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Mariners shut down Padres again

Jul 3, 2011 - 11:51 PM Seattle, WA (Sports Network) - Seattle pitchers have dominated San Diego in every matchup this season. Sunday, Blake Beavan jumped into the act in his major league debut.

The former first-round pick threw seven strong innings to lead the Mariners to a 3-1 victory over the Padres in the finale of a three-game series.

Beavan (1-0) was selected 17th overall in the 2007 draft by Texas, and came to the Mariners as part of last year's Cliff Lee trade. The club called him up Sunday, when he allowed only one run to grab the win for Seattle, which went 5-1 against San Diego this season thanks to its strong staff.

Mariners pitchers gave up only three earned runs and four overall, good for a 0.50 ERA.

They set that mark only after David Pauley escaped a bases-loaded situation in the eighth and All-Star Brandon League worked a perfect ninth for his 22nd save.

San Diego had won Saturday's matchup by a 1-0 margin after plating a run on a mistaken walk call, but couldn't keep Seattle off the scoreboard again. Mat Latos (5-9) gave up three runs in six innings to take the loss.

"I thought once he got in the game he really got going," said Padres catcher Nick Hundley. "Seemed like we were behind a lot of counts early in the game, but once he started going, it was lights out the last three innings."

The Mariners scored in the first inning, when Ichiro Suzuki led off with a single, stole second and crossed the plate on Adam Kennedy's base hit to left.

Will Venable tied the game in the third with an RBI double to the wall in right-center field, plating Alberto Gonzalez, who had singled in the prior plate appearance.

But Seattle loaded the bases with nobody out in the third inning, and grabbed a 3-1 edge on consecutive sacrifice flies by Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley.

Beavan made the lead hold up. He got Jason Bartlett to ground into the final out of the fifth with runners in scoring position, and retired the last five batters he faced.

"It was awesome, just trying to soak in the moment," Beavan said. "Trying go out there and do what I needed to do to give these guys a chance to win and, fortunately, I had a lot of good defense behind me ... It was definitely humbling and it was a great feeling to be out there on that mound."

The Padres threatened in the eighth, when Pauley hit Bartlett with one out before Chase Headley singled. Pauley issued a two-out walk to Chris Denorfia to fill the bases, but fanned Cameron Maybin on an 0-2 curveball that dropped off the table.

League took over in the next inning and struck out pinch-hitters Orlando Hudson and Kyle Phillips to secure the win.

Game Notes

Beavan allowed three hits, walked two and struck out four...Latos gave up four hits, walked three and fanned five...Mariners pitchers recorded 56 strikeouts in 54 innings vs. the Padres this season...League is a first-time All-Star. Seattle ace Felix Hernandez was also named an AL All-Star when the rosters were announced Sunday...Closer Heath Bell is the Padres' representative on the NL team...San Diego's loss is just the third in its last 11 games...Seattle finished its nine-game homestand with a 4-5 mark...Seattle went 9-9 vs. the NL this season, the 12th consecutive time it has gone .500 or better in interleague play...San Diego was 6-9 vs. the AL.