Rob Johnson’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth inning proved to be the difference as the Seattle Mariners secured a 6-5 triumph over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday.
Chone Figgins had a pair of hits and drove in two runs and Ichiro Suzuki had three hits and an RBI for Seattle, which took two of three in the series.
With the score squared away at 5-5, Johnson lifted a pitch deep enough to left field off reliever Dusty Hughes to allow Milton Bradley to come home for the go-ahead run. Bradley had started the inning with a double off Brad Thompson (0-1) and moved to third on a groundout.
Brandon League (3-1) retired all four batters in relief of starter Ryan Rowland-Smith for the win. David Aardsma pitched a perfect ninth for his eighth save.
David DeJesus homered in the first inning to put the Royals ahead, 1-0.
After the Mariners built-up a 5-1 lead in the top of the sixth, the Royals bounced back for four runs in the bottom half on a Jason Kendall’s two-run single and Mitch Maier’s triple.
Seattle | Kansas City | |
Ryan Rowland-Smith | Player | Gil Meche |
No Decision | W/L | No Decision |
5.2 | IP | 6.0 |
4 | Strikeouts | 5 |
6 | Hits | 8 |
7.94 | ERA | 7.50 |
Seattle | Kansas City | |
Ichiro Suzuki | Player | Jason Kendall |
3 | Hits | 2 |
1 | RBI | 2 |
0 | HR | 0 |
4 | TB | 2 |
.600 | Avg | .667 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Seattle | 11 | 0 | 17 | .314 | 22 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
Kansas City | 7 | 1 | 12 | .219 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 |