Meche no match for Halladay, Toronto
SEATTLE – The odds didn’t favor Gil Meche on Tuesday night against Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay.
Neither did the strike zone, at least as the Seattle Mariners saw it.
Against a Blue Jays team that leads the American League in team batting average, Meche didn’t have a chance when he couldn’t get strike calls – rightly or wrongly by plate umpire Tim McClelland.
The Mariners thought wrongly, which added to their misery in a 12-3 loss to the Blue Jays at Safeco Field.
Meche, trying to win his 10th game, lasted only 4 1/3 innings and blamed his struggle on his inability to make effective pitches when he needed them. Like Joel Pineiro in the series opener Monday, Meche didn’t pitch a 1-2-3 inning before he was pulled one out into the fifth inning.
Manager Mike Hargrove stayed around only two batters longer than Meche, ejected after he used the right – or wrong – words to question McClelland’s ball-strike calls.
“It came down to too much Halladay and not enough Meche,” Hargrove said. “Gil wasn’t as sharp as he has been in the past. I felt like he threw a lot of pitches that were good pitches.”
When McClelland didn’t call some of those pitches strikes, Hargrove let the ump know his starter was getting squeezed.
“I thought he was,” Hargrove said. “But my opinion doesn’t count much, obviously. On the whole, it was a very forgettable night.”
In their 100th game of the season, the Mariners lost for the 52nd time. The consolation prize was that every other team in the American League West also lost, leaving the last-place Mariners only three games behind the division-leading Angels and A’s.
The Mariners clearly thought Halladay got a more generous strike zone than Meche, although even a bigger zone for Meche might not have mattered.
The Blue Jays, who had a .293 team average entering the game, hammered Meche for 10 hits and seven runs, and he added to the difficulty with four walks.
“I didn’t have the command,” Meche said. “Any time you walk guys, you get into trouble. I couldn’t finish guys off with pitches when I needed to.”
Mariners pitchers issued eight walks for the game, including two by reliever Emiliano Fruto in the ninth before John McDonald hit his first career grand-slam.
Toronto broke a scoreless tie in the third inning on Frank Catalanotto’s RBI double, added two in the fourth when Aaron Hill doubled home two runs, then scored four times in the fifth.
Moving strike zone or not, Halladay (13-2) had his way with the Mariners through four innings, allowing only Johjima’s single in the second. The M’s didn’t break through against him until the fifth – after Toronto had taken a 6-0 lead – when Yuniesky Betancourt doubled off the left-field wall to drive in two runs.