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Weaver wins third straight as Mariners inch closer to Angels

Aug 19, 2007 - 6:17 AM SEATTLE (Ticker) -- Jeff Weaver pitched into the eighth inning to post his third straight win and Kenji Johjima's tie-breaking single sparked a four-run sixth as the Seattle Mariners rallied for a 7-5 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Saturday night.

Adrian Beltre had two hits for Seattle (68-52), which has won eight of 11 to move within two games of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (71-51) for first place in the American League West.

The Mariners remain one-half game ahead of the New York Yankees (69-54) in the AL wild card race.

Weaver (5-10), who threw a five-hitter against the White Sox on Sunday, allowed four runs and five hits in 7 2/3 innings. He struck out five and walked one.

"Weaver pitched well, but it was kind of like a tale of two pitchers out there," Mariners manager John McLaren said. "He made a couple of mistakes and gave up a couple of long balls."

Beltre and Johjima helped the Mariners snap a 3-3 tie with four runs in the sixth. Beltre led off the inning with a single off rookie starter John Danks (6-11), who lost his fifth consecutive decision.

"It was typical Mariners style," said Weaver of the sixth inning. "You go out there and make things happen. As starting pitchers we just have to keep the game close and let our offense do the work late and give us a chance to win."

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen went to his bullpen and brought in righthander Ehren Wasserman, who had held righthanded batters to a .063 average. Richie Sexson crossed up the strategy when he doubled Beltre to third.

Johjima followed with a single to score Beltre and wound up at third on center fielder Jerry Owens' throwing error to home, which allowed Sexson to score to make it 5-3.

The Mariners had the bases loaded with two out when Wasserman uncorked a wild pitch for a 6-3 lead, and Jose Vidro singled to make it 7-3.

That seemed to be a comfortable lead, but Weaver and the bullpen made it interesting in the eighth. The righthander walked rookie Danny Richar to start the frame and then got the first two outs before giving way to George Sherrill, who allowed a grand slam to Richar in Friday's win.

Sherrill's woes continued as he allowed a two-run blast to Jim Thome to cut the lead to 7-5. Sean Green got the final out of the innings, and J.J. Putz closed out the ninth for his 36th save in 39 chances.

Thome, who recorded his 39th career multi-homer game, had staked Danks to a 1-0 lead with his 491st career homer and 19th of the season in the first inning. The opposite-field blast to left was his first homer since August 4.

"Thome is normally a pull hitter and he kind of caught me off-guard going the other way," Weaver said. "Shoot, it's just fortunate we put up some runs and could afford some mistakes."

Danks allowed four runs and nine hits in five innings, while striking out two and walking one, for Chicago, which has lost seven straight for the first time since 2005.

"The way we're playing, we should be in last place," Guillen said. "We haven't earned anything better than being in last place. We're helping the other team play better against us. We make so many mistakes mentally and today we collapsed again.

We're not coaching, we're not hitting, we're not running, we're not playing defense and we're not pitching. We're doing everything wrong."

The White Sox made it 2-0 on Juan Uribe's sacrifice fly in the second and A. J. Pierzynski's 12th homer, a 438-foot blast into the second deck in right field in the fourth, extended the lead to 3-0.

The Mariners trimmed the lead to 3-1 on Raul Ibanez's single to score Jose Vidro in the fourth and tied it at 3-3 the next inning when Jose Guillen bounced a single over third baseman Josh Phelps' glove into left field to drive in Jose Lopez and Yuniesky Betancourt.

"I think that this club has that come-from-behind mentality, that mind-set where we feel like we're in it all the time," Ibanez said. "It's a credit to the guys in this clubhouse."