Baltimore Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie was dominating the Mariners offense up until he reached the eighth inning with two outs.
After two fly outs, Ichiro came to the plate and reached first base on an error by Guthrie, and then Brendan Ryan singled to right field. With two runners on, Justin Smoak launched a Guthrie change-up into left field for his eighth home run of the season, breaking Guthrie's shutout and giving the Mariners a 3-2 lead.
Through seven innings of work, Guthrie had kept the Mariners scoreless, only allowing three hits and striking out nine batters. Smoak has been struggling at the plate as of late, he was 2-20 with only two RBIs in six games leading into his eighth inning at-bat.
While Smoak provided the late inning offense for the Mariners, Erik Bedard turned in another respectable performance in Tuesday night's win. Bedard finished with two earned runs over six hits and seven strikeouts in 6.1 innings.
Reliever Chris Ray was credited with the win, he came in for Bedard in the seventh inning and held the Orioles scoreless. Brandon League notched his league leading fifteenth save in the bottom of the ninth, which secured the series victory for the Mariners.
Seattle (28-26) is now 0.5 games behind the first place Texas Rangers (29-26) in the AL West.