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Vazquez's walk-off blast lifts Rangers past Mariners

May 13, 2008 - 6:10 AM ARLINGTON, Texas (Ticker) -- Ramon Vazquez hit a solo homer off Brendan Morrow in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Texas Rangers a 13-12 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Monday.

Josh Hamilton homered and pushed his major league-leading RBI total to 43 by driving in four runs for the Rangers, who battled back from an early 5-0 deficit by drawing 13 walks and pounding out 14 hits.

"We're putting good at-bats together. We're looking for good pitches to hit," Vazquez said. "We're aggressive when we need to be aggressive and patient when we need to be patient. We're getting it done and everybody's having fun."

Vazquez, who finished with two hits and two runs scored, came up with one out in the 10th and drove a 1-0 pitch from Morrow (0-1) into the right-field seats for the game-winning run.

"The guy was throwing 96 (mph), so I was looking for (a fastball)," Vazquez said.

Trailing, 12-8, in the ninth inning, the Mariners forced extra innings by rallying against Texas closer C.J. Wilson. Adrian Beltre worked a seven-pitch at-bat before singling to start the spurt and came home when Raul Ibanez followed with a double.

Jose Lopez reached on an infield single and Jeff Clement struck out before Kenji Johjima drove an 0-2 pitch just over the left-field wall for his first homer of the season. Johjima finished the game 3-for-4 with four RBI and is 7-for-12 over the last three games, raising his average from .184 to .227.

"I was very happy," Johjima said through an interpreter. "I was happy I could contribute for the team."

"If you can't take a beating, sometimes then you shouldn't be at the position," Texas manager Ron Washington said about Wilson's rough outing.

Seattle jumped out to an early 5-0 lead in the first inning as Rangers starter Vicente Padilla struggled. The veteran righthander could not recover from Vazquez's error and allowed three unearned runs and forced in another run on a balk.

But Mariners starter Erik Bedard was even worse, allowing six runs and seven hits in two-plus innings. The ace lefthander surrendered back-to-back homers to Hamilton and Milton Bradley leading off the third and was pulled after Chris Shelton's single scored Gerald Laird to tie the game at 5-5.

"Bet y'all (in the press) didn't think we had a chance when Bedard had five runs on the board," Washington said. "We fooled y'all and Bedard."

The Rangers added another run in the third to go up 6-5, and Seattle tied it with a run in the sixth.

Texas took advantage of Lopez's error in the seventh to start another rally, going up 12-8.

"I wouldn't say it was the weirdest game I've been in, but when you score 12 runs, you expect to win," Vazquez said. "We kept battling back. ... We needed to win this one, we needed to start the series with a win."

Milton Bradley was forced out of the game in the seventh with a strained right shoulder.

"We'll probably rest him tomorrow," Washington said of Bradley.