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Ichiro goes 5-for-5 as Mariners pound Padres

Jun 30, 2008 - 12:48 AM SAN DIEGO (Ticker) -- Ichiro Suzuki turned in the seventh five-hit performance of his career and Adrian Beltre homered to lead an 18-hit attack as the Seattle Mariners cruised to a 9-2 win over the San Diego Padres on Sunday.

Seven players finished with at least two hits for the Mariners, who completed a three-game sweep and have won five of their last six games.

"Every time you strap it on and win a ball game it is good, to get a sweep is better yet," Seattle manager Jim Riggleman said. "We feel like we are playing pretty good baseball right now and we are just trying to focus on every pitch and every at-bat."

Owners of the worst record in baseball at 31-50, Seattle closes out interleague play an even 9-9 against National League opponents.

The Mariners pounded out 10 hits in six innings against reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy before putting the game away in the seventh. With Peavy out of the contest, Seattle unloaded on relievers Bryan Corey and Carlos Guevara, beginning the frame with six consecutive singles in a five-run outburst to push the lead to 8-2.

Ichiro began the frame with a single.

"I felt today with my attitude that keeping myself in balance was very important," Ichiro said through an interpreter. "It is not physical, it is more of the mental game. I had no hits yesterday, 0-for-4, but today I come out and go 5-5. If you guys ask me if there was a technical, mechanical difference in my swing, the answer is no. The important thing is to keep in between both of those extremes."

"All five of his hits, the barrel of the bat was on the ball real good," Riggleman said of Ichiro. "He has had a lot of good days this year, it was nice to see him finish up the first half of the season on that note."

Erik Bedard (5-4) picked up his first win in over a month for Seattle, allowing one run and three hits in 5 2/3 innings while walking three and striking out three.

"I felt good, back felt fine, it was nice to get back in the swing of things," Bedard said. "(The key was) throwing strikes, trying to get ahead, making them swing at bad pitches."

The subject of numerous trade rumors now that the Mariners are firmly out of contention, Bedard earned his second win this season against the Padres but failed to record an out in the seventh inning in his fifth consecutive outing.

"His curveball was very good," Riggleman said of Bedard. "He has a good curveball, period, but today it was exceptional. There were some guys in the game today that had great numbers against lefties, but he was able to tie them up with the curveball."

Peavy (5-5) suffered the loss, yielding three runs and 10 hits while striking out six in six innings.

"We are not getting it done in any respect," Peavy said of the Padres, who have dropped eight straight. "This is as frustrated as I have ever been. I know we had some tough years in '02 and '03, but there is no excuse for the way we are playing."

Rookie Jeff Clement hit a solo homer in the ninth off Trevor Hoffman to complete the scoring for the Mariners.