Mariners give this one away to White Sox

CHICAGO - This is why managers gray before their time, why they tend to hate pitchers - even if they once pitched.

When the Chicago White Sox hit three home runs and came from behind to beat the Seattle Mariners, 6-5, on Wednesday it wasn’t the home runs or the squandered scoring opportunities that most drove Don Wakamatsu crazy.

It was the two walks – one in the first inning, the other in the seventh – to Chicago leadoff hitter Juan Pierre, both of which led to free runs and another Mariners loss.

“Juan’s the kind of guy who creates havoc on the basepaths,” pitcher Jason Vargas. “I didn’t really want to put him on base with a 3-0 lead.”

Blow a 5-1 lead against anyone, in any fashion, and the positives are tough to find. Jump ahead of Chicago’s Mark Buehrle 3-0 in the first inning, 5-1 in the second and one might expect the Mariners to beat him.

They didn’t – in part because they didn’t score in any of the final seven innings.

“You’ve got to add a run there somewhere and we had chances,” Wakamatsu said.

The Mariners might have blown this open early with a bit more execution – they had three hits and a double-steal in the span of their first four batters. They settled for three there.

And in the second, with Buehrle still trying to right himself, Ichiro Suzuki singled with two outs and Chone Figgins homered.

That’s right, Figgins homered, his first batting right-handed since July 7, 2006.

At that point, it was 5-1, and the man with the worst run support on the Seattle staff – and the third worst in the majors this season – had every reason to feel confident.

“I thought I made some good pitches, but you have to understand coming in here, this ballpark doesn’t play like Safeco Field,” Vargas said. “Fly balls that are outs in Safeco Field have the chance to go out here.

“This is a strong lineup.”

The painful irony for Vargas is that on a night he got five runs to work with he couldn’t stave off the White Sox for five innings. Vargas couldn’t even keep them in the ballpark – almost never a problem for him.

Home runs by Gordon Beckham, Alexei Ramirez and Paul Konerko evened the score at 5 in the fifth inning and chased Vargas.

How rare was that power display? Vargas hadn’t allowed more than three home runs in a month all season.

“We were trying to get Jason through five innings, and he’d just put up two scoreless innings and had a two-run lead,” Wakamatsu said. “We had Jamey Wright warming up in the bullpen.”

What happened?

“In the span of seven pitches, they hit two home runs,” Wakamatsu said.

For all that power, it was the game-opening walk to Pierre that turned into a run that Vargas had trouble accepting. Home runs? They happen. Walking a leadoff man with a 3-0 lead?

Not supposed to happen.

“The most frustrating aspect was that I wasn’t trying to fool him, just throw strikes, and I thought I had,” Vargas said. “Everybody’s strike zone is a little different.”

With the game tied in the seventh inning, Pierre again led off, this time against the right-hander Wright. Pierre walked again.

On a close play, Pierre stole second base – his 38th steal of the season – just beating a strong throw from catcher Josh Bard. Chicago immediately bunted Pierre to third base, and Wakamatsu brought in reliever Brandon League.

With a sinker ball specialist on the mound and the infield in close, Alex Rios went down and pounded a ball into the dirt and shot it by a diving Jack Wilson at shortstop. RBI single, 6-5 White Sox lead.

The Mariners? They’d left the bases loaded in their half of the inning.

Came the ninth inning and Sox manager Ozzie Guillen brought in Bobby Jenks, who’d lost his job closing, pitched well in other roles and won it back again. Five times his fastball clocked in at 99 mph on the U.S. Cellular Field radar gun.

Against the heart of the Seattle lineup – Franklin Gutierrez, Russell Branyan and Justin Smoak – that was plenty.

Strikeout swinging, strikeout looking, strikeout swinging.

It was the 35th loss in 50 road games for Seattle, the Mariners’ 63rd loss in 102 games. Since the All-Star break, the Mariners are 5-10, 6-19 in the month of July.

“We had a great approach against Buehrle early, we took a lead and got him out of there after six innings,” Wakamatsu said. “Jason just didn’t have command of his fastball inside, and that sets up his changeup. If we’d added on to that lead, it might have been different.”

And if they’d made Pierre swing away instead of twice putting him on base and watching him score?

Wakamatsu might have fewer new gray hairs today.

larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners