The Seattle Mariners hosted a three-game series against the San Diego Padres a couple of weeks ago. Now they are in San Diego, playing the Pads in another three-game series. As of Friday night, the Mariners are still winless against San Diego in 2012. Starting pitcher was handed his first-ever loss in San Diego, as he let the fourth inning get away from him in what ended up being a 9-5 victory for the Pads.
The Mariners held a decent lead for a few innings. In the first inning, Franklin Gutierrez hit a two-run homer (yes, in Petco Park). Miguel Olivo followed that up with a homer of his own in the second inning to make it 3-0 Mariners. In the top of the third, Justin Smoak hit a sacrifice fly to push things out to 4-0, but then the Padres began to come back.
Cameron Maybin and Chase Headley each picked up an RBI in the bottom of the third to cut the lead in half, but the big damage came in the bottom of the fourth, as the Padres put together a five-run inning. Evert Cabrera and Clayton Richard had RBI doubles, Will Venable had an RBI single and Headley added a sacrifice fly and it was suddenly 7-4 Padres.
The Mariners scored on a throwing error in the fifth to make it 7-5, but San Diego got that run right back with another RBI single by Richard. Headley added a second sacrifice fly in the eighth inning that gave the Padres a 9-5 lead.
Of the nine Mariners hits in the game, four were by Gutierrez and three were by Ichiro Suzuki.
The Mariners will try to even things up on Saturday.
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