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Mariners take advantage of Buck's error to avoid sweep

Jul 13, 2008 - 10:06 PM By Alan Eskew PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- Joakim Soria, the Kansas City All-Star closer, was not perfect Sunday, but neither was the Royals defense.

The Seattle Mariners scored an unearned run in the ninth inning to defeat the Royals 4-3 and avoid a three-game sweep. A throwing error by John Buck allowed Adrian Beltre to scoring the winning run.

"We finally got the better end of it," Mariners manager Jim Riggleman said. "A couple of plays went our way. Beltre was going on contact. They had a little bit of a high throw and gave us a break finally."

Beltre led off the ninth with a bloop double to shallow center, just out of the reach of shortstop Mike Aviles. Jeremy Reed's sacrifice bunt advanced Beltre to third.

Willie Bloomquist then hit a comebacker to Soria (1-2), who threw home, catching Beltre in a rundown. Buck, however, overthrew third baseman Alex Gordon with Beltre trying to get back to third, allowing him to score the go-ahead run.

"It would have been nice to get a clean base hit there in the ninth instead of having the kind of thing that transpired," Bloomquist said. "When I hit it back to the pitcher and saw Beltre coming down the line, I knew he had no shot of beating the play. I knew he was probably going to be in a rundown and chances are is he is going to be out. So my job is to get in scoring position. It's one break our way anyway. It's nice to end on a positive note before the All-Star break."

"My job was to stay in the run-down and hopefully the batter can get to second base, so he can still be in scoring position," Beltre said. "I kind of had my back to the play when (Buck) threw the ball. I looked back and the ball was over the third baseman's head."

Buck accepted the blame for the defeat.

"I just threw it too high," Buck said. "We probably would have done it (won) again today if it weren't for me. To give up that run ... it's like that balk. Having somebody out and not getting it and then give them a run on top of that ... that can't happen there."

While Soria lowered his ERA to 1.47, he goes to Yankee Stadium for the All-Star Game with a tainted loss.

"Things sometimes don't go like we want," Soria said.

Sean Green (2-2), the third of five Seattle pitchers, worked 1 2/3 perfect innings to get the victory, although he was also charged with a blown save. Brandon Morrow, who had blown saves in his previous two opportunities, got the final two outs, including David DeJesus on a fly ball to left to end the game. DeJesus hit a game-winning homer off Morrow on Saturday.

"I'll have a good break and not think about the last two," Morrow said. "(Facing DeJesus) I think it added a little more adrenaline that I had to comeback and try to get him the second day."

Jeff Clement snapped an 0-for-15 slide with a two-run homer in the seventh to give the Mariners a 3-2 lead. Clement's fifth home run came on a full-count pitch from Kyle Davies with Bloomquist aboard.

The Royals tied it in the bottom of the inning off relievers Ryan Rowland-Smith and Green. Rowland-Smith yielded singles to Ross Gload and Buck to lead off the inning. DeJesus, bunted them over, then Green replaced Rowland-Smith and gave up the tying run on Aviles' ground out to shortstop.

Bloomquist scored the first Seattle run in the fifth to tie the score at 1-1. He opened the inning with a single, moved to second on a wild pitch by Davies and scored on Miguel Cairo's single.

The Royals got to Mariners starter Carlos Silva for single runs in the third and fifth innings. The Royals stroked three consecutive singles with two out in the third with Mark Teahan's single scoring DeJesus. In the fifth, Aviles' infield single scored Gload.

Silva, who the Mariners signed to a four-year $48 million contract during the off-season, left after yielding eight hits and two runs in six innings, lowering his earned run average to 5.46. Silva has only one win since April 17.

Davies, who is winless since a June 17 victory at St. Louis, was pulled after seven innings, permitting three runs on six hits and a walk, while striking out four. In his past five starts, four of them no-decisions, Davies has allowed 21 earned runs and 36 hits in 24 1/3 innings.

The Royals went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position and while they had 10 hits, all were singles.

"In the first two innings, we hit into double plays, so we had opportunities to score," Royals manager Trey Hillman said. "I didn't think our at-bats were that bad; we just didn't square balls up. We could have had more bang for the buck in comparison to the number of base hits."