Washburn a really sore loser

DENVER – Jarrod Washburn threw 98 pitches against the Colorado Rockies on Friday – and the first one may have beaten him.

It produced an out – a comebacker from Dexter Fowler – and when Washburn flinched before fielding it, his back tightened, spasmed and wouldn’t relax over the next six innings.

The result was four walks, two hit batters and five runs in six innings, an uncharacteristic game from the veteran left-hander that cost him and the Seattle Mariners the game, 6-4.

“My command was terrible, I couldn’t finish pitches and I was all over the place,” Washburn said. “I had a lead, but I didn’t do my job.”

Against high-octane right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez, who was hitting 97-99 mph on the radar all night, Seattle jumped ahead 3-0, then 4-2. But when runs were there to be manufactured, it was the Rockies, not the Mariners, who got them home.

Seattle got a first-inning solo home run from Russell Branyan, his 15th. In the third inning, Adrian Beltre banged a two-run double off the wall in left-field fence with the bases loaded – a rally that fell short of what it might have been.

“We got two there, but we had the chance to really go ahead big, maybe get Jimenez out of the game, and we didn’t,” manager Don Wakamatsu said.

After Beltre’s double, the Mariners had men at second and third base with one out. Jose Lopez grounded into a force play – Branyan was caught trying to score – and the Rockies issued Endy Chavez his first intentional walk of the season.

Why?

To get to Ronny Cedeño and his .147 batting average. It was a strategy that worked. Most everything Colorado tried did.

The Mariners still had a 4-3 lead in the sixth inning when Washburn’s back threw him off center again – and when he opened the inning with a walk and a hit batter, the Rockies went small ball in a big way.

All Rockies pitchers work on a play beginning in spring training where, if the shortstop breaks to cover third with the first and third baseman charging, they square to bunt and then swing away.

In the sixth, the Mariners ran the “wheel play” where they charge at the corners and try to get the lead runner at third base. Instead, Jimenez squared, then swung away and grounded a ball past first baseman Branyan and into right field to tie the game and put runners at first and third base.

New Rockies manager Jim Tracy didn’t hesitate. With leadoff hitter Dexter Fowler at the plate, he called a squeeze – and got the go-ahead run because of it.

“I got to the ball pretty quickly and flipped it to (catcher) Rob Johnson, but the guy just beat the tag,” Washburn said.

Johnson and Wakamatsu argued briefly about the call at home, not that it mattered, and the Mariners were behind for the first time with three innings to go.

They never got closer.

The kinds of things Seattle has often done this season – a stolen base here, a bunt there – were used against them here.

After Miguel Batista relieved Washburn in the seventh, he walked Troy Tulowitzki – one of five walks Seattle issued. Tulowitzki stole second base, and when Johnson’s throw sailed into center field for an error, the Rockies had a runner at third base with one out.

Batista then delivered a wild pitch in the dirt, and before Johnson could retrieve it, Tulowitzki scored Colorado’s sixth run.

From there, Jimenez all but cruised until the ninth inning, when pinch-hitter Ken Griffey Jr. walked to bring Ichiro Suzuki to the plate as the potential tying run. Jimenez got a ground ball force at second with his 127th and final pitch.

“Give him credit, he was throwing as hard at the end as he was all night, and that made him tough to hit,” Wakamatsu said.

Washburn said it made him just as hard to bunt, something he did in the third inning.

“I bunted back to the mound too hard,” Washburn said, “but how do you bunt a 98 mph fastball softly?”

Washburn’s luck has been as poor as anyone’s this season, what with the Mariners forgetting to score whenever he’s pitched his best. He’s lost a 1-0 game, thrown six shutout innings and gotten no decision and twice given up one run in seven innings and either lost or had no decision.

After starting the season 3-0, he’s now lost five consecutive decisions.

Washburn threw 106 pitches and with them allowed six hits, three walks, two hit batters and five runs. With his ailing back and spotty control, about all he could be pleased with was those six innings.

“I know we were a little short in the bullpen, and with Brandon (Morrow) on a pitch count (tonight), I knew I had to give us some innings,” Washburn said. “I’d felt kind of crappy all day, but that first-pitch comebacker made me flinch, and when I did my back just seized up.”

Said Wakamatsu: “He battled with what he had and gave us six innings when we needed it. But when you play a team like the Rockies you can’t walk five guys and hit two and expect to win.”

larry.larue@thenewstribune.com

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