up Ichiro Suzuki’s RBI double and Jeremy Reed’s RBI single in the sixth, and the Mariners provided a symmetrical ending to an Angel trip that began with David Ortiz’s walk-off home run on Sept. 6.

Seattle’s ninth-inning rally started with one out, when Lopez doubled to left-center and was replaced by pinch-runner Ramon Santiago. Rodriguez intentionally walked .229-hitting Greg Dobbs, who knocked in the game-winner Tuesday night, but Betancourt grounded a single past the diving Izturis at third.

Anderson appeared to have a shot at Santiago, who stumbled coming around third, but the left fielder’s throw sailed high over the head of catcher Jose Molina.

“You think you’re playing well, then you score two runs in the first two games here and get swept,” Kennedy said. “It would be nice to get on a roll.”