CBSSports.com wire reports
May 29, 2011

WASHINGTON — These days, five runs qualifies as an offensive outburst for the San Diego Padres. On Sunday, their fifth run came on a single that barely left the infield. It was just enough for a win.

The Padres’ 5-4 win over the Washington Nationals was just their fourth in 12 games — and the only time in that stretch they scored more than three runs.

With Jorge Cantu on second and two outs in the ninth, Ryan Ludwick hit a slow roller up the middle that Ian Desmond fielded in short center. It dribbled off his glove, and Cantu lumbered around third and narrowly beat Desmond’s throw home.

After scoring just 15 runs in the previous 11 games, those five runs looked big – sort of.

“I think everyone looks at our offense and kind of says, ‘It’s not the best offense in the world,”‘ Ludwick said.

That might be an understatement. The Padres have the worst offense in baseball with a .227 average. The Nationals are hitting just two points better, and to form, the first two games of the series ended 2-1, with each team winning one. On Sunday, the teams, which combined for 19 hits in the first two games, had 21.

In the Padres recent slump they were just 6 for 55 with runners in scoring position. This time, they were 4 for 10.

“We’ve had a tough stretch here over the last 10 games or so,” Padres manager Bud Black said. “We have to play a better complete game all around.”

Ludwick had three hits and two RBI and Brad Hawpe had two hits and two RBI.

With the game tied at 4 in the ninth, Cantu broke an 0-for-13 slump with a double to right off Drew Storen (4-2). Then came the small, big hit that Desmond made a fine play to even touch.

“I knew it was in. I didn’t think he was going to get to it,” Ludwick said. “I thought he did a great job getting a glove on it.”

Not everyone thought so.

“I don’t really know why it was great,” Desmond said.

“The guy scored — and we lost the game,” Desmond said. “It wasn’t very great to me. This isn’t going to cut it.”

Luke Gregerson (2-1), the third Padres pitcher, pitched two scoreless innings for the win. Heath Bell worked the ninth for his 12th save in 13 chances.

Washington, losers of nine of 11, were led by Jayson Werth with three hits.

Ever since the Nationals scored a franchise-record 17 runs against Baltimore on May 20, they’ve lost seven of eight and scored more than four runs just once.

“It’s not luck. We’re not unlucky,” Desmond said. “We’ve got runners in scoring position, and we can’t score.”

In the first, Washington leadoff batter Roger Bernadina reached on an error by Hawpe at first. He stole second and advanced to third on Desmond’s bunt single. Werth singled to right to score Bernadina and Desmond scored on Laynce Nix’s sacrifice fly.

Yunesky Maya, recalled earlier Sunday by the Nationals, allowed just one hit in his first three innings.

In the fourth,the Padres scored when Jason Bartlett led off with a double and scored on Ludwick’s single.

In the fifth, they scored three runs. Logan Forsythe led off with a single, pitcher Moseley bunted him to second, and with two outs, Bartlett and Ludwick walked to load the bases. Hawpe singled to score Forsythe and Bartlett. After Slaten replaced Maya, Ludwick scored on Headley’s double.

Maya who is winless in six career starts, pitched 4 2/3 innings, allowing four runs and six hits. He walked to and struck out three.

The Nationals made it 4-3 in the fifth on Rick Ankiel’s single off Moseley and Bernadina’s RBI double.

Moseley pitched five innings, allowing three runs — two earned. He walked one and struck out one.

In the sixth, Washington tied the score at 4 on Michael Morse’s fielders choice that scored Werth.

Notes

• Washington 3B Jerry Hairston was suspended one game and fined for “aggressive actions” toward umpire Ed Hickox on Friday night. Hairston, who was celebrating his 35th birthday on Sunday, is appealing the suspension.
• San Diego OF Cameron Maybin, hitless in his last 10 at-bats, was out of the lineup due to knee soreness.
• Maya was the sixth starting pitcher used by the Nationals this season. The Nationals are the last major league team to need a sixth starter.

LARRY LARUE; Staff writer |
• Published May 23, 2011

SAN DIEGO – For all of the history that Felix Hernandez and the Seattle Mariners were making Sunday as they put away the San Diego Padres, 6-1, there was time for the personal touch.

Like when Felix was at the plate getting ready to hit and his old batterymate, Rob Johnson, was catching – and complaining about the way Hernandez had pitched him.

“Rob said, ‘I thought you were going to throw me a fastball,’ ” Felix said.

“I told him, ‘That was a fastball.’

“Rob said, ‘That was a sinker!’ ” Hernandez said, and laughed.

Johnson would know, having caught Hernandez much of last year when Hernandez won the American League Cy Young Award. And, looking for that fastball, Johnson twice struck out Sunday when Felix threw him some nasty variation.

At that, Johnson represented only two of Felix’s career-high-matching 13 strikeouts in an eight-inning start that produced his fifth win, the Mariners’ fifth in a row, and extended a remarkable stretch of games by the Seattle rotation.

Mariners starting pitchers have now gone at least seven innings – and allowed two runs or fewer – in nine consecutive games.

The last time any big league team did that?

The San Francisco Giants, in 1988.

“This was what we expected,” catcher Miguel Olivo said. “We’ve got an amazing starting rotation. We’ve just been looking for runs to support them, and now we’re getting them.”

Well, not every day, mind you.

In the previous start Hernandez made, for instance, he allowed two runs to the Minnesota Twins and lost, 2-1.

Still, the Mariners are on a roll, and the Padres were left wondering how those guys from Seattle were a fourth-place team in the American League West. During their three-game series sweep, the Mariners outscored the Padres, 14-2.

San Diego didn’t lead for an inning all weekend, and when the Mariners departed, they did so as the third-place team in their division.

“We’re playing good baseball, doing the little things right,” Felix said. “Our rotation is doing a great job. Erik Bedard and Michael Pineda are getting better, and the other two starters (Jason Vargas and Doug Fister) are working hard between starts to keep it going.”

And his 13-strikeout performance?

“I had a good changeup,” he said, smiling. “I threw it and my breaking pitch for outs.”

In the midst of a happy Seattle clubhouse, pitching coach Carl Willis was asked what he’d been doing to help that steamrolling rotation.

“Just watching them,” Willis said.

That’s been more fun of late.

Ahead 1-0 in the second inning when Ichiro Suzuki’s soft ground ball drove in a run, the Mariners pushed out to a 3-0 lead when rookie outfielder Carlos Peguero doubled home Justin Smoak and Olivo.

Hernandez kept posting zeros, striking out three Padres in the second inning, two in the third and two more in the fourth.

“He was real good for a long time in this game,” manager Eric Wedge said. “He had to work a little harder in the last few innings, but he gave us a great effort. And we played one of our better games at the plate. We had better at-bats. We kept the heat on them all day.”

Shortstop Brendan Ryan drove home two more Seattle runs with a seventh-inning double and then, after San Diego scored its only earned run in the series, defensive replacement Franklin Gutierrez singled home the Mariners’ final run in the ninth.

Wedge determined that Hernandez had done his job after eight innings and 114 pitches.

David Pauley pitched a scoreless ninth, and the Mariners caught a flight to Minneapolis.

It was hard to find fault in this one, when the Mariners’ offense had 15 hits and their pitchers allowed the opposition only six. Four Seattle hitters had two hits, and Olivo had three hits and scored three runs.

There was one unhappy hitter – Felix Hernandez.

“I was really looking forward to hitting,” he said after going 0-for-4. “I took the worst swings ever. It was disappointing.”

He’ll live.

The numbers he’s paid to put up are all on the pitching side of his job description, and those continue to be impressive.

Hernandez has started 11 games and worked 772/3 innings. Along with a 5-4 record, he has a 3.01 earned-run average, 21 walks and 77 strikeouts.

Felix can’t hit? Try finding a team that wouldn’t let him pitch.

Not long after the Mariners won, the Oakland Athletics lost in 11 innings and dropped into fourth in the AL West. At 22-24, the Mariners are one game behind the Angels and 11/2 behind first-place Texas.

“It’s been outstanding, the way these guys have passed the torch to one another,” Wedge said. “They’re focused, and they’re all trying to do their job. Guys are getting comfortable in the field, in the batter’s box, on the mound.”

larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners

By the numbers

13

Strikeouts by Seattle’s Felix Hernandez on Sunday, matching his career high

35

Number of times the Padres struck out in the three-game series

15

Hits for the Mariners on Sunday

14

Combined hits for the Padres in the three-game series

14

Losses by the Padres in 17 games against the Mariners at Petco Park

11-4

Hernandez’s career record in 20 interleague starts

PEORIA, Ariz. — There might be some hope after all for the power outage that’s left the Mariners floundering offensively going on several years.

The team with the worst-scoring offense in the major leagues in four decades last season has several big bats slowly working their way up the minor-league ranks. And they’re starting to unload at spring training after Class AA prospect Carlos Peguero hit a ninth-inning homer for the Mariners on Sunday, followed by Class A slugger Johermyn Chavez going deep late on Monday in a 6-6 tie with the San Diego Padres at Peoria Stadium.

At 6-feet-5, 247 pounds, corner outfielder Peguero, 24, from the Dominican Republic, is probably the closest of Seattle’s young longball threats to making the major leagues. But he knows that for him, outfielder Chavez, 22, or others like Class A first baseman Rich Poythress, 23, to wear a Mariners uniform full-time, they will have to round out their games to make them less one-dimensional.

“I have to work hard on defense and try to get better at everything,” said Peguero, a left-handed slugger signed at age 17 by the Mariners in 2005. “At defense, at my running. But defense is important to me. Because if you get better at defense, you can really help the team at all parts of the game.”

Peguero hit 54 home runs in Class AA and A the past two seasons and then, this spring, in his first big-league camp, he belted a now legendary long ball during live batting practice last week that might have been the longest in Mariners spring-training history. His home run on Sunday, with two out in the ninth to tie the game, was a no-doubter ripped over the right-field wall.

Then, on Monday, it was the 6-foot-3, 220-pound, right-handed-hitting Chavez, a native of Venezuela, cranking a go-ahead shot over the wall in left-center to give Seattle a short-lived ninth-inning lead. For a Mariners squad lacking extra-base hits of any kind last season, seeing their young guys tee off like that brings a smile.

“You love to see a young man go up there ready to hit,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said of Chavez, acquired from Toronto 14 months ago in the Brandon Morrow trade. “And obviously, he really got all over that ball. It wasn’t a dead pull. It was in the middle of the field and he drove it. In the late innings as well. You look at Peguero (Sunday) and Chavez (Monday) and you like to see that.”

Chavez has combined for 53 homers at two levels of Class A ball the past two seasons, including a franchise-best 32 last year to narrowly edge the 31 by Poythress, who is in minor-league camp this spring.

Both Chavez and Peguero still have plenty of room for offensive improvement. Peguero struck out 350 times the past two seasons combined, while Chavez whiffed on 268 occasions.

And then there’s their defense, with both players trying to avoid getting saddled with the all-bat, no-glove, designated-hitter label.

Peguero on Sunday charged a base hit to left field and threw out the would-be go-ahead run at the plate in the 10th inning. It was just last year that one of Seattle’s minor-league instructors, Andy Bottin, gave Peguero what he considers to be the most important advice he has ever received about defending.

Bottin told Peguero he had to anticipate the ball being hit toward him even before it is pitched.

“The runner was on second, so I was thinking, ‘OK, I have to be ready because the ball might come to me,’ ” he said. “And so, every time I got ready before the next pitch, I kept telling myself, ‘Get ready, the ball is coming to you. The ball is coming to you.’

“When I saw the hitter hit the ball I just tried to get into the best position to catch the ball and throw hard to home plate.”

That positioning is something Mariners outfield coach Mike Brumley has been working on with his young outfielders, who are so big they can often be somewhat out of control when charging in at full speed.

“Most outfielders have that bull-in-a-china-closet mentality,” Brumley said. “Even though with (Franklin) Gutierrez and Ichiro, it’s a little different, but most of the big, brawny guys are that way. So, they really have worked on attacking early, then breaking down and trying to get in a good spot to throw.”

Brumley said the most important thing is to get Peguero and others into a “process of development” where they find a defensive rhythm.

What most impressed Brumley on Sunday wasn’t Peguero’s tying home run or throw to nab the runner. It was that Peguero had hustled to back up third base earlier with a runner tagging from second on a fly ball to right field.

Peguero wasn’t always a home-run hitter.

He averaged just nine per season his first four years of professional baseball before clubbing 31 in 2009 for Class A High Desert. Just before that season, he’d worked with minor-league hitting instructors Jose Castro and Tommy Cruz on his batting stance, posture and pitch recognition.

Everything clicked and Peguero was able to leverage his muscular frame into the best position to send balls soaring into the stands. He followed up with 23 more long balls at Class AA Jackson last season and made it to the All-Star Futures Game, where he went 2 for 4.

“The most important thing was to be patient at home plate,” Peguero said. “Be patient, look for the ball and hit it somewhere — hard.”

He’s figured out the latter part. Now, the team hopes he, Chavez and others can work out the rest of their games so future Mariners power displays won’t be limited to spring training.

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com

Seattle						San Diego
	AB	R	H	BI			AB	R	H	BI
Jo.Wilson 2b	3	1	1	0		Venable cf-rf	3	0	1	1
L.Rodrigz 2b	1	0	0	1		Durango rf	1	1	1	0
B.Ryan ss	3	0	1	0		Bartlett ss	3	1	2	0
Kazmar ss	1	0	0	0		L.Martinez c	2	0	1	2
Smoak 1b	3	0	0	0		Cantu 3b	2	1	0	0
Langrhns 1b	1	0	0	0		Frandsen ss	2	0	0	0
Cust dh	3	1	1	0		Ludwick lf	3	0	1	1
Carp ph-dh	1	0	0	0		Baxter lf	1	0	0	0
Gross rf	2	0	1	2		O.Hudson 2b	2	0	1	1
C.Pegro ph-rf	2	0	0	0		L.Fsyth pr-3b	1	1	0	0
M.Saundrs lf	2	0	0	0		Salazar dh	3	0	0	0
J.Chavz ph-lf	2	1	1	1		J.Drnll ph-dh	1	0	0	0
Tuiasospo 3b	2	0	0	0		Guzman 1b	2	0	1	0
A.Liddi 3b	2	1	1	0		E.Pattersn cf	2	0	1	1
A.Moore c	2	1	1	0		Cnninghm rf	2	0	0	0
C.Gimenez c	1	0	0	0		Rizzo 1b	1	0	0	0
Halman cf	4	1	1	2		J.Valdez pr	0	1	0	0
						Quiroz c	1	0	0	0
						E.Cabrera pr	0	1	0	0
						Hoffpr 3b-2b	2	0	1	0
Totals	35	6	8	6		Totals	34	6	10	6

Seattle	200 020 101	—	6
San Diego	200 011 101	—	6

E — Durango (1). DP — San Diego 1. LOB — Seattle 3, San Diego 6. 2B — B.Ryan (1), Gross (1), L.Martinez (1), O.Hudson (1), Guzman (1). HR — J.Chavez (1), Halman (1). SB — Durango (3), L.Forsythe (1), E.Cabrera (1). CS — Venable (1).

Mariners	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
	Fister		2	3	2	2	1	1

Padres	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
	LeBlanc		2	3	2	2	0	4

HBP — by Seddon (Rizzo). A — 2,119.